Our Holiday Music program is next week, and we have room for a crowd. This is always a fun program, and this year it features the East High Swing Choir. These young people put on a good show - bring your spouse, significant other, guest, prospective member, whoever. OTTO FESTGE set it up for us.

At our last meeting, it was not clear whether we had a TailTwister or not, but DON NEVIASER produced some donated (by him, we think) stuff to raffle off. PHIL INGWELL won a stone rhinoceros, DALE ST. JOHN a bottle of Bloody Mary mix and ED (I never win anything) NEESE scored a Bucky Book! DON's wandering pocket folder came back to him, but he didn't seem to think it was even worth a quarter, so he didn't fine himself. If he donated the raffle prizes, he gets a pass from the BULLetin editor on that one.

BOB BOHN doesn't, however. Old "Ho Ho Ho" reported a successful day on the Salvation Army kettle at Hilldale. Lions participating were: DAN STOUDT & WALT PRIDHAM, PHIL INGWELL & MELISSA ABBOTT, JERRY MILLER & DON NEVIASER, LINDA BERGREN & TERRY SCHAR, and JIM RUNDELL and PADDHE HEINEN. A great team, and the kettle was stuffed with money. It was nice to have JIM back in action. Bob's best line in his report - he said he would have called the kettle "cardinal." Still bucking for promotion, and still no respect for the lowest form of humor. At least his reports aren't BOHN-dry, but he's not on a tight schedule.

LINDA BERGREN led the song, with the usual disclaimer about the pitch, and PHIL INGWELL gave the invocation. We had better get our singing out of the way before the program next week, or else recruit a few more heldentenors.

JODI BURMESTER introduced our only guest-visitor, PEGGY KNAPP, of the Lake Wisconsin Lions Club and wife of our speaker, STEVE KNAPP.

DALE ST. JOHN reported on the status of our eyeglass recycling project. We are in desperate need of more Lions to work on this hands-on effort. It involves using our lensometer to read the prescriptions of donated glasses, and labeling and packaging them appropriately. The work is done at the M&I Bank on Verona Rd., in a room they're providing for the purpose, and while one person can work alone, it is usually more fun, if not more efficient, to work in pairs. Other Clubs are giving us some help, but our Club started this project here and we need more participants. Work is done during bank business hours, and there are many time spots open in the afternoon. HAL OTTERBACK has been a principal, but he's out of action at the moment because of hand surgery (can't come to meetings because he can't fish a quarter out of his pocket). However, either HAL or DALE can get you trained and scheduled - call one of them and help out.

Wisconsin Lions have started a drive for funds for a new Pediatric Eye Clinic at UW Hospitals, and WALT and Karen PRIDHAM have responded with a donation of $500.00 to boost our Club's participation. Other individual donations are more than welcome, and it's a further reason to move those Holiday Cakes and nuts. A big round of applause to the PRIDHAMs for their generosity. (Note to Club photographer, photo op.)

Speaker for the day was STEVE KNAPP, Lake Wisconsin Lion and District Director of Wisconsin Lions Foundation. There's been a lot going on at WLF, and he brought us up to date - a new fund-raising job for the former executive, a new Executive Director, a new Camp Director (Andrea-if you've heard her speak you know she's good), new auditors, and hopefully new business sense. The Foundation runs Lions Camp, our flagship service project, and five others - Hearing, Diabetes, Youth Exchange, Eyeglass Recycling, and Children's Vision Screening. He urged all Lions who haven't seen the Camp in the last couple years to visit again - there have been some great improvements. There were 1542 campers last year, of whom 201 were from our District 27D-1 and 53 from Madison. Each camper costs $425, and altho our District is generous and our Club in particular is the District leader, we still don't cover the costs of all the campers from our area. In addition to financial challenges, there is currently a backlog of 1 million pair of donated eyeglasses waiting to be read, sorted and packaged. (See paragraph above.) These issues are providing plenty for the WLF Board to consider.

We are an international association: "God Jul" - "Sarbatori vesele" - Joyeux Noel et Bonne Annee" - "Mele Kalikimaka" - "Nollaig Shona Dhuit" - "Kung His Hsin Nien Bing Chu Shen Tan" - "Feliz Navidad y Prospero Ano Nuevo." Come next Tuesday for the music!