Planning a Second October Meeting

This is becoming a very active October. Everyone seems to be worried about the newest members. They have been calling with many questions and are concerned about what they are being told by professionals with dual titles, CDEs and RDs. Both Tim and I have been in contact with Suzanne to schedule another meeting. She is busy and is not sure when she will have time. She suggested that maybe we should have Brenda's daughter talk to us.

Tim finally agreed and talked with Brenda and her daughter. She said she would do a presentation, but it would need to be on a Wednesday evening. Emails happened rapidly and all the newest members could meet on a Wednesday. A few of the rest had conflicts, but said to go ahead for helping the newest members.

Therefore, we are having a second meeting on October 21. Allison, Brenda's daughter, will talk about nutrition and how people can lower the number of carbohydrates they consume for improved blood glucose management.

Then another flurry of emails as Allison needed some information to help make the presentation relevant for the most people. When those that needed to answer had replied, Allison said that most everyone had the same interest and she would need to be prepared for low carb/high fat discussion and many of the questions were about acceptable fats. She put out a call for studies and discussions about high fat that she may not have seen.

The next day Allison asked us to stop. She said that most of us read the same articles and blogs and she felt that some were excellent, but for now, we could stop, as she understood what we were telling her. She also agreed with us about the high fat part and not the low fat that RDs insisted on teaching.

Allen and I asked to meet with Tim. We thanked him for getting Allison to talk to us. Then Allen told Tim that anytime we accepted new members, as we did in September, we needed to schedule Suzanne or Allison, and if Beverly had time, she should do something on education. I added this should be automatic because we always get questions and we need to prepare the new members for what they may encounter or have heard.

Tim said that he had thought about this, but thought we could have taught them. Allen said that we could have, but it sounds better coming from someone trained to teach and gives us easy reference for more authority. I said that even some of the members from the group Jerry brought in still have questions and it does not hurt to reinforce this. Allen did ask if we should consider dues to help pay for speakers. I stated we have avoid this so far, but we should talk to my cousins and listen to them. The only group that has dues is the group led by Greg and his wife.

Tim said I was right, but investigating this might be good for us. Then Tim thanked us for reminding him to have the lessons when we bring several new members into the group. He said that he had forgotten what happened to the group Jerry brought in and now the 14 members. Then he suggested we talk about bringing new members in during one month. Allen agreed, but said we also needed to consider limiting new members. I said we needed to discuss this at a meeting. Tim agreed and said he was thinking about this as well.