MayDay! The first of the month, that is, and the speaker’s day as well. Speaker at our next meeting will be Katharyn A. May, DNSc, RN, FAAN, Dean of the UW School of Nursing, telling us about the current state of the art, and how public perceptions impact the recruiting of new students entering the profession. STEVE BRIGGS is the Program Host.

TaleTwister's Jackpot
$1,138

TailTwister ROSS ROYSTER was back, and his “pot” is now at $1138 serious dollars. LOUISE FRITZ had the lucky ticket, or so we thought, but she didn’t draw the joker. And speaking of jokers, the “special prize” that she did win was one of our famous one-pound fruitcakes. No word on which door it will prop open.

Pres. SAL opened the meeting, JIM SCHUTZ led the song, and JERRY “HOPALONG” HODDINOTT was back to lead the invocation. We’re glad to see he’s getting around pretty good, and is his old ebullient self. Word from ROSS ROYSTER is that Roxanne is also doing well, recovering from surgery.

For your calendar: May 19 is the “Walk For Diabetes” at Warner Park. June 7 is the Wisconsin Lions Eye Bank 2nd Annual Golf Outing, at the Oaks Course in Cottage Grove. September 19 is the annual Birch-Sturm Golf Outing. Golfers outnumber ordinary walkers 2-1, apparently.

Treasurer MELISSA ABBOTT is readying the next set of quarterly bills. She’'d like to send as many as possible by e-mail - saves money and time. If you can receive yours that way, please let her know by e-mail - her address is maabbott@charter.net.

As this BULLetin is written, the Rose Day sale is winding up. Looks like we didn’t sell quite as many, but we didn’t have many left over, either, and DON NEVIASER, MELISSA NOVINSKI and crew are wrapping up the details. We’ll have a full report, but it seemed to go pretty smoothly.

SCOTT GROVER has prepared a report for the activities of the Sight Conservation Committee. The full text is on the MCLC website, but we got about 80 applications for assistance, approved about 64, and actually assisted about 25 individuals. Interestingly, over half the applications came from people in their 40s and 50s. Only 2 were from persons under the age of 20. There appeared to be no referrals from schools.

JIM BRADLEY introduced Jacqueline Dullin, from the Greater Madison Chamber of Commerce, who is the Project Coordinator for the new Regional Economic Development Entity - “REDE.” It’s a non-profit organization created to accelerate the economic growth of the Wisconsin Capital Region while preserving and enhancing the quality of life which is one of the area’s greatest assets. They have an impressive Board of Directors, with representatives from business, accounting, law, education and finance, and have backing and grants from many area businesses, the State of Wisconsin, Dane County, and many cities, villages and townships. Dane County is the 2nd fastest growing in the nation of similar counties, and centers the 8-county region REDE plans to address. It is said that many people now pick the area where they want to live and then go there to find a job, and the goal is to provide opportunities while keeping the things and places that make people want to come here. It is hoped to get past the old idea that you could have development or quality of life, and do things in such a way that you can have both. Globalization means that Dane County no longer competes just with Milwaukee or Austin, TX, but also with Brazil. They hope to encourage enterprises based on Agriculture, Biotechnology and Health Care, and employing the new nanotechnology which is used in all three, encouraging smaller companies which could use the research being done at UW-Madison. The three main objectives for REDE are to grow the economy via target industry sectors based on our assets, resolve key issues by being a catalyst for addressing major quality of life issues and create a regional capacity by highlighting our regional culture, shared assets, values and opportunities. Sounds like they have plenty to do. Your editor has new neighbors who moved here because there were jobs in their fields of scientific research and they liked the area, which sounds pretty much like what REDE is trying to make happen.