Hi!

Thanks to all who attended the Fall Whistle stop -- I hope each of you came away with more information on how you can increase volunteerism in your church and community.

Over $15,000 of funds are still available to churches in our Chapter through the Care in Congregations programs THIS YEAR. You have until December 23rd to set up projects to spend this money, and all information must be submitted on-line by December 31st. Don't let the busyness of the upcoming holiday season make you lose out on the use of these funds. You can view the funds available for your congregation off the CongCoord Information Page at:
     http://champaignchapter.org/r.php?congcoord

One of the things noted at the Whistle Stop was that receipts for Care in Congregations projects are supposed to be sent to the Chapter Board for keeping in case of an audit of our records. Envelopes to keep this information and mail them in to me should have been received by you in the information packet received by each of the three Congregational Coordinators at the start of this year. If you don't have it, contact me and I'll get a few more sent to you. For more information on information needed, you can check CHIP here:
     http://www.thrivent.com/members/chip/hottopics/receipts.html
you will have to login; contact me if you can't access that information for some reason. These packets should be mailed to me at:

Norm Fisher
2317 Butternut Court
Champaign, IL 61821

Another thing of interest at the fall Whistle Stop was information on the Luther film that is currently playing at the Beverly theater in Champaign. Reports are that this movie is very well done, and shows clearly the Lutheran theology and how Luther came to it. Be sure to see it while it is still in theaters!

The Chapter is asking your help for promoting the Luncheon Election. Have you RSVPed yourself? Have you asked your church secretary to put the announcements in your bulletin? Did you pick up a poster at the Whistle Stop and put it on your church bulletin board? Have you talked with your friends who are Thrivent members about this luncheon?
     http://champaignchapter.org/r.php?election

As a congregational coordinator you can order a free listing of Thrivent members in your church from the congcoord section of the thrivent.com website. This can help you identify who in your church can be one of the 6 Thrivent members involved in volunteer projects that you help organize, or help you invite members to the luncheon above.

As part of the Oct 19th luncheon, we would like to have posters of various projects that were accomplished with Thrivent supplemental funds. If you were involved in one of the projects and can send me a summary of what was involved, how many people were involved, any items of note, and (hopefully) any pictures from the event, I'll make up a poster for your event so everyone from Champaign County can view it.

And finally, a new CC Connection was just distributed from the region with some more information that may be of use to you; if any of you didn't receive it, you can read it at:
     http://champaignchapter.org/r.php?ccConnection

The Chapter Beat and Regional Beat publications that you receive in the mail are available at:
     http://champaignchapter.org/r.php?min
The October issue of both are out; I haven't received them yet in the mail, so you can read them early on-line.

Thanks for your attention!
In Christ,