X-Message-Number: 2362
Date: 28 Jul 93 21:34:49 EDT
From: Brenda Peters <>
Subject: CRYONICS Alcor Midwest July Meeting Notes

Alcor Midwest Moves Forward

Alcor Midwest held its July meeting at the lovely home of Jim Binkowski where 
local members feasted on food that everyone brought. Highlights included Jim's
shish-ke-bob and Brian Shock's killer chocolate cake (able to kill diabetics 
at ten feet).

The key discussion once again focussed on building a stabilization capability 
in the Midwest. We currently have one member, Bob Schwartz, who is Alcor 
Certified. Fortunately, four members of the local group have stepped up and 
committed to becoming Alcor Certified. Even more fortunately, one member is a 
practicing mortician. This will enable us to move more quickly to a stage 
where we will be able to perform a total body washout in the Midwest.

The next question is how to get trained. Member Stan Brown will be asking 
Tanya if it makes sense to have her come out here to train us or is it 
necessary for our people to go to California. It looks like we could get 4 or 
5 members to come to a one week training session in the Midwest if we had a 
couple of weeks notice. An alternative would be to explore the possibility of 
hiring Mike Darwin to train the local group. One concern was whether or not 
Alcor would recognize Mike's training and Alcor Certify the members.

Brenda Peters, member of the Alcor Board of Directors, will be putting 
together a phone list of the local members. This will enable us to contact 
each other for ongoing business as well as in emergencies.

Local soon-to-be-member Jim Cunningham will look into the requirements for 
getting Emergency Medical Technician certification. Right now, it looks like 
it may be too much time for our local members to commit to. Still, the 
addition of EMT training would boost the technical capability of the Midwest 
Stabilization Team.

Bob Schwartz will look into getting a nation-wide pager for himself so that he
can be reached quickly. He will carry the pager because he and his wife 
Margaret are storing the stabilization kit for the Midwest.

One concern of our group is having a shipping box. Bob Scwartz is taking the 
lead in building one. Courtney Smith will ask Alcor UK for a copy of their 
plans and Bob will talk to Alcor HQ, local member Norman Folker, and Alcor NY 
member Curtis Henderson for plans/ideas before embarking on construction. Long
time member Norm once started to build a shipping box so has some of the 
materials necessary for the box and many ideas for the design.

Local member, Air Force Reserve Captain, and practicing mortician Ted Budz has
volunteered to be the Official Alcor Mortician for Illinois. This means that 
Alcor Midwest now has morticians in Illinois and Indiana. In addition, Ted 
will look into the ease of getting a mortician license for Wisconsin.

Jim Binkowski volunteered to be our Treasurer (our only officer!) and to set 
up a bank account for us at the bank that he is President of. He has 
generously offered to do all our banking for free!

Stan Gerber will be writing a short Emergency Action Plan for local members. 
This will basically give key phone numbers and actions to do for non-technical
members to do while waiting for Alcor to move into action or to arrive on the 
scene.

We had decided on dues at the last meeting but decided to raise them at this 
meeting. Our dues are now $150 per year or $15 per month for members and $50 
per year or $5 per month for non-members. Our year will start August 1st.

We would like to sponsor a cryonics conference in the fall. Brenda will 
organize the conference so we will be looking for speakers, location, and so 
on over the coming month.

The next exciting meeting of Alcor Midwest will be on August 21 at the 
Schwartz' house in Indianopolis.

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