First off, a huge thank you to everyone who was able to be a part of Saturdays Ribbon Cutting Ceremony. We enjoyed nice weather, a respectable turnout from our membership and some favorable news coverage about the event. wics/news/top-stories/stories/vid_18221.shtml The next meeting for the Child Support Advisory Committee will be Monday September 8th both in Downtown Chicago and Springfield. The exact addresses will be included in a later newsletter. Divorce Corp is a documentary which provides a scathing account of the divorce industry. One of the first things we will be doing at our new Illinois Fathers office location is to schedule a free showing of Divorce Corp. Stay tuned for more details. Another thing planned for our new location is a class to teach our members how to go Pro Se in their cases. The Pro Se class would even be a huge help to members who hire lawyers. The more we all know about the workings of the legal system, the better. On Saturday December 6th, Illinois Fathers members will meet in downtown Chicago at an exact location to be named later. The purpose for this meeting/event will be for us to stand on street corners and hand out Illinois Fathers Tri-Folds to pedestrians. We will be providing wearable signs that identify us as Illinois Fathers, which should make us more approachable for the pedestrians. The purpose of this Tri-Fold handout effort is to increase awareness about Illinois Fathers and also to increase our membership. btw - our membership is currently approaching 500. The more members we have, the more potential we have for donations, the more potential we have for attendance at our events and the more people we have helping out the effort. Watch for more details as the December 6th date approaches. Getting back to the Illinois Fathers office, oftentimes when Illinois Fathers members are asked to contribute, the standard response is that they cant due to what the court has done to them financially. If just half of our membership donated $ 1 a month, (yes $ 1 a month), it would go a long way towards paying the monthly rent of the new Illinois Fathers location. We fully understand what takes place in the courts, we understand that child support orders can oftentimes be outlandish, retainer fees for attorneys are extreme and often get us nowhere, etc. etc. We know. We have heard it all and we have lived it ourselves. However, I would think a lot of the members reading this CAN afford to donate $ 1 a month. For those of you who have not contributed before, please consider taking the time to do an automatic $ 1 monthly donation to Illinois Fathers. Steven Westerfield President Illinois Fathers
Posted on: Thu, 24 Jul 2014 12:22:21 +0000