DATELINE: Tuesday, February 11, 2003. President Erika Kirtdoll opened the meeting and asked Michel Listenberger to give the invocation and lead us in the pledge of allegiance.

INTRODUCTION OF GUESTS: Our guests today were from the Toastmaster’s Club. They included: Jim and Donna Fox, Carl and Eloise Woods, Kathy Woods, Margaret Dyer, Eileen Toney and Lou Aquino.

BIRTHDAYS: John Willis celebrates a birthday on February 13^th. HAPPY BIRTHDAY JOHN!

BRAGS: Past President Tom Majerek bragged on Optimist Len Votava who became a grandparent for the first time yesterday. Len’s son and daughter-in-law in Chicago had a baby boy they named Andrew. Andrew weighed in at 7 pounds 6 ounces and was 22 inches long. Congratulations Len! President Kirtdoll bragged on Optimist Diane Bass for the great job she is doing in helping to get the bylaws revised.

ANNOUNCEMENTS: Robert Todd announced that we are in need of guest speakers for the middle 2 weeks in March and all of April and May. Please contact him if you would like to schedule a guest speaker. Past President Tom Majerek announced that the District Meeting will be held on February 22^nd in Clinton Township. Please contact him if you’d like to attend. President Kirtdoll announced that Angelos Restaurant is closing at the end of the month. We will try to keep this meeting room and have our meals catered in. We are also checking on the Elks Club. Please make sure you check your emails often. You will get an email if the meeting location changes or even if it remains the same. AT THE END OF THE MEETING TREASURER DANA TROWBRIDGE WAS ABLE TO ANNOUNCE THAT THE OWNER OF ANGELO’S RESTAURANT HAS SAID HE WILL NOT BE CLOSING AT THE END OF THE MONTH. HE WILL BE TRYING TO STICK IT OUT. THEREFORE, WE WILL CONTINUE TO MEET HERE AT ANGELOS ON TUESDAYS.

50/50 RAFFLE DRAWING: Dana Trowbridge conducted the 50/50 raffle. Margaret Dyer won the $13 pot. Congratulations Margaret!

GUEST SPEAKERS: President Kirtdoll introduced today’s guest speakers. First, Margaret Dyer introduced the main speaker as Mrs. Lou Aquino. Ms. Aquino is from the Philippines and has lived in the US for 37 years. She is a fee only financial advisor and today she talked to us about How War affects Children. She says that we seldom hear about children’s experiences during wars, except for the book "The Diary of Anne Francis". She said that children can be traumatized in many ways. Many times they never get over this trauma. Ms Aquino said that she was 6 ½ years old when World War II invaded her home in the Philippines. She was just about to have her first communion when bombs began to fall in their town. She said that she had such an overwhelming sense of fear especially because even the adults were very afraid. She said that fear was uppermost in her being at all times and that she could see and feel the fear around her always. Her parents took their children and fled the city for the "hillter lands" or hill country. It was actually a jungle area that was somewhat away from the fighting and bombs. She lost her younger brother to drowning while they were hiding in the jungle. Her mother also gave birth in the jungle. Her mother almost died from the birth. They were not surviving very well in the jungle. So when the baby and her mother could travel their father began them on the journey to Latha, about 200 miles away from where they were then. There were no buses or cars or trains or other means of transportation. They had to walk the 200 miles. It took them a very long time as the family was a new family consisting of mostly very small children and a baby. She said that every day they walked through the jungles, crossed rivers, mountains and cliffs. She said there were all kinds of animals that they had to be weary of and that they had to focus so hard on every thing just to reach their goal. They eventually arrived in her father’s home town of Latha and their dad built them a little hut in the jungle. They were afraid to live in the city. She said that there they tried to cultivate the land and grow food. Food was very scarce during the war. Ms. Aquino said that she would never forget the pain of extreme hunger. It is one feeling that has stayed with her throughout her life. She said there was no trade with the outside world, just poverty and starvation. She talked about how they used what was around them to try to make it. For example they used the coconut shells as containers for drinking, drank the milk from the coconut, ate the fruit and were even able to create oil for burning from coconuts. They even used the coconut leaves for toilet paper. They made their own soap and used the husks from trees for everything imaginable. They were eventually able to raise chickens and pigs and have a few crops. She also talked about how they ran from the Japanese and how they had few clothes. She remarked on a story whereby her brothers even had to wear girl’s clothes for a time. Ms. Aquino says that children need to feel safe and in war they just are not safe at all. She said that you just can’t explain war to children. All they know is what is happening to them at the time. She said that eventually they carry with them many, many bad memories for the rest of their lives.

CLOSING CREED: President Kirtdoll led the group in reciting the Closing Creed at the end of the meeting.

"Trends, like horses, are easier to ride in the direction they are already going." John Naisbitt, Futurist

TODAY IN HISTORY: February 11^th

1790: The Society of Friends, also known as the Quakers, sends the United States Congress a petition calling for the emancipation of slaves.

1929: The Lateran Treaty creates the state of the Vatican City and guaranteed to the Holy See full and independent sovereignty.

1984: Challenger 4 is the first space shuttle to land on the runway at Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

1990: Nelson Mandela is freed from prison after being sentenced to life imprisonment in 1964 for sabotage, treason, and violent conspiracy.

1993: Janet Reno is appointed United States attorney general by President Bill Clinton, making her the first woman U.S. attorney general.

William Henry Fox Talbot, English scientist (1800)

Lydia Maria Child, writer and abolitionist (1802)

Joseph Mankiewicz, motion-picture director (1909)

Mary Quant, British fashion designer (1934)

Burt Reynalds, actor (1936)

A woman has to cut a roll of ribbon into one meter lengths. If it takes her two seconds to measure and cut a length and the whole roll is 50 meters long, how long will it take her to do it?

98 Seconds. The last cut separates two lengths so only 49 cuts are needed to get fifty lengths of ribbon.

American inventor Thomas Edison was an enterprising experimenter from an early age. Well-known for developing the first practical electric light bulb, electric generating system, sound-recording device, and motion picture projector, he patented more than 1000 inventions during his lifetime.