Next Time - Tuesday, August 2, at the stately old Edgewater. GAIL STIRR is the program host, and she will introduce Prof. Aparna Lakkaraju of the UW Dept. of Ophthalmology & Visual Sciences and member of the UW Eye Institute, speaking on "Insight Into Age-Related Macular Degeneration." The last speaker noted that this is now the leading cause of blindness in the US, so it will be good to hear what's being done for it.

Last Time - We had a 50% increase in Lion attendance, held the line on guide dogs, and still had no guests. Everything else started off as planned - Pres. JIM opened the meeting and led the Pledge, LINDA BERGREN led the "singing" of "America" (Full disclosure - the editor has concluded that, far from assisting, his new electric ears permanently disqualify him from joining in, or evaluating, the song. There is no monotone part in the score anyway.) DALE MUELLER gave the invocation. TailTwister JACK HEIM seemed to extract a dollar from just about everyone without any stated reason, but very high standards of honesty and generosity seem to prevail among normally evasive Lions when JACK goes to work.

We celebrated Lion Birthdays for JIM KEMMETER, 31 years, JIM SCHUTZ, 30 years, and GAIL STIRR, 2 years. Somehow we missed JACK HEIM, 2 years, because your editor, who was supposed to conduct this party, forgot his list. JACK probably was busy counting his ill-gotten TailTwister gains, or forgot his gift, and didn't stick his hand up. Should have sent "G" to bite the editor on the ankle. Anyway, we'll give him a do-over next meeting, and maybe the peripatetic Birthday Chairperson, MICHELLE VETTERKIND, will be back from Maui for the day, also. She has her own 19th to celebrate. (Lion, not chronological, in spite of appearances.) Drawing winners mostly kept it in the circle - JIM KEMMETER and TERRY SCHAR won the gifts from JIM SCHUTZ and GAIL STIRR, and JEFF SCHROEDER got an IOU from JIM KEMMETER.

Pres. JIM noted that we got a "Thank You" from the Eye Bank for our $3000 gift, and that September is our next month to serve as transporters, which was confirmed by JIM KEMMETER, our dispatcher. If you'd like to be a transporter, talk to KEMMETER. There will be an "all-age" vision screening session on Sat. August 20, from 9 AM to noon. If you'd like to help with this project, talk to GROVER. (Training not necessary. Good thing to have, though.) The Golf Outing will be on Aug. 22 - talk to CRAIG BUTLER. He'd like some prizes donated, too.

PID PHIL INGWELL reported on the International Convention in Seattle, where he once again stepped up to the International podium, this time to introduce our Wisconsin candidate for International Director, MARK HINTZMANN. Must have been a stirring intro, because MARK won. PHIL's comment was that the campaigning was so intense that he now knows what it means to be "sleepless in Seattle." The new International President is WING-KUN TAM, from Hong Kong, the first one from China. Read about him at http://www.lionsclubs.org/EN/about-lions/our-leadership/meet-the-leaders/lions-leaders-meet.php.

MARSHALL FLAX, Director of Visual Rehabilitation Service at the Wisconsin Council of the Blind and Visually Impaired, was our speaker. He noted that the Council was a non-profit and received no government funding for its work in assisting the 75-100,000 Wisconsin residents who are blind or visually impaired. ¾ of that population are elderly, and the major causes are macular degeneration, diabetes, glaucoma and cataract. Some of these are treatable now, and progress is being made on the others, but it is obvious that Lions still have plenty of work left to do. His specialty is as a therapist, helping people to make the most of the vision they have left. There are many new tech devices - GPS units, computer text-to-speech programs and magnifiers, and Apple products (I-Pads, I-Pods) that have some of these capabilities built in. There are new "Talking Book" devices that are less expensive and easier to use, and "cash recognition" programs that will let an I-Phone look at a bill and tell the user what denomination it is. MARSHALL now has some amazing things to work with.