Meeting attendees were:  Sharon Rich, Cathy Molumby, Marcia Oltrogge, Kathy Schwartzhoff, Jenni Elsbernd, Linda Watson, Malinda Riley, Jessica Butikofer, and Dave Runyon.

A. Reports from Sub-groups

1) Parent Sub-group-Linda Watson gave the report.  Strengthening Families is to be held at the Elgin Lutheran Church on Mondays beginning October 13 for six weeks.  A meal begins 6:00 p.m. and class time ends at 8:30.  Helping Services staff, Bill Deutsch and Lynne Zoulek are facilitators for this program.  Amy Roling and the Parent Sub-group are helping promote the classes.  The next all VCC will be Focus on Family and the Parent SG will be very involved in planning for the evening.  They hope to get together some parenting tips for Halloween.  Amy has been in contact with the Clermont Neighborhood Watch Committee to help support each other.  The next newsletter may have an issue on the Neighborhood Watch group.  The parent sub-group is working on expanding their group to larger numbers.

2) Community Sub-group-Reported by Kathy Schwartzhoff.  The Youth Center was cleaned on 9/15.  It was fun and helpful to have so many helpers.  At the last SG meeting, we edited the newsletter.  This was very helpful to have so many people really look at words used, checking for errors, and making sure the newsletter was readable and eye-catching.  At our next meeting on October 14th, we will be discussing the Beverage Server Training, keg registration, and how to get businesses involved.  KUDOS to Tim Corkery who represented the Community SG at the SODA kick-off event on 9/5 and to Ed Gage who presented at the all VCC meeting in late August.  It was suggested to talk with 1919 root beer about the idea of having the yard signs say something about 1919 root beer KEGS instead of beer kegs.

3) Mentoring Sub-group-Jenni Elsbernd gave the report.  Listen to KCTN on 10/10, 10/17 and 10/24 as Malinda and Jenni have recorded a PSA to be aired during Valley home games.  During half-time on the 24th, a live interview will be done promoting mentoring, SODA, and the work of the Coalition.  KCTN is donating all costs of producing the PSA, which can be used as an in-kind donation.  It was suggested to contact KOEL as they do PSA’s too and have a community program.  KCTN’s donation needs to be documented in the newsletter.  The VCC is starting a very small mentoring program called Valley Mentoring Program funded through the Drug Free Communities grant.  The goal is to have 5 matches by the end of September; 2004.  Presently there are 3 mentors and two kids who are interested.  Mentors in this program are 17 and older.  Youth are 1st-5th graders.  The time commitment is 4-5 hours per month.  Jenni is implementing many great advertising tools.  She had table tents that promote mentoring and they will be distributed soon.  Newspaper ads have been running recently with people calling and referring to having seen the ad.  Help is needed for the Maize Maze on October 23, 25 and 26th from 6-10 p.m.  Things coming up for mentoring include: mentoring in-services, the mentoring sub-group meeting (Oct. 13), Halloween Party (Oct. 25), the Maize.  Jenni recently called the DOT to see if any highway miles were available along Highway 18 for the Adopt-A-Highway program.  Nothing is available at present.

4) the youth sub-group report was done later in the agenda.
B. Newsletter feedback-Kathy stated that she tried to work with the Elgin Echo to produce this newsletter, but it didn’t work.  She will be talking with Jeff Bradley about this more for the next issue as he was so reasonably priced and local.  The newsletter colored sections were printed at Copy Land in Decorah.  The insert sections copying was an in-kind donation by the Valley Community School District.  500 copies were done and were all used.  It was suggested to also check with the Elkader Register as they have done color copying.  Kathy and Amy will be working on the next issue collaboratively with input from all Sub-groups.  Jenni had a mentoring corner in the newsletter and hopes this will be a feature in each issue.   It was suggested that Parenting Tips could be on a Post IT page so they could be taken out and posted on the fridge or family bulletin board.

C. Financial Report-Dave Runyon reported on finances for the two large grants the Coalition has.  Drug Free Communities spent all $ 96,103.  89% of the SIG grant was spent and it is the understanding of Dave and Linda that any left over monies could be rolled over into the next years budget.  This information was given to them by Debbie Synhorst.  For the two grants the following amounts were spent:
      Personnel Expenses--$ 119,461.83
      Staff Training--              10,633.18
      Contracted Services--   17, 482. 12 Parent Share & Support, NE IA Mental Health Center
      Equipment--                     3,879.08
      Operating Expenses--   44,646.79*
         * Travel, Insurance, Office Supplies, Postage, Telephone, Program Materials  ( $ 13, 351 was under DFC only)
Kathy Reported on in-kind numbers.  In July, $ 7, 710.84 was collected.  In August, $ 9,985.19 was accumulated.  In September, $ 8,566.47 has been posted so far.  Kathy does not have everyone’s in-kind hours yet for September.  The Grand Total, so far is $ 80, 028.07.  We have $ 16,336.94 to go.  A few factors to consider is that Helping Services will be adding some dollars for match; SIG has only a $ 10,000 match and the last time Kathy checked they were at $ 8,000.  Any excess they have will be added to the DFC match needed.  Sharon reported that the Coalition checkbook has $ 3,183.58

