Congratulations to OIRF!
As Occidental Institute moves into 2012 we are celebrating our Fortieth (yeah, that is our 40th) Anniversary Year. Version 1.0 of Occidental Institute opened its doors in Weston, Ontario Canada on July 2, 1972. On a personal level I just cannot imagine where all those years have gone. I guess the old saying about “time flies when you’re having fun” must apply, since there are so many exciting and wonderful memories to look back on.
Dr. Walter D. Sturm
*1944 – †2004
From a professional perspective it is amazing to look back at the changes and progression since those early days as an acupuncture school. I remain in awe of our founder Dr. Walter D. Sturm for his vision, research abilities, teaching skills and expertise. The challenges and projects that face us in the coming year take on additional meaning as we look back at the historically innovative legacy of Dr. Sturm and this Institute.
Progressing from our days of being hassled as an “illegal medical school” for teaching acupuncture in the 1970’s, we are now looking forward to the acceptance of these diverse biological medicine methods by natural healthcare practitioners around the world and to the registration of many recommended devices with Health Canada and the US FDA.
In spite of the very difficult worldwide economic crises, Occidental Institute has “soldiered” on and we have survived in spite of falling membership numbers. We have continued to bring you the most cutting edge information in this field of Biological Medicine with our regularly published newsletter “The Bridge”. We have continued to make training available for all instrumentation or methods which we recommend. Plans are underway for another busy and active year with seminars, a big symposium and yet another Biological Medicine Tour to Germany (our 39th) next Fall.
As a non-profit organization, your annual membership funds represent our most basic and important fund raising activity. Help us make this 40th Anniversary Year a banner year for membership enrollments. We are seeking your support to allow us to continue the work and research that Dr. Sturm envisioned so many years ago, and to bring our membership roster back up to pre-economic crisis levels of 600 active members. Thank you for your early membership renewal. To show your ongoing support please recommend OIRF to your colleagues and fellow practitioners to help us bring these amazing and effective diagnosis and therapy methods to more and more patients.
