Next Up - Our Holiday Music meeting, with a Brass Quartet playing the traditional music of the season, on Dec. 7 at the EdgeH2O. LINDA BERGREN got the program for us, and she will introduce the musicians. Please bring guests - friends, spice (Editor's plural of spouse), prospective members -whoever. We'd like a goodly number in attendance for this special program.

That's not the only thing LINDA will do that day. The Holiday Treats are here, and those who ordered please show up and pick up your stock of goodies, if for no other reason because they are filling up Steve Keip's office. Besides, this is one of our fundraisers, and we need the proceeds to do good with. (Winston Churchill was once criticized by an English professor for ending a sentence with a preposition. His reply was "that is the sort of arrant pedantry up with which I shall not put!")

Our Club helped out the Salvation Army last Tuesday. Led by Project Chairman DALE MUELLER, a bell-ringing team of LINDA BERGREN, TERRY SCHAR, SCOTT GROVER, PHIL INGWELL and JOHN JENSON handled a Kettle for the day at West Towne. Don't know how the others did, but your editor found people to be friendly and generous, the same as in other years. It's fun to make eye contact with someone thirty feet away and see if you can bring them to the kettle. About one-third make eye contact, smile and keep going, one third donate, and one third won't look at you. Most encouraging is when someone with a child along stops, digs in the wallet, and gives the child something to put in the kettle. Most heart-warming is when someone who looks as though they could use some help themselves stops and donates. Most satisfying is when you can make eye contact at a distance and reel them in. The editor achieved a "personal best" when a clerk from an adjoining store, nearly forty feet away, came out from their store and made a donation.

Let's all celebrate with TOM and Marian STEVENS, whose 40th Wedding Anniversary was noted in the Wis. State Journal last Sunday. Nice picture, too, for a TailTwister!

At our last meeting, Pres. JIM SCHUTZ opened the meeting, LINDA BERGREN led the song, and SCOTT GROVER gave the invocation. We had some guests - Mariann Tim and John Schuchard from the American Red Cross, Lions AUGIE and DONNA FORTMANN from Ixonia, and Gwen Mueller, DALE's wife. The TailTwister got a late lunch, but there was enough left for him to have a full plate. TTs are lucky a lot of times if they get any lunch at all.

Pres. JIM noted that there will be four Children's Vision Screening sessions on consecutive days in Dec. Help is needed, both from trained screeners and from other Lions who can help with paperwork and crowd management. Contact JIM to take part. This is the "hands on" project you've been looking for.

Football season has ended, at least for Camp Randall, and now we need concession workers to "come in from the cold" and work the bright and warm stand at the Kohl Center. The more workers we provide, the more money we have for our service work. Sign up on the web, or see SCOTT GROVER.

STEVE BRIGGS introduced our speaker, Barbara Dimick, of the Madison Public Library, who told us about what the system in general and the Central Branch in particular are doing as their functions change. Besides the basics of books, they have gone from lending vinyl records to providing fast computer access for the surprisingly large number that don't have it at home, and also providing access to information sites which charge for the privilege. Occasional users can get info from places like Morningstar without having to pay expensive fees. The "book business" is shifting to a lot of electronic storage and supply, but the Library people think that actual books will still be around for quite a while. Following an unsuccessful attempt to plan and build a new Central Branch, eight plans have been submitted to remodel and enlarge the present building, enclosing the corner and going to three floors. There is a need for meeting room space, in addition to book storage and more room for computer stations. They also need to preserve an Aaron Bohrod mural on one wall of the present structure. Projected cost is $29.5M, half from the City, a quarter from donations, and the rest from unspecified "tax credits." The new electronic readers will certainly change some reading and buying habits, but it's too soon to say where it will end up.