Our second meeting of the new year, at the Edgewater, will feature the official visit of District Governor Bill Morris. We can expect communication from Lions International on new initiatives and ideas for Lion service, and information on what's important in Wisconsin Lionism. District Governors crisscross their areas during the year, visiting all the Clubs and carrying the Lion message. They are a key part of the infrastructure that makes Lions Clubs International the largest and most effective service organization in the world.

Lion President LINDA BERGREN opened the meeting by leading us in the singing of "America", commenting afterward on the speaker's good voice. We need all the help we can get. Undaunted by the presence of a professional, ROSS ROYSTER gave an appropriate invocation.

The first meeting of the year began with the usual completion of attendance cards. Fortunately for some Lions, we had no TailTwister in action, because two didn't have any year on their cards, several were still stuck in 2004 and one was in the right year but on the wrong date. STEVE BRIGGS brought his business partner Greg Knapp as a guest, but put the two names on the wrong lines of the card and drew lots of arrows to try to correct it. Not exactly a precision start, but our experienced Secretary will figure it out.

Secretary JOHN JENSON, after commenting on the attendance cards, reminded us of the upcoming State Bowling Tournament. There will be a signup sheet next week for those interested in participating. The tournament will be in Burlington. DALE MUELLER, Greeters Chairman, says he needs some more volunteers to meet members and guests at the door of each meeting. He'll circulate a signup sheet next week too. It's a good opportunity to meet and say hello to everybody - sign up and help him out.

DAN STOUDT has been cleaning out his basement, and under the stairs found a folder from about 1971-1972 containing a couple pictures of Mayor Bill Dyke signing proclamations honoring our Eye Donor program and our Club's 50th Anniversary. That was back in the days when the local newspapers supported local organizations by printing stories and pictures of club activities. DAN was in one of the pictures, along with AL GOLDSTEIN and PP LES WEINBERGER. DAN and AL have hardly changed at all. The pictures and proclamations made the rounds of the tables for all to see.

ROSS ROYSTER reminded us of the need to keep after contacts with local businesses to find people on their staffs who would like to be Lions. Lion membership carries with it the opportunity to serve the community, to join a new circle of friends, leadership training and experience, and business networking.

PHIL INGWELL says he still has some Lioness raffle tickets. The prizes are some really nice items of jewelry, and it's an opportunity to support the service of our affiliate club. $5.00 each or 3 for $10.00. PHIL also remarked, in connection with the history folder, that the first of the Lions Eye Donor booths was built in his basement, designed to be taken apart in sections in order to get it out the door. We had a half dozen or more, and used to place and staff them at public events all over the city.

JODI BURMESTER was to be Program Host but was under the weather, and so President LINDA more or less introduced our speaker, Bill Wineke, columnist for the State Journal and Chaplain of the Rescue Mission. He started out by briefly referring to his announced subject, "New Year's Resolutions", noting that most of them involved trying to get back to something, such as losing weight or exercising, more than looking forward to something different. He compared that with the messages put out by the political parties in the recent election, trying to lead us back to the "good old days" rather than forward to a new and different future, which he said would not be anything like the past. He illustrated with his own experience as a columnist, in which he had always put words on paper and they were handed out to read. Response, if any, was slow in coming. Recently, he wrote a column contrasting the young Americans in Baghdad trying to bring about order with the Halloween thugs in Madison trying to foment disorder. He got an e-mail answer the same day, from Baghdad, from a soldier who had read the column on the paper's website. His column has now become a forum. He also noted that it is our often-reviled military that is delivering aid to the tsunami victims, because they have the equipment and ability to get the job done. An example, he said, of old ideas used creatively to solve new problems. In response to a question about his work at the Rescue Mission, he said simply "we serve the poor." We hope to have him back again to talk about that subject. Bill is a good, entertaining and forthright speaker, and it was a good program. If you weren't there, you missed a good one.

The Wisconsin State Journal doesn't seem to have a URL for Wineke's columns, but a quick Google search turns up lots of links - see Google Search.