Here are 2 pictures taken of our booth at the recent Malaysian Care exhibition at DUMC.
In conjunction with the above, we are setting up a booth at the venue, Damansara Utama Methodist Church in Section 13, Petaling Jaya. Click HERE for more details and location map. The exhibition will be from the evening of August 14 until lunchtime August 16.
3 months after the dreaded A H1N1 virus surfaced in Mexico and begun infecting humans, the sourge has made almost 200,000 people worldwide ill and killing over 1,300 of its victims. Although it is pandemic it is not a killer but we have not paid sufficient and serious attention to stop its multiplication. In Malaysia we have recorded almost 1,500 cases of imported and locally transmitted infections, over half of which are now locally transmitted. Of these we have already read of 11 deaths, 3 of which are within the past 24 hours. It is a worrisome trend. Any gathering of people in close proximity can give rise to cross infection and must be grounds for preventive actions. PBSNS has 25 trainees and up to 4 adult trainers and volunteers at any one time. Until today we have had little concern as none of our members have reported sick. Today we have a trainer who was ill, not seriously but he has been advised to self-quarantine and seek medical treatment if he does not recover in a day or two. Some trainees are coughing and the instruction given out is that parents with trainees who are unwell (cough, sneeze, fever) must not send them to the centre. If they do come they will be sent home to minimize exposing the other trainees. Trainers and volunteers who are unwell should inform the centre and be excused. In the worse case scenario, if a large number of the trainees and caregivers are unwell, be it from normal flu or H1N1 virus, the centre will have to be closed temporarily to mitigate the situation. We will watch for further developments and act accordingly.
We were privileged to be given a talk this morning by Ms Mary Easaw, Senior Manager of the Dietetic and Food Services of the Institut Jantung Negara. On hand to listen are 33 people comprising staff, committee, volunteers, parents, caregivers and trainees. Ms Easaw explained the various problems parents and caregivers face in feeding and providing adequate nutrition to different groups of special people such as those with cerebral palsy, autism, down syndrome and those with cleft lips. She emphasised the need for these people to be given balanced diet supplemented with vitamins. Advices were given on how to deal with people not taking their food well because of emotional, allergy, stresses or associated health problems. She recommended that a food record be kept on the type and amount of food taken each day to enable a dietician to determine causes of imbalance or poor appetite. She spoke bilingually in English and Bahasa Malaysia for the benefit of some parents who are not conversant in English.
As part of her 40 Days of Purpose Campaign, the Wesley Methodist Church of Seremban organized a Ministry Fair this morning at its Youth Centre to help members and guests familiarise with the various church works and to consider joining one or more of them as service to the church and community. As PBSNS is an affiliation to the church we were given the opportunity to set up a booth to publicise our work. It was well attended by members who came not just for the free bookmarks but also take away our partnership brochures.
To say that I was not nervous in chairing my first AGM would be untruthful. It was my first experience and I have to be sure I followed the constitutions of the Persatuan. The very first thing I was to ensure is the quorum. The constitution requires no less than 10 out of 19 members to be in attendance and we had 14 so the AGM proceeded as planned at 11am today soon after the committee meeting ended.