Our next meeting will be Tuesday, Feb. 1, and GAIL STIRR is the Program Host. The speaker will be Dr. Neal Barney, Medical Director of the Lions Eye Bank of Wisconsin, member of the UW Eye Research Institute and Professor in the Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences at the University of Wisconsin. He will talk about his clinical and research work with corneal tissue recovery, processing and transplantation. This is what our Lions Eye Bank is all about - "because of what I do today, someone will see tomorrow!" Some MCLC members have been fortunate enough to participate in this directly by being tissue couriers, but all of us are part of the work thru our Lion membership. Never forget that just by your membership in Lions, you are part of the miracles that help others to see again. Dr. Barney will tell us more about how it is done, and probably will tell us how they hope to do it even better in future.

DALE ST. JOHN's badge has been found. After being one of the three faithful readers of last week's Tale, JOHN JENSON walked up to the badge box last Tuesday, poked around briefly, and produced DALE's badge. Either JOHN is in cahoots with Harry Potter or your editor couldn't find a bull moose in a broom closet, because DALE and I went through the box on two different occasions without finding it. At any rate, Betty can forget the sock drawer, and DALE, c'mon back! Not that you need a badge - everybody knows who you are!

You knew something was different at our last meeting (that is, those who were there did) when you walked up to the buffet line and there were wine buckets and wine glasses at the end of it, thanks to the generosity of AL GOLDSTEIN, who hosted the special beverage from his winter refuge under a palm tree somewhere, in California, we think. We had a Lion Birthday party, run by chairperson MICHELLE VETTERKIND, and a special toast to Al in honor of his 50 years of Lion Service. Others celebrated were MELISSA NOVINSKI 17 years; CRAIG BUTLER 18 years; JOHN JENSON 30 years; and JERRY HODDINOTT 30 years. MICHELLE and JOHN JENSON won two of the gifts, and all of us were winners of Al's gift.

Pres. JIM opened the last meeting, LINDA BERGREN led the song, and SCOTT GROVER offered another of his terse but pithy invocations - 8 words, this time. LINDA also introduced her guest, Jerry Mahaffey, who is considering membership. Not a guest, but a welcome presence was JERRY MILLER, whom we hadn't seen in a while. Nice to have him back.

SCOTT GROVER still needs some help at the Kohl Center basketball stand. Those who do it say it's fun, and it generates much needed income for our service funds. Family members and friends (anyone who at least looks to be age 16 or older) are most welcome. Sign up on the web or talk to SCOTT.

LINDA BERGREN still has a wide assortment of items from our Holiday Treat sale. Cashews, pecan clusters, chocolate raisins, almonds and more. Let's help her out and get rid of this stuff.

JOHN JENSON reminds us that the District 27-D1 Convention will be on March 11 and 12 at the Marriott on the Middleton-Madison border. Close by, and a chance to get a wider view of Lionism in action. Our Club subsidizes participation, so see JOHN to sign up. The Multiple District 27 (State) Convention will be on May 19-21 in Appleton. See JOHN about that one, too.

JOHN JENSON introduced the speaker, Jared Bushek of Madison Gas & Electric, program manager for their Smart Grid Investment Grant, who told us how the government's money was being spent. The goal is to equip MG&E with sophisticated metering and performance monitors, so that they will know exactly where and when the power is going, and have immediate notice of any problems in the system. The work is divided into four segments - Advanced Metering, Distribution Management System, Plug-In Hybrid Vehicle (recharging), and Federal Reporting (the strings that always go with Federal $$.) The metering portion is designed to send information back to the company (no more reading meters, either directly or by driving a truck down the street, as now) to help test rating designs, understand usage patterns and report outages. Obviously, the more you know about your system, the better you can run it. The Distribution Management System aims to automate as much as possible the reporting and response to outages and the generation and switching of power in response to usage. There has been local publicity for the Chevy Volt auto, and MG&E is anticipating that they will shortly have 25 customers for recharging electric cars. They are experimenting with the first recharging stations to develop design and eventually pricing and payment method, depending on how customers end up using them. Right now, a Level 1 (house current) recharge takes about 4 hours, and a Level 2 (higher voltage - think clothes dryer or electric stove) cuts that in half. The anticipated cost of a recharge is of the order of $1.00. First public stations are in the Hy-Vee parking lot (for our East Branch Club Lions) and at the MG&E office. Can't say there was any shocking information there, but it was a powerful presentation, and sparked some questions afterward. Quite a current of positive information.