Next Meeting - Tuesday, Aug. 20 - NOON - 1200 hours - at the Sheraton. Our speaker will be District Governor BOB FALIVENO, fresh from his installation at the International Convention in Germany. He will bring us fresh insights and challenges from the Convention and beyond. As the largest service club in the world, Lions International functions through a series of organizational levels, coordinating the efforts of 1.3 million Lions in 46,000 clubs. The District Governor is one of the key posts, being close to both International and the Clubs in his/her District, and a lot of information goes back and forth through that person. We'll hear about that, and probably also where LCI's efforts are going on at this time. Only through this organization can one Wisconsin Lion extend a hand to people in trouble all over the planet, which you do. Think about it. Then come and hear about it.

At our last meeting, Pres. LINDA, still flying mostly on one wing, opened the meeting and led the discussion. We have a whole lot of Lion business going on, and she at least mentioned just about all of it. We just did Stuff The Bus, and we probably will get a report on that one, and September is one of our months to do Eye Tissue Transport. JIM is planning on being up at 6 AM, so look for those early phone calls if you're on the Transporter list. If you're not, and you'd like to participate, talk to SCOTT GROVER.

As a Club we have a lot of decisions to make about what we do, and how we do it with the numbers we have available. We have an Eyeglass Collection project that is still active, but largely invisible. We need more Lions to collect, we need more locations for donor boxes, and we need to decide whether to once again read and sort the collected glasses, a job we used to do but have largely passed off to prison inmates, who at least have a lot of time on their hands. We also need to review our fund raising efforts. The UW concessions are in transition, and up to now we don't know whether we are in or out. We have a Holiday Treat Sale, which LINDA is keeping afloat, and a Rose Day flower sale, and we need to consider the future, if any, for that one. Those, of course, affect what we do for LCIF and WLF. Where else do we look to raise funds? How do we get people to come to us, by staging an event, rather than having to try to go out and locate customers/donors?

There are also still some questions about meeting format - do we still want a song, invocation, Pledge? Where might we find interesting programs, and for that matter, what constitutes an interesting program?

Immediately, we must decide which Club Committees are still needed, and then we have to staff them. Each fundraiser needs a committee, and we have others to handle our service work - Vision, Community Service. We need to be more active in Membership - how do we do that? Volunteer, to one of the officers, to serve on the Committee(s) that most interest you.

All of this stuff will be gone over in the course of the next couple of meetings. Ideas are welcome, but, truthfully, helping hands are even more welcome. Pitch in!