President, Maura Donnelly, opened the meeting leading the Pledge of Allegiance followed by Fr. Val from Haiti with the opening prayer in both English and Creole.

 ANNOUNCEMENTS

We have an invitation from Highland Area Community Foundation for their annual awards banquet if anyone is interested in attending October 13th.

We also have 3 sets of tickets for the cocktail reception at Art in the Park this Friday night. A drawing was held for these tickets and Whitten's and Wehrle's table were the winners left to fight over the tickets.

District Assembly  is 10/15 and 16 at Illinois College in Jacksonville.

Board Meeting this Thursday, October 6th at Terra Properties - 8am

Our foreign exchange student, Laura Gotthardt, needs somoeone from our club to take her to Granite City YMCA (Tri-City) between 5&6 pm Friday and to pick her up at the same location by 10am Sunday. Please let Maura know if you can help. This is a great way to get to know our exchange student!

Holli took a headcount for the October 21st Bonfire at Maura Donnelly's residence. Please email holli@hype-creative.com to rsvp if you weren't at the meeting today. Please let her know even if you aren't planning to attend. We need a headcount for the beverages. This is a potluck for those who are attending. All participants are encouraged to bring a guest (spouse and/or potential member).  THIS IS SURE TO BE A FUN TIME OF FELLOWSHIP FOR OUR CLUB!

Reminder that 2011-2012 we will be tracking service hours again to see Rotarian's collective IMPACT.  This year's goal is 7500 hours.  There were 682 hours recorded to date. (Sorry last week's numbers were not correct in he fling)

More potential service projects will be discussed at the Board Meeting Thursday.

Members can go to the website and log your hours or email them to him directly: swconstruct@agtelco.com

Attendance:  48.30%

Guests: Fr. Val from Haiti, Guest of Len Daiber

Club Anniversaries: None

Birthdays: Gordon Smith 7th, Len Daiber 8th, Dick Aten, 9th

Anniversaries: George and Robin Jones on 10/4.

Make-ups: Lisa Hunsche - on-line make-up - WAY TO GO!

Let these people know that they were missed this week: Carrie Adolf, Dick Aten, Terry Bell, Skip Butler, Cliff Couch Dave Daiber, Bob Engelmann, Angie Fears, Dan Fieker, Bret Gruender, Tom Hill, George Jones, James Kemper, Angela Kim, Terry Lietschuh, Glenn Meffert, Henry Metzger, Bob Nagel, James Rankin, Mark Reaka, Eunice Rogier, Floyd Rogier, Randy Schorfheide, Ron Schneider, Art Scheutz, Peggy Sebastian, Gordon Smith, Bill Sullivan, Mike Sutton, and Buzz Widmer

There was $678 in the 50/50 and Bob Luitjohan's table attempted to find the Ace to no avail.  There are 34 cards left in the deck.

Happy Bucks:

• Luke Harris gave a happy/promo buck for the Annual Winetasting for his Relay for Life team, Micheletto's Mighty Mariettas. 11/5/11 at Sunset Hills Country Club 7-9:30pm Edwardsville. $12.50/person, $25/couple in advance. Talk to Luke to make a reservation.
• Wayne Steiner is happy Illinois is 5-0 at home. Now they go out into the world to see how they fare. :)
• Lisa Hunsche reminded us that we are in the midst of the 40 days for life campaign. Each of us can make a difference by signing up for an hour of prayer in Granite City at www.40daysforlife.com/granitecity or just by keeping the unborn and their parents in your prayers daily.
• Fines: In Lieu of 'fines' Phil guilted anyone not wearing RED to 'donate' a dollar to bring home a win for the Cards today. (Holli was notably NOT fined for inadvertently calling Phil Hardas 'HARD-ASS' during roll call for the bonfire. He corrected her that it was 'Buns of Steel - Hardas' to her...it went downhill quickly - if that was possible -from there.)

PROGRAM: Carrie (Plocher) Cohan, Madison County Child Advocacy Center

Carrie is originally from Highland, studied Psychology at Truman State and attended Florida State for her Masters. She returned to the area in May to take on the role of Director of the Madison County Child Advocacy Center. This center opened in 2003 and was only funded by the county for 1 year. Currently various funding comes to them from fines and fees including part of your speeding tickets. The Center serves Madison and Bond counties for children ages 3-17.

1 in 23 kids is abused or neglected in these counties. Most kids won't report abuse or if they do (10%) the report often stops if they tell someone in the home who does not want to report it. 85% of the time the perpetrator is in the family or living in the home with the child.

A perpetrator of Child Abuse typically takes one year to 'groom' their victim. First, they befriend and then they desensitize the child with physical touching and finally they commit the overt act of abuse.

The CAC (Child Advocacy Center) Model was created to make this a more coordinated effort to assist children with the investigation and prosecution of abusers. This streamlines the process so children don't have to tell their story many many times to multiple entities who may be involved in the case.

The hotline for Illinois is 1-800-25-Abuse and Nationally 1-800-4-a-child. Please visit www.madco-cac.org for more information.

UPCOMING PROGRAMS -  Jennifer Whitten