Briefs: Become a voter registrar

In preparation for the upcoming presidential election, the Cook County clerk and township clerks are offering training sessions on becoming a deputy registrar and registering others to vote. Deputy registrars must be registered voters, be 18 years old by Nov. 4, obtain training and be sponsored by a registered school, corporation or state, civic or labor organization. For details, go to voterinfonet.com, then click on "Register" and then "Deputy Registrar," or contact Jonathan Williams, manager of community service in the elections, division, at (312) 603-0987 or jowilli@cookcountygov.com. For information on which sponsoring agencies are able to submit your name to be a deputy registrar, call the county clerk's office at (312) 603-0906. In Palatine Township, deputy registrar training sessions start this month and run through August.

Youth services fundraiser

To raise funds for its outreach, prevention and counseling programs, Barrington Youth and Family Services is hosting a gala this weekend. The event, whose theme is A Night Under the Big Top, is scheduled for 6:30 p.m. Saturday at the Barrington Hills Country Club. Tickets are $175. The gala will feature both live and silent auctions and a tableside raffle. Prizes include jewelry, hotel stays, trips to South Carolina and Wyoming and gift certificates for local restaurants and salons. Ron Bedal will provide live music. For more information or tickets, contact Terri Gehr at (847) 381-0345 or Nicole Jacobsen at (847) 212-1685.

Elgin hearing delayed

A hearing on whether Elgin city leaders should annex a 139-acre golf course for future homes was continued Wednesday night to April 23 because council members didn't have all the transcripts to review the plan. The Villa Olivia land has been the source of much debate. The owners want to leave Bartlett and sell to a developer to build 96 single family homes and 279 townhouses. But a judge has ruled a covenant forbidding redevelopment until 2022 is valid. The matter is now in appellate court and a decision is expected later this year.

Central School work noted

The Mount Prospect Historical Society's work to raise money to preserve Central School, a one-room schoolhouse built in 1896, will be recognized by the Illinois State Historical Society at the annual awards luncheon on April 26. From partnerships with local banks to an original oral history video program, the society has reached out in creative ways. The society sent out three 24,000-piece mailings, worked with the village of Mount Prospect to include a pullout page in the village newsletter and used online data sources and commercial data collection groups to target parts of the regional population. Some of the highlights of this campaign included celebrity signatures, from John McCain to Bill Cosby, on pictures of the schoolhouse that were auctioned off.

Nature 'open house' today

Several area conservation groups are hosting an Open House for Nature, at 7 p.m. today at Countryside Elementary School, 205 West County Line Road, Barrington Hills. The event celebrates five years of restoration work at the Spring Creek Forest Preserve in the Barrington and Carpentersville area. Citizens for Conservation, Audubon, Friends of Spring Creek Forest Preserve, Spring Creek Stewards and the Cook County Forest Preserve District are sponsoring the event, which will feature presentations and displays on progress that's been made at Spring Creek. The program also will include demonstrations from a variety of experts, including mappers, frog monitors, brush cutters, prescribed burners, seed growers and planters, bird callers, weed whackers and chain sawers.