Cascade Mineralogical Society

From the Top of the Rock Pile .  .  .  .  Let’s all hope 2021 is a better year. The Board has agreed to try and have an online general meeting. I don’t know  the topic or speaker we may have as the meeting is presently in the planning stage. I am working on putting together a meeting for February 11, Thursday at 7 pm. Check the website for more information and your emails for the link to join us. Make sure emails from the club are not going to your junk email. If all goes well, we will have …

The General Meeting for March will be an online Zoom meeting on March 11th at 7 pm. We have 2 topics this month. Roger will give a brief talk about our first field trip of 2021. Let us hope the snows and weather cooperate so we can all go rock hounding. Then our club member, Terri Gerard, will show us a video she has made of her sphere collection. She has over 70 spheres. She has selected a few of her favorites to show us plus her malachite egg. Then she has a new collection she has just starting to build. She has an indoor waterfall and she is collecting very nicely carved rock frogs to place around her fountain.The link for the meeting will be in your email around the first week of March. Everyone stay home and be safe. If you have to go out be sure to wear a mask. Hopefully we will see each other in-person by spring. In order to attend a Zoom meeting you need to download the app no matter what type of device you are on. Then setup an account for yourself. Now here is where the good part comes in where you can make yourself look awesome! There are filters that make you look better on camera. Here is how you access them: Sign into your Zoom account. Click on your profile picture. Click the Background & Filters tab. Click the Video Filters tab. Select the desired beauty filter. The filters can smooth out your complexion, adjust your lighting, give you a background of your choosing, etc. You can try several of them and keep the one you like best. Zoom will now keep this setting for all Zoom sessions. You can always go back into the settings at any time and change the filter. Now let’s all jump in with both feet and attend our March general meeting!

The Board has voted that for 2021 our annual dues is just $15 for your entire family. So please renew your membership if you have not done so. Even though we currently can not have club meetings in person we are making every effort to keep our club running smoothly. We are still providing you with our monthly club newsletter. Our field trips are continuing as soon as the snows melt so check the website, be sure to read our monthly “Tumbler” and register for automatic notification of our next adventures. On field trips we will require 6 ft distancing and no carpooling other than with your immediate family. Our “Young Tumblers” can continue to work on their badge of choice. All the badges you can earn is under the Young Tumblers link on this website. It’s a great time to concentrate on earning 1 or more badges.