Next Meeting -Tuesday, Nov. 15. Our speaker will be Patty Loew, a name well known to many of us from her days on television in Madison. A former news anchor, she now appears on WHA-TV, and has just completed the writing of a book, “Indian Nations of Wisconsin.” To many of us, that means Ho-Chunk, formerly Winnebago, but there's a lot more to it than that, because the title is “Nations,” plural. We can expect to hear about the book, and maybe some insights on the differences between commercial and public television. STEVE BRIGGS is the Program Host. This should be interesting - make sure you're there to hear it.

Last time, Pres. JIM SCHUTZ opened the meeting, LINDA BERGREN led the song (promising a women's pitch next time) and gave the invocation (in soprano.) Paddhe Heinen, a former member, was a guest.

SCOTT GROVER reminded us of the opportunity to raise funds for service by working a shift at the UW Kohl Center concession stand during the Men's Basketball season, which is just getting underway. Madison Central needs more workers in order to maximize our share of the income. Sign up on the web, or talk to SCOTT for the details. SCOTT was wearing one of the Golf Outing T-shirts he'd like to sell off. No word yet of a Black Friday Sale, though.

LINDA BERGREN said that the Holiday Treat Sale items would arrive for this next meeting. She usually gets the orders all bagged and ready to go, so please get to the meeting and pick yours up. We don't want to fill up Steve Keip's office again. She bought an extra case of fruit cake to fill a good-sized sale order from PHIL INGWELL, who apparently still has a loyal customer base, but because she has to buy in case lots, there will be a few extra cakes available for sale. They are good, and there are still a lot of people out there who remember that. Since we no longer have access to Oscar Mayer's freezer, LINDA swears that there are no holdovers from last year. Neither is it true that kids are using malted milk balls for marbles in games all over town.

Our speaker, whom JACK HEIM arranged for us, was Steve Sroka from the Milwaukee Chapter of the Foundation Fighting Blindness, and he told us about the organization and its work. It was founded by Gordon Gund, who lost his eyesight, as JACK did, to retinal disease, and its principal goal is fundraising for research to fight these problems. Last year they were able to make 138 grants totaling $15 million USD for research all over the country, including Dr. Gamm of the UW Medical School. They are the largest non-governmental source of research funds for retinal disease in the world. They've existed for about 40 years, and results are starting to show. There have been about 25 children and young adults who have obtained some restoration of vision in clinical trials of gene therapy for retinitis pigmentosa, and there has also been some success against age-related macular degeneration. As Sroka pointed out, and JACK has experienced, for someone with no vision at all, the ability to see light and dark, and possible distinguish shapes, is huge.

The Foundation will be staging its 4th Annual Vision Walk at Veterans Park in Milwaukee on May 20, 2012. JACK plans to participate, and he will be glad to take your sponsor pledges with him. Or you can contact the Foundation directly at www.FightBlindness.org/WisconsinVisionWalk. JACK appears in one of the pictures in their informational material. There are 50 Chapters of the Foundation nationwide, and over time they've raised over $400 million USD for research.

One prominent success in the clinical trials is a 9-year-old boy named Corey, who had lost most of his vision to a retinal disease and through gene therapy to one eye can now see well enough to ride a bike and catch a baseball. To those who have this problem, the progress is like a miracle, but it comes only after years of unbelievably complex research. As we learned a few weeks ago from Prof. Lakkaraju, the retina is made up of many kinds of specialized cells that have taken a lot of work to figure out, and the work is still going on.