As I write my second Chair's message I am trying to recall everything that we have done this past summer within the Illinois Section. It has been a very active summer with planning of technical seminars to be held later this year.

First of all Jim Kerrigan, Greeley and Hansen, did a great job of organizing the YP Event at Top Flight Golf Academy. Thanks for all of your hard work.

Illinois Section will be participating in World Wide Monitoring Day, thanks to Roger Gyger, Public Education Chair and we have purchased several kits for distribution. We are excited to have a couple more groups to distribute the kits to so our participation continues to grow.

Jim Huchel, City of Crystal Lake and his Operations Committee have their annual Operations Seminar September 7, 2011 at the Thorn Creek Basin Sanitary District. This year's event will be unique pitting the engineers versus the operators when troubleshooting operational problems within the plant. Attend this event to see who comes out on top.

Laboratory Chair Mary Dressel, from Downers Grove Sanitary District and Industrial Pretreatment Chair Randy Patchett from Burns and McDonnell are working on the speakers for a Technical Program in mid November. Stay tuned for a specific date and location.

Also, coming in November is the Safety and Maintenance seminar held at the City of Naperville, Illinois. Doc Burke of Chesterton and Gary Scott of the GlenBard Wastewater Authority are working on a program that will be hard not to attend.

Moving forward in the Illinois Section we previously stated our goal was to grow our committee rosters to strengthen our Section. It does take some effort and commitment to make this work. Our next goal is to get more people involved and attend one of the technical programs we offer. There is no better way to promote your profession than to get involved in Section activities. It is a great way to share your skills, knowledge, meet new friends and have a lot of fun along the way. The more people we have involved the easier the task becomes (typically the better the party too).

We look forward to seeing as many of you as we can at WEFTEC in Los Angles.