Ha pp y B ir th da y

Dates and Times: Tuesday, May 26^th; Start Time 5:30 p.m. with Dinner at 6:00 pm

Venue: Our May meeting will be at Shirley’s house on Tuesday, May 26th. We will have a business meeting, recap the year and start the planning for the new year. We will also be presenting the slate of officers for 2008-09 at the May meeting, along with Committee chairs and members. At this time, the dinner plans have not been finalized. We will let you know if Shirley will need members to bring food/beverages to the May meeting.

This would be a good time to invite any friends or potential new members to join us.

We hope everyone will come with some ideas on projects and programs to incorporate into our 2009-10 fiscal year.

Projects suggested include a repeat of preparing a dinner for the Jeremiah Program, fleece blankets, soup mix project, and holiday bags.

Romelle and I talked to Michelle from MVNA and learned that infants and young children that the MVNA nursing staff meet with are having “failure to thrive” issues.

In the first few years of life most kids gain weight and grow much more quickly than they will later on. Sometimes, however, kids don't meet expected standards of growth. Most still follow growth patterns that are variations of normal, but others are considered to have “failure to thrive.”

This is a general diagnosis, with many possible causes. Common to all cases, though, is the failure to gain weight as expected, often accompanied by poor height growth. Diagnosing and treating a child who fails to thrive focuses on identifying any underlying problem. From there, doctors and the family work together to get the child back into a healthy growth pattern.

About Failure to Thrive

Although it's been recognized for more than a century, failure to thrive lacks a precise definition, in part because it describes a condition rather than a specific disease. Kids who fail to thrive don't receive or are unable to take in, retain, or utilize the calories needed to gain weight and grow as expected. Most diagnoses of failure to thrive are made in infants and toddlers in the first few years of life — a crucial period of physical and mental development. After birth, a child's brain grows as much in the first year as it will grow during the rest of life. Poor nutrition during this period can have permanent negative effects on mental development.

Most babies double their birth weight by 4 months and triple it by age 1, but kids with failure to thrive often don't meet those milestones. Sometimes, a child who starts out "plump" and who shows signs of growing well can begin to fall off in weight gain. After a while, linear (height) growth may slow as well. If the condition progresses, undernourished kids may:

• become disinterested in their surroundings
• avoid eye contact
• become irritable
• not reach developmental milestones like sitting up, walking, and talking at the usual age

According to Michelle, this problem can be addressed by providing the essentials to the family that the child needs. A nutritious diet containing adequate calories for catch-up growth (about 150% of normal caloric requirement) and individualized medical and social supports are usually necessary.

We will need to plan both the date and theme for our annual President’s dinner.

Other items on our May agenda include – determining what grants we will be giving to area service agencies as well as to Zonta International.

Dues invoices will be included in this newsletter mailing. Dues will remain at the $110 level. The dues increase by Zonta International was $16 per member, which our club will cover for this upcoming year. If you would choose to pay the additional $16, the dues statement will give you the option of paying the additional dues yourself.

In succeeding years, we will need to raise the club dues to cover the Zonta International increase.

These are Library events sponsored by the Friends of the St. Paul Public Library:
these events are published monthly and feature lecture, music, films, etc. and are held at various St. Paul Public Library locations.

• Untold Stories: MN History Day Presentations, Wed. May 13, 7:30 p.m. at St. Paul Labor Centre, 411 Main Street, St. Paul, MN; High school students present their labor related displays and original performances on the topic of “the Individual in History”
• Untold Stories: Teamster Strike Panel, Wed. May 20, 7 p.m. at Daytons Bluff Branch, Metropolitan State University Library, Ecolab Room 645 E. 7th Street; Author Bill Milliken (A Union against Unions) a novel based on the strikes.
• Norah Labiner, German for Travelers: A Novel in 95 Lessons, Thursday, May 21, 7 p.m. Hamline Midway Branch, 1558 W. Minnehaha Avenue will read from her new novel.

St. Paul Central Library will have Outdoor Movies this summer, including Iron Man, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, the Maltese Falcon and Barefoot in the Park. Movies start at dusk (approximately 9:30 p.m.) and will be cancelled in case of rain. Bring bug spray, chairs or blankets. The City of Shoreview will be sponsoring Puppet Wagon series on Mondays at various locations within the city of Shoreview at 12:15 and 2:30 p.m. The shows are approximately 30 minutes long, are free and no registration is required. This would be a great event to take children to this summer.

For families, the City of Shoreview has a free concert series in the park on Wednesday evenings, 7 p.m., starting Wednesday, June 10th and continuing through until August 12th. For location and more information, contact the City of Shoreview at 651-490-4600.

The City of Roseville offers a variety of free and low-cost activities, including the Harriet Alexander Nature Center (which includes a bee hive and live turtles) which is located in Central Park.

Roseville also offers free summer concerts on most Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays at Central Park. The Park visitor sign on Lexington Avenue is updated for the most current concert and event information, or contact the city at 651-792-7006 for details.

The Roseville Library can provide days of free entertainment. Check out your favorite summer reading, music or movies from the library. This summer the library will temporarily be located at 2680 Arthur St. while the library building on Hamline Ave. goes through extensive renovation and expansion.

Romelle attended the spring area meeting in Brainerd in April. I appreciated the opportunity to represent our club at this meeting.
Romelle

Here is Romelle’s spring area meeting report:

We had another very enjoyable Area Meeting, thanks to the Brainerd Zontians. There were 29 Zontians from our six clubs. Governor Kathy Swan was also in attendance.

Friday, we enjoyed an evening of friendship and fund during Brainerd’s fundraising dinner, silent auction and style show. On Saturday morning, our Governor presented her revisions of International’s presentation on Legislative Awareness and Advocacy versus lobbying. She will post this presentation on the District’s web site for us. She encouraged each club member to become knowledgeable on the legislative process of presenting and implementing laws.

Sue Keirstead, District Foundation Ambassador and Minneapolis President, reviewed the role of the Foundation, the 2008-1020 service projects and addressed the need for clubs to contribute 30% of our service funds to the Foundation. She also encouraged members to consider making personal pledges to the Foundation.

St. Cloud Zontian Dr. Tara Hari gave a very interesting and humorous presentation on the advancements women have made in all areas of aviation from the 1920’s to the present day.

Past Governor Dr. Carol Pasanen focused on club revitalization with a skit she developed to help clubs attract and retain members.

The District Conference will be in St. Charles, MO September 18th – 19th. The International Convention will be in San Antonio on June 20 – June 25, 2010.

The 2012 International Convention will be in Italy.

Judy has prepared and filed the annual reports, which were due May 15th. She will report on the results at our May meeting.