Another surprise of the day was seeing Dawn Weil who was going to march with us despite being on crutches. Sadly, we couldn't catch up with Dawn at our assigned spot. Thanks Dawn. We appreciate your willingness to join us and were sorry we couldn't contact you to let you know our situation around lineup time. Check out the pics on our upgraded website. We'll also have pics of the recent Greek Festival and the Juvenile Diabetes Walk in Seaside Heights before long as well.

Speaking of which, most of our meeting concerned the upgrade of our Web site as Laura and Jeff explained all the bells and whistles on what will be a great way to showcase the club and will be easy to use. Jeff will be able to explain it better than I can but it looks fantastic and officially went on line during the meeting.

We also discussed our options of location for our Oct. 11, 2008 anniversary party. Those plans were finalized later in the week and are quite exciting. This will be a very fitting celebration for our 20th anniversary. A post featuring more details on the party is forthcoming.

Another matter that needed to be finalized was the choice of XO. Flt. Capt. David Singleton has been our interim XO as he was our 2nd officer. Engineering Chief Capt. Jeff Victor had also offered to serve as XO. I deliberated long on the issue and felt that for the long term of the ship it would be best that Dave remain as 2nd officer and that Jeff serve as XO. I think the three of us can make a great team in this capacity and it also will work for what will be a busy year of planning for the 20th anniversary and other changes slated for the chapter.  My thanks to both of them for continuing to work for the chapter and to make things enjoyable as head towards our 20th anniversary year, which in a sense starts in January.

A big thanks also goes out to Laura Victor who designed the look of the new Web site. Jeff made things work in it but Laura did the creative design work and has made it look fantastic. Thanks for all your work Laura on the upgrade of the site.

Our Halloween Party will be held at the bungalow at 202 8th Ave. Ortley Beach NJ and will start at 7 p.m. Come in costume, bring at least $10 for pizza (shouldn't be that much but just in case) and come and join us for a "Night of Fright" as we screen movies, check out our costumes and have fun. For more details call (732) 830-3262.

My best to all of you. Two of our couples marked/will mark anniversaries this month. Jeff and Laura celebrated their anniversary with a trip to Las Vegas and visited the expanded ST Experience. On Oct. 31, Kathleen and Pat Comune will observe their anniversary. Next Sunday marks Emily's birthday. Jeff and Julie Victor observed their birthdays earlier this month and celebrated this weekend.

Great seeing you Dawn.  I wish we could have met up Karen (who visited Ocean County with her husband Randy last weekend as well) but I'm sure we will soon.

Have a great week!