Our chapter continues to focus on revitalizing itself in the PA/NJ/DE region with outreach to old and perspective new members offering new incentives and new leadership for this Chapter. 
Chapter officers elected for 2010 included:

• Jim Gleason, President
• (open), Vice-president
• Faith Carlin, Secretary
• Elizabeth Rubin, Treasurer
  
  
  

All TRIO members are asked to complete a TRIO National Services survey located on-line at http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/TRIOMemberServicesSurvey2009a

Please check out our wonderful web page on Facebook and become a fan.  Go on Facebook to Transplant Recipients International Organization and you will see the TRIO Logo.  Susan Pincus does an incredible job keeping us informed about our meetings and transplant related activities going on.

Also, all TRIO members are asked to participate in our fundraiser by sending invitations to the “Mythical Ball”.  See Elizabeth for details and invitations.

The Chapter voted to establish a new $1,000 scholarship in the name of  one of our founding members and long time supporters, kidney transplant recipient and surgeon, Dr. Shuin-Lin Yang, to be awarded in 2010.

We continued to discuss ideas regarding needs of our community and publicity of our group as a way of defining TRIO service opportunities (next meeting will address the implementation of the most realistic of those ideas, along with recruiting leadership for each initiative):

From 11/21/09:

- a sunshine committee

- legal advocates from our group at a state level

- an outreach team to educate patients in the hospital and on dialysis

-  becoming a part of parades

From 1/16/10:

-  education of Primary Care Physicians in speaking about organ donation to their patients

-  education of children/family members of those awaiting transplant

-   education about diets for pre and post transplant recipients

-   TRIO info in gift bags transplant recipients receive at hospitals

-   inviting transplant professionals to our meetings

-   creating TRIO business cards to advertise TRIO as a resource for patients to be given to transplant social workers

-   keeping transplant social workers aware of our events/meetings and request they email the information to patients pre and post transplant

-  creation of a local transplant alliance with other groups

  We plan to break into discussion groups at our next meeting to start our “Action Plan” for these ideas.  Please come to the meeting with an idea of what group/groups you would like to lead and or participate in.

 TRIO Philadelphia continues to host quarterly Transplant Movie Night events (most recent featuring "Seven Pounds" which was well attended with excellent post movie discussion) and our monthly MOST (Multi-Organ Support Team) speakers' presentations, recording each for possible inclusion in the TRIO Transplant Presentation Library (January's presentation will be  DR. Eduardo Rame  sharing  his experiences in using heart replacement/assist devices to help heal hearts and bridge patients to survival).

The new concept of using "Patient Power" to promote Primary Care Physicians talking to their patients about registering their decisions to become an organ door with the possibility of running a "pilot project" of this locally was met with strong interest and enthusiasm.  This will be the subject of a National TRIO initiative in the month's ahead and TRIO Philadelphia is excited to be on the leading edge of this powerful idea.

Our next monthly meeting will be held at the Gift of Life Offices on Saturday, February 13, 2010 from 10:00 am to 12:00 pm.  Bob and Sue Kelchner have volunteered to provide refreshments.

Respectfully submitted, Faith Carlin, Chapter Secretary