January President’s Message

Happy 68th Anniversary CMS!

January 13th is the 68th anniversary of the first club meeting. The club was called “Sebac Mineralogical Society” and the meeting was held in the T-102 Building on Ellis Avenue. “Sebac” was an abbreviation of “Seattle Boeing Airplane Company”.

We will be serving an anniversary cake and refreshments at our January 12th meeting. So be sure to attend the meeting and celebrate. I feel we should be proud that our club is still going strong and growing on our 68th anniversary.

As I sit here writing and looking back on 2016, I feel it has been good year for our Club.

We have tried several new events to get better exposure for our club and new members. Mark Hohn also built us a new website which has dramatically increased traffic and inquiries about our club. End results is that we did increase our membership.

I want to thank several of our Board of Director Members for their long and dedicated service to our club. Bob & Jacqui Pattie, Rich Russell and Pete Williams have served on our Board, in some capacity, for many years since the 1970’s. We owe a lot of our clubs continuing success to them.

We also have several long time members (some also since the 1970’s) that have been very supportive and active members. They continue to volunteer on various projects when needed. A special thanks to Dick and Keith Morgan, Roger Pullen, Stan Loreen, Bob & Linda Wahlberg, Bev Williams, Mike Blanton