Japanese

April 6, 2001: The first regular meeting of Oita GOF
Today, we had April regular meeting for the first time in 2001 business year. The theme was "Toward the new year." The member of the committee was in charge of today's care. First, the new organization was introduced. This year, there are four groups: general, life, sales, and construction groups.
	We read some lines from the founder's writing, "What is Group of Friends?" Iwahashi, the new general leader, expressed her hopes and other new committee members made a few words respectively.
New group leaders followed then by reading out their hopes written on a writing pad.
Ms. Araki, who was in charge of the enrollment control last year, reports the latest membership as of March end. The enrollment number is 77, and on the diagram by age and by working-not working is the present status of the members. The number of working members is 33. The circular diagram below shows the ratio by the enrollment year. Red part indicates seven new members enrolled last year. The longest membership is of Ms. Yoshino exceeding 60 years.
Children care room is usually open during the regular meeting. As the schools are in the spring vacation, three members were busy in watching as many as ten kids. The weather was so fine and the kids were playing outdoors and took lunch. They are playing calmly now by reading kids books.
	After the meeting, group leaders discussed how to prepare for the lecture by Ms. Etsuko Kizu in June.
Hofu Group prepared today's lunch. The menu is such like that the cooking members can attend the meeting. The ingredients are dried krill pilaf, cabbage and chicken salad, kelp soup, and apple sweet jellied paste. In the afternoon, we discussed the items to be reported in May meeting such as scheduling of the settlement of accounts, monthly report checking, and the preparation for the lecture meeting.
Reported by Nagano