D. 5th and 6th grade nights at the Youth Center-Sharon gave out a schedule for the Tobacco Prevention Activities.  The dates for 5th grade are:  10/9, 11/20, 12/ll, 1/15, 2/12, 3/11, 4/15.  6th grade times are:  10/16, 11/20, 12/18, 1/22, 2/29, 3/25, 4/22  Students arrive on the bus and participate in ISU Extension presentations, they enjoy the Youth Center, and have TJ’s pizza and pop.  Parents pick youth up at 6:00 p.m.  Sharon is coordinating parent volunteers.  Staff will rotate to help with the tobacco facilitation.
E. Supporting Players is the name of the Social Action Theatre group that was recently trained by Cornerstone Productions.  They will be presenting at the next all VCC meeting, during Red Ribbon Week at the school, and in Nov. in the 9th grade health classes.  Their first performance was less than a week after they were trained at MFL-Mar-Mac.  They did  an awesome job!!!  Sharon requested a few items they needed.   Kathy had purchased most of it with the DFC money left at the end of the year.  They did need 20 ½ “ to 1 “ binders to use to put skit information in.  Adults helping are:  Phyllis Gray (from Upward Bound), Julie Klein (from Decorah), Kelly Luzum, and Sharon Rich.  They are practicing once per month at the Youth Center and once per month at the school.  Supporting players do NOT have to be SODA members.  SP requested a budget of
$ 50/month with $ 300/ year coming from Coalition funds  and $ 300 coming from DFC funds.  Any donations received from community groups would reduce the amount taken out of Coalition funds.  There were 8 students trained and 3 additional students have joined.

F. Turn in your volunteer hours to Kathy!  She really needs them!!!

G. Youth Sub-group report-There will be a Haunted House in Postville at Turner Hall 10/30-11/1 from 5-7 p.m. Admission is $ 3.  The Snow Ball will be held Jan. 3.  A student contacted a DJ.  It was decided to have the Coalition pay for the DJ ($ 240 for 4 hours), and rental of the Elgin Legion Hall ($ 50).  The Corn Maze is being done collaborating with mentoring.  Helpers are needed on Sat. 10/11 at 10 a.m. to help decorate.  SODA membership now has 60 new forms.  Youth have been contacting Malinda to get signed-up.  A form will be sent home with each 7-12 grade student.  On Jan. 12th, SODA will work with 4-H and do sleigh rides and sledding.  This may be held at Country Heritage.  Malinda will talk to Dave Runyon about sleigh riding.  A question was raised regarding if sleigh riders should be offered a stipend.  Dave suggested asking if the sleigh driver would like to have a donation made to a charity on their behalf.  SODA students are working on going to Coral Ridge in February and checking into Planet X doing laser tag.  All Stars will begin 10/21 for 14 weeks and runs from 6-7:30 p.m.  Parent letters are going out, presentations are being done in classrooms.  The West Clermont Church has agreed to host All Stars and Pastor Arley has agreed to host future All Stars events.  The Get A Grip Leadership workshop was excellent.  SODA is working with Student Council to get the speaker from Get A Grip, Craig Hillier.  Eli Pollack, Tonya Lehmann, and Amy Pfister have agreed to do the leg work at the school.  We would like Craig to do a school assembly and a community presentation.  Malinda asked about what to do next with the logo.  It was decided to let the community and parent sub-groups work with this idea.  It was suggested that bumper stickers might be made saying “Proud parent of SODA student!” On 11/22 SODA students are reviewing the SODA membership forms.  It was suggested that future registrations could have a checklist of things they are interested in to help with and get them involved right away.

Other information:  Denise Strudhoff is the new webmaster so folks should get information to her.  Sharon asked about domain insurance which runs at $ 85 for 5 years.  That was recommended.  Northeast Iowa Mental Health gave a report on the cost of having Kim Havens at VCSD.  Through the DFC grant, Kim will be at the school on Fridays only through December.  It costs $ 495/day to have Kim in the schools.  It was shared that Kim is a very valuable asset to the work of the Coalition and helping youth and families.  Cathy shared she will check into school funds to see if additional days can be purchased.  It was suggested that through the all VCC email and the work of various Coalition members, that we work with businesses and individuals to determine the interest in purchasing days for Kim’s work.  Linda shared that Bill Deutsch is presenting about the work of the Coalition at the Fayette County Board of Health today.  Sharon will check into CADCA membership.