July 5th, 2012 Newsletter

Announcements
(notes courteous of the distinguished gentleman from Connecticut, Ed Perry)

With Chuck as our leader this morning, the meeting started with a standing ovation for past president Bruce for his year of leadership and service.  Thank you Bruce!Speaking of Chuck, the meeting went swiftly, notwithstanding the awkward moments.  If this is what a Chuck-led dictatorship looks like then things probably won’t be too bad.  Fortunately we have a year of President Jeff before Chuck’s reign begins.Jan introduced our guests who included past club president Kathie Spegal and guest Brian Miller.  Brian recently moved to the area and is checking out potential Rotary clubs to join.

Coletta noted that the program committee is getting the speakers lined up for the new Rotary year and if you know of someone who would make an interesting speaker to please contact her.

Program

Del Ryan, Drug Court Coordinator, presented information about the Drug Court of Champaign County. The Drug Court is a specialty court that manages drug abuse cases through comprehensive supervision, drug testing,  and treatment. While dealing with individuals with a drug-related felony, drug courts have been shown to reduce drug use and its related crimes and are much more cost effective than traditional criminal justice methods.

The current drugs that are active in Champaign County include Heroin, which currently can be bought for less than a pack of cigarettes, prescription drugs ,synthetic drugs and “candy weed”. Del noted that the success of the Drug Court is also directly related to getting the person active in lifestyle changes dealing with education, jobs and volunteering. The Champaign County Drug Court started in 1999 and currently 48 high risk individuals are in the program. A recent survey shows that out of 174 graduates of the program in a four year period only 18 have returned to crime. For further information and ways you can help please contact dryan@prairie-center.com.

Special Note

The Rotary Club of Irvine (CA) has a revamped website that now includes ways of doing make-up meetings online.  See this link (http://www.irvinerotary.org/programs/Polio-Series) for information on polio eradication, or this link (http://www.irvinerotary.org/programs/what-is-rotary) for information on the basics of Rotary.

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