President Beetle Bailey called the meeting to order. After initial invocation and the pledge of allegiance, president Beetle Bailey announced about the availability of foundation points for the Paul Harris Award and thanked Lynn (I believe he meant Lynn Campbell) for 20 years of service to the foundation. Perfect attendance awards for 2007 were then given to several recipients. Beetle then announced about the upcoming state meeting and the board meeting. While the audio-visual apparatus was being set up, one member raised the need for a portable screen rather than using the wall for image projection. Ms Kelly payne of Interact Club mentioned that Chapin and Irmo high schools did not participate as enthusiastically as Dutch Fork high school in the Interact Club activities. "Road Clean up " event was mentioned and members were encouraged to participate in the next such event.
John Wilkins then introduced the speaker, Nancy Tuten of the Animal Protection League(APL). Ms. Nancy Tuten, who is a professor at Columbia college, then educated the attendees about APL. APL was started in 1982. The biggest concern for the APL was to address the undesirable option of euthanasia to control explosive growth of cats and dogs over a few years into hundreds of thousands before spaying and neutering clinics intervened to control growth of cats and dogs. APL developed "no kill" shelters. APL is a non profit organization and its animal shelter is currently located in a rather old rented facility outside the city. When neglected and abandoned animals are picked up by the APL staff, there is a laborious process of record keeping and systematic way of housing these animals. This is done with a fairly meagre annual budget of $150,000.00, coming mostly from various grants, donations, black pearls, USC concessions and annual auctions. While recognizing medical care for these animlas to be the biggest expense, Ms. Tuten acknowledged free care from several veternarians. Ms. Tuten then told some sad stories of human cruelty towards animals and also some happy endings for other animals as a result of some caring persons who adopted these animals. Ms Tuten then mentioned websites http://www.aplsc.org/ and http://www.petfinders.org/ for those interested in additional information.
There being no further business, president Beetle Bailey rang the bell for adjournment.
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