The Bitterroot Conglomerate SEPTEMBER Volume XXXVI Issue 9

September has arrived and with it Fall. Our field trip season is almost over, we still have one scheduled trip over to Lincoln to go and there's still time to find more rocks. With Fall also comes the Officer Elections. We need a nomination committee of three members at the September Meeting, the nominating committee will need to prepare and present a list of candidates for the positions of President, Vice President, Secretary, Treasurer and Two Board Members to the Board prior to the November meeting and then present them to the membership at the November meeting. Further nominations will be sought at the November meeting and we will vote at the November meeting. Any member that has been in the club and in good standing for a least one year may run for any office. Any candidate for office can but is not required to address the general membership at The September Meeting and make a statement in the newsletter, (limited to 100 words), of qualifications, experience and reason(s) for desiring to serve. We also have a lot of 1-2 member committees that need filled by our January Meeting.  

Submitted by, 

Ed Kubu

Acting President 

The meeting was called to order by President Faith Farley at 6:32 p.m., who then led us in the Pledge of Allegiance.  

Faith Farley also gave the treasurer’s report since Wayne Farley was not there at the time of the report.  A motion was made by Deb Strickland to approve the treasurer’s report and the July minutes.  Kathy Meuchel seconded and the motion was approved by all.   

Faith wanted to inform members about the club benefits they are currently receiving for their dues.  She stated the following:  
"This club charges only $10 annual dues (per individual) and we have purchased name tags free to each member who pay their dues and then have their name carved on it without cost by our member Dar Williams.  If her machine breaks or she stops carving for our club, we will add that cost to the name tags.  We have just purchased vests for each member who wants one at $6.36 a vest without cost to the member.  Not to mention the amount we pay this church for the room or what we pay in liability insurance for our field trips.  I want you to realize that we have the money in our account due to the annual rock show we put on and that the minimal dues don’t even begin to cover what this club has purchased for each member.  With that said, most will not even wear the vest or name tag.  Something to think about!"   

Deb Strickland mentioned that we have a scholarship fund for $750.  If no one applies for the scholarship, then a check is written to the Butte School of Mines.  That is just another expenditure that the club covers.  

Deb Strickland also reported on the board findings regarding Don Tibbs’ motion and vote regarding the club covering the cost of the patches for members.  The board went through all the minutes and could not find the motion or approval.  Don Tibbs can put another motion forward in the near future.  We all need to be careful about being quiet when a motion is made so everyone can hear!   

The club made $249.50 at the summer picnic and auction.    

OLD BUSINESS  
Faith would like to explain the reasons for signing in.  We need enough members to sign in to constitute a quorum, we also need you to sign in if you want us to track you so you can receive your honorary membership.  

She noticed that we canceled Daly Days last year and we only were able to do it this year due to five members.  Thanks to Kristin Martinez, Ed Kubu, Bill and Kathy Meuchels, and Parnelli.  She thanked them for giving of their time and equipment to get this put together.  We do this to put our club out there to the public and to be a visible part of the community and explain what this club is about.  We may need to re-visit this for next year and see if it is an event we still want to participate in.    

We then had a discussion about other ways of getting our club’s name out to the public.  Several suggestions were made to replace Daly Days with the Farmer’s Market, Apple Days, and/or posting more photos on our Facebook page.  Club members would then need to share those posts with their friends for this method to be effective.   

Kristin Martinez thanked all the volunteers for help with Daly Days, especially Ed Kubu.  

Faith thanked Bill and Kathy Meuchel for hosting the summer picnic.  Everyone had a great time!  
 

No one is at the college at present.  Faith will follow-up with them later this year.  

Wayne Farley has thousands of books he can donate to the college and she will let them know.   
Faith announced that Wayne Farley contacted her and has stepped down permanently and immediately.  Faith will now fill the treasurer position and Ed Kubu will act as president until the November elections.  This makes our nominations this year very important as there are more positions open than have been in recent years.  We need a nomination committee.  They collect nominations for any office and let the Board know the list.  The Board then makes sure that the nominations are members in good standing and approves them for the club to vote on.  We will vote on the nominations at our October general meeting.  Then they will be announced in November and be sworn in at our December Christmas potluck.  The following positions are open:  
President, Vice-President, Treasurer, Federation Director (Darrell Coyle has been appointed immediately; the Federation show is in October in Lewiston, ID), Federation Delegate, Two Board member positions, and Website Master(Heidi Gordon volunteered to be the new Webmaster).  Faith Farley created and ran the website for 3 years.  We also need someone to do the junior program once a month.  Pat Tibbs will be doing the paperwork for the junior club.  
NOTE:  Anyone can “put their names in the hat” for any of the positions!  

Deb Strickland wanted to give presentations to those who helped her on the show committee this year:  Faith Farley, Beverly Gibson, Darrell Coyle, and Ed Kubu.  Also, thanks to Margaret Sharp for doing the show potluck.  Several people stepped up and helped such as Bill and Kathy Meuchel.  Thanks also to Tommy Burge for doing the geode station, Stephanie Couch for doing the raffle table, Bob Gibson for doing the display cases, and Ed Kubu for doing the kid’s table.  Thanks to all the committee!!  

Kristin Martinez reminded everyone that Terry Hicks is selling his lapidary equipment due to cancer.  An email was sent out with his info to members with his phone number in the last newsletter. 

 
  NEW BUSINESS  
Ed Kubu is immediately taking over as president and Faith Farley is treasurer.   

Wayne Farley gave President Ed Kubu a (hard copy) history of the club.  Thanks to Wayne for your many years of service to the club!  Thanks also to Sharlene for her many years of being our club hostess!  

Don Tibbs made a motion that the club reduce the amount of the dues to $5 for an individual and $10 for families.  A discussion ensued.  The by-laws need to be reviewed and updated.  Deb Strickland asked Don Tibbs to be on the by-laws committee and he said he was willing.  We discussed the need to be careful how funds are spent as a non-profit club. The dues for our club are already quite low.  We also discussed the club having scholarships for kid’s that can’t afford the dues.    
A motion was made by Wayne Farley and seconded by Deb Strickland that a hardship dues clause (for potential members) be added to our by-laws: $10 per family and $5 per individual.  The motion was approved.    

Field Trips:   Jim Hudspeth and Ed Kubu are not available to go to Billings for the field trip (August 22nd-26th).  Someone needs to take over the lead or we need to cancel. There didn’t seem to be much interest for this trip during the meeting so it will probably be canceled unless Jim or Ed hears from someone in the next week. If anyone has any ideas for field trips, please let Jim or Ed know.  Also, if your email address has expired, please give Jim your new address if you want to get field trip information.  

President Ed Kubu mentioned that we can make the winter holiday Lewis and Clark Caverns Candlelight Tour that runs 2 weekends in December our club member paid trip for the year.  The days available would be December 20-22, or 27-29.  The star garnet area (Emerald Creek) is closed because the vein ran out and a new road is being built.  So we can’t do the star garnet trip for our paid trip this year as we had originally decided.  It should be open next year.    
A motion was made by Deb Strickland and seconded by Heidi Gordon to make the Lewis and Clark Caverns Candlelight Tour our paid club field trip for this year.  A vote was taken and the motion was approved.  Wayne Farley says that the many of the cave formations fluoresce.  Take your shortwave blacklight!  

Faith Farley mentioned that Wayne Farley has generously offered his equipment for the club.  He has a dozen pieces of equipment to donate.  Much discussion ensued as to what to do with the equipment.  We currently do not have a building to put it in and liability insurance is very high.  Darci Rainey will contact other clubs to see how they handle use of equipment for club members.  A liability waiver does not cover the club’s liability in the state of Montana.  We tabled this item for now until we do some research.    

Wayne Farley gave Faith Farley a book on amber for her years of service to the club.  Thank you Faith and Wayne!  

Our 50/50 winner was Marge Ciolkosz.  

A motion was made by Kathy Meuchel to adjourn the meeting at 8:08 p.m. and was seconded by Deb Strickland.  Passed.

The evening’s program:  Kathy Meuchel taught a class on wire-wrapping for those interested.  It was a great class and we all learned a lot!  Next month Doug Klieger will be here to give a presentation.    

Respectfully submitted,  

Dana Jong, Secretary    

New & Returning Members:

Please remember to introduce yourself to the new members.

Program Committee:

Scholarship Committee:

We have received no applications for our $750 scholarship this year.

Show Committee:

No Report

Sunshine Committee:

No Report. 

MT Council Report:

No Report.

 For Sale
 

Owner of Joshua Lapidary in Stevensville, Terry Hicks, is very ill and is told he only has three months to live. He has ask our club to run this information to help him out.  
ALL SAWS AND LAPIDARY EQUIPMENT FOR SALE!  LOTS AND LOTS OF ROCKS FOR SALE!  
  Please call 777-0529 or 214-5816 if interested.