meetings

Meetings are usually held in the Menschendorf Conference Room, Koppel Plaza, on the East Tennessee Children's Hospital campus, at 6:00 p.m. on the third Monday of every other month. Some meetings are held at other locations for special events. Please join us!

Child care is also available now in a separate room. Children may bring an item to play with that they do not mind sharing.
 
As always, feel free to bring a favorite GF item to share with the group.

Here are directions, maps and parking information.

Upcoming Meetings:

• September 19, 2008 – 6:00 - 7:30 pm.
  Special Guest Presentation
  Cleo Libonati, RN, BSN, the author of "Recognizing Celiac Disease," will be giving her presentation, Celiac Disease: Symptoms, Nutritional Deficiencies and How to Achieve Wellness Living Gluten-Free.
  
  Cleo Libonati is a University of Pennsylvania graduate with nursing and paralegal experience spanning thirty years. Her personal experience in discovering celiac disease to be the underlying cause of health problems dating back to childhood, and her resulting recovery motivated her to create Recognizing Celiac Disease to help others.   
  
  Cleo’s 40 minute presentation explains gluten and celiac disease, describes how gluten causes health problems in the body, how nutritional deficiencies develop leading to a multitude of health problems and finally, how to put together a gluten-free diet to attend to your individual needs.
  
  Copies of “Recognizing Celiac Disease” will be for sale at the events and she will be available afterward to sign books and answer questions.
  

Past Meetings: (Note, you can find minutes of past meetings on the discussion forum, found by clicking on the menu to the left.)

• July 21, 2008 –Helping Your Child’s Teacher Help Your Child”   We distributed packets for your child’s teacher for the first 45 families with information about classroom needs on a GF diet as well as a general explanation of living a GF lifestyle.
  
  
• May 19, 2008 – Review of recent media coverage highlighting some members of our group. Learned about a new GF catering business in Knoxville, The Happy Badger. Welcomed a few new members and met Ashley Rogers, RD, new dietician on Dr. Al-Tawil's staff. Our July meeting will cover back-to-school issues, and will further discuss upcoming visit by Cleo Libonati, as well as the annual golf tournament in September.
  
  
• March 10, 2008 –Meeting was held in the waiting room of Children's Pediatric Gastroenterology, PC, (Dr. Al Tawil's office, 5th floor, Children's Hospital Medical Office Bldg.) Group discussed an upcoming event at the Knoxville Zoo, plans for a summer camp for celiac kids, and a new meeting group, the "lunch bunch." Dietician Sandy Altizer gave a presentation, "Celac Sleuth: Find what's missing in your diet."
  
  
• January 21, 2008 – Children's Hospital, Presentation and discussion with representatives of Nature's Pantry, which is increasing its stock of gluten free foods.
  
  
• November 12, 2007 – Outback Steakhouse, 330 N. Peters Road. Our largest meeting of the year included Dr. Youhanna Al-Tawil from Pediatric Gastroenterology P.C. answering questions.
  
  
• September 17, 2007 - Events at Sherlake. This was a fun opportunity for kids to play on indoor inflatable slides, obstacles, and other games, while the parents met. We discussed the recent golf tournament and thanked the sponsors, who also attended.
  
  
• July 16, 2007 - Back to school preparations include a tentative plan to hear from a Knox County School official about 504 plans. (Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973).
  
  
• May 21, 2007 - Dr. Carmen Tapiador, Pediatric Endocrinologist, spoke on the challenges of diagnosing and living with celiac disease, and its relationship to other auto-immune disorders, including diabetes.
  
  
• March 19, 2007 -We discussed a group of our celiac kids enrolling in a gluten-free cooking class, enjoyed samples of gluten buns, discussed cooking and recipes, and tried out a lot of samples from PureFit, Glutino, Ener-G and Foods Alive, among others. Thanks to all these vendors for their support.
  
  
• January 15, 2007 - We had a very productive discussion about forming a strategy to approach local restaurants. A small team will work together to produce educational materials and identify restaurant management to present to, with the goal of having more local restaurants offer gluten-free items.
  
  
• November 13, 2006, 6-7:30 - We had a great turnout for our first GF dinner at Outback Steakhouse. Dr. Al-Tawil fielded questions on a variety of topics related to celiac, and we welcomed several new members.
  
  
• September 18, 2006- Had a fun evening at Events at Sherlake, an indoor playground with hugh inflated slides, obstacle courses, and other games for kids (ok, and adults too.) Also heard from Dennis Chapman with KeHe Food Distributors about GF offerings at Food City and how the grocery store supply chain works. See the photos from this event here.
  
  
• July 17 2006 - Brainstorming session-generated thoughts on the future of our group. How can we best serve celiac patients? What would you find really useful?
  
  
• May15 2006 - Dr. Jerry Griffith, psychologist spoke about coping skills and adapting to change.
  
  
• March 27th, 2006 at EarthFare, Turkey Creek - Gluten free cooking demo. See the Knoxville News Sentinel articles that resulted from this meeting here and here.
  
  
• January 16th, 2006