dear friends, an uptick in attendance was observed at last night's meeting, including youthful faces, and the participants could not have been disappointed by the activity that transpired. 1. the water troubles in nuevo amanecer are legendary, but a new plan could be the arsenic-free solution. the mayor of telica, whose municipality includes nuevo, wants to drill a new well and pipe cooler and less contaminated water two miles to nuevo and two adjacent communities at a total cost of about $125,000. friends' share would be about $25,000. mike cipoletti has met with the mayor, and the mayor has provided a proposal. but it is very general, so george pardo would like to hear your questions about specific costs, water quality, etc. his address is gpardo@xxxxxxxxxx, and he is standing by to receive your thoughts and relay them to the relevant authorities. another nonprofit with extensive experience in nica, world vision, is being asked to pay about $30,000, and that group has been contacted in managua to gets its view of the proposal, and was sent a copy of the mayor's plan. also, george will contact the office of elmer zelaya, a hydrologist in leon who supervised the much larger chacraseca water installation. zelaya might be hired as our onsite representative. in the meantime, friends agreed to continue helping to pay for water to be trucked to nuevo. 2. friends agreed to provide carol werblin $1,000 for her social action organization, separate from hihi, that provides food and clothing to very poor people in the huntington station area. that leaves $6,500 in the liquidnet award fund that needs to be spent locally. millie willen suggested using some funds to provide aid to college-bound students. 3. pete white has sent a letter to each major league baseball team asking for support for the "fields of dreams" project in chacraseca. 4. he has received paperwork for setting up friends chapters under irs provisions. there may be three---northeast colleges coordinated by mike, miami-dade college and james madison university supervised by shari kornblatt. these chapters would be responsible for their own bookkeeping, liability insurance, etc. in a related matter, pete and others again expressed concern about continuing to handle the books for the high school group. interest earned on the funds is exceeded by the cost of the tax accountant's work, and many hours of volunteer work is required to keep the records. the matter may be resolved before dec. 31 to avoid the status quo for another tax year. 5. interest was expressed in an adult trip to nicaragua, possibly next spring.