The Daily Five: Presidential Visit, Giant Tag Sale, Hosting Students, And Vote Tonight on Septic Study, Parking at Sound View.

1. It's going to be cloudy this morning and tonight but this afternoon should be mostly sunny with a high temperature of 72 degrees! Weather.com is predicting a 20 percent chance of rain and overnight lows of 51 degrees. 

2. It was impossible to miss the fact that President Barack Obama was in Connecticut yesterday, delivering a speech at the University of Hartford about the need for gun control. In case you did miss it, though, there's lots about it on The Lymes Patch, and even more on the West Hartford Patch.  

3. Old Lyme voters are being asked to sign off on two special appropriations tonight.  

• To authorize the expenditure of a sum not to exceed $185,000 for the feasibility study of a community wastewater management system, such study to be conducted by the firm of Woodard and Curran of Windsor, CT, selected by the Board of Selectmen and recommended by the Old Lyme Wastewater Management Task Force.
  
• To authorize the expenditure of a sum not to exceed $27,300 for improvements to parking design and two kiosks on Hartford Avenue for on-street parking payments, as recommended by the Board of Selectmen.

There have been a number of meetings held to discuss both these issues but First Selectwoman Bonnie Reemsnyder does a pretty good job summarizing the town's perspective on both in her latest newsletter.  

4. If you're doing the spring cleaning and want to unload a few things, you can drop them off today at Old Lyme Congregational Church. All items collected will be sold at a huge tag sale later this month to benefit Child & Family Agency of Southeastern Connecticut.   

Members of the agency's Lyme/Old Lyme auxiliary and a legion of volunteers will be sorting through items dropped off today between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. Contributions from communities all over Southeastern Connecticut will be sold at an enormous tag sale at Grasso Tech High School, located at 189 Fort Hill Road in Groton, April 18, 19 and 20.

5. Families from Lyme and Old Lyme recently played host to 28 Middle School students from France who spent two weeks here as exchange students. Now East Lyme is looking for host families to accommodate 30 visiting Chinese high school students from July 12-24, 2013.

East Lyme School District is looking for 15 families who are willing to share their homes with Chinese students for two weeks. Host family children will have the opportunity to join their Chinese guests during the day camp, which features workshops learning about American life, as well as tours to a variety of area historical and cultural sites.

Small stipends of $100 per student will be provided to host families to cover part of the expenses related to the visit or you can donate the money to the school program of your choice. If you're interested and want to know more, please contact Jeff Drew at Jeff.Drew@eastlymeschools.org.