Portland Rotary Windjammer March 1, 2023 (Feb 28, 2023)

This Week's Speaker: Magician Phil Smith

This week's speaker is magician Phil Smith of Abracadabra Productions who has been wowing audiences for more than 3 decades! He started with a magic kit at the age of 10 and later went to USM for a B.A. in theater (closest thing he could find to Magic!) Phil is an award winning magician with cards and close-up sleight-of-hand. Now a days, Phil is focused on corporate events. Whether that’s promoting companies at their trade show booths, entertaining them at the award banquets or summer BBQ’s. Sit back relax, but hold on to your thoughts and wallets as we present… PHIL SMITH of Abracadabra Productions.

Meeting of February 24 - Gregg Dowty and ACES /Adverse Childhood Experiences and Rotary

Gregg Dowty, Ed.D and Brittney La Shier, CADC presented their experience and knowledge regarding adverse Childhood experiences (ACES) and how these experiences relate to child development and adulthood. Gregg works as the master at the Good Will Hinckley Home and has worked his entire life with students. Brittney works at Preble street.

The ACES have been talked about in politics more as our government focuses on addressing the opioid and fentanyl crisis in Maine which is reportedly getting worse. Governor Mills is training to raise awareness of the opioid stigma, and increase funding to those in need to include coaching, and counselling. The amount and severity of ACES have been shown to be directly related to the drug abuse and homelessness.

The 7780 District Recovery Initiative committee along with 12 member clubs from Seacoast to Southern Maine funded a 2 yr. grant whereby 30 people were trained in ACES, the training requirements being that they had to give a presentation on ACES. Currently, due to the training, 1500 people in York, Stratham and another nearby county have seen the presentation and know what Aces is all about.

Part of the training is to build a network of self-healing communities and coalitions to address ACES related work.

A major study of ACES was completed by Robert Anda of DHHS and Vincent Felittie of the Atlanta CDC. In the study they looked at 10 ACES specifically. The researchers were seeing patients with high percentage of various ailments including cancers, strokes, etc. The study had 17,000 participants using data from Kaiser Permanente in California. The study looked at ACES for substance abuse, divorce, mental health, battered spouse, criminal convictions, emotional and physical neglect, emotional abuse, and sexual abuse.

One of the theories about why ACES cause harm is related to the human experiences is about how the nervous system works, and how the brain, spinal cord, and peripheral nerves store the experiences. Harvard estimates that a child’s brain may be performing 1,000,000 connections per second, and by age 5, the brain is 90% developed. From there on the brain starts to reduce the synaptic density. These synaptic connections may the reason why early childhood experiences are so important later in life. The brain learns to deal with the experiences in many ways as it relates to the trauma and stresses learned in early development years. These experiences help fight, survival, and how the person responds to danger.

Brittney said that there are intergenerational considerations at play in how society reacts to people with ACES. Much of society thinks if you take someone experiencing adversity, and place them in a safe environment that things will be better soon, however, that may not be the case. For the high percentages of adults that have experienced trauma the pains do not go away overnight, and it takes some time.

BITS AND PIECES | by Erik Jorgensen

It was the first Friday of Lent, and in the spirit of giving up something that is important to us, Portland Rotary was meeting without a microphone. The viewers from home were struggling a bit to follow the action at the Italian Heritage Center, but that said, the meeting came off well, as folks at the podium rose to the occasion, projecting well.

President Bruce offered a welcome and Julie Chase led the raffle on this snowy Friday. The pot was $241 and John Marr drew a card but the queen of hearts eluded him. He drew the jack of diamonds, and the pot continues to grow.

Tom Talbott talked about the upcoming “Mud Sale Auction”, named for a Pennsylvania tradition in which people travel from house to house during mud season attending yard sales. During April, we will hold our own version of this tradition, with an online auction/yard

sale. Items will be posted on the website, and participants will be able to bid online. There will be all sorts of neat stuff. Some big-ticket items will be mixed in with smaller treasures, but right now, it’s time to think of what you can contribute. As a teaser, Tom previewed two items: a signed Jimmie Johnson NASCAR hat, and a signed Michael Vick /Atlanta Falcons T-shirt. We know those items will be in the mix, so what can you offer? More details will follow, and proceeds will go to the Portland Rotary Charitable Fund. Last year the inaugural version of this event brought in over $4,000.

Tom Ranello is working on a new May event – a free concert in Deering Oaks park featuring Don Campbell, with the goal of helping to end the Fentanyl epidemic. The event is being done in conjunction with City of Portland and Milestone Foundation, and will take place at the Oaks on Saturday the 6^th of May, with the 7^th as a rain date. Tom is looking to recruit sponsors for the concert, which is expected to draw several hundred people.

John Thompson announced the next version of our ongoing Lyseth Elementary School Youth Services Committee Initiative. In this project, Rotary supplies books to Lyseth for distribution to students. It also supplies volunteer readers. This march, we’ll have 4 dates of reading to kids. Alas – competition for those slots is tight – turns out that 15 of the 16 available reader positions are now full! Given the demand, perhaps this last slot could be auctioned for the mud sale? Exciting to see the response! All auction talk aside, if you want to be added to the backup list, see John.

Finally, Bowen Depke, wearing his membership hat, reminded us of two members: he noted that Bob Traill is now approaching 101 and he urged folks to drop him a card or say hello. Also, he brought the happy news that past president Laura Young is now engaged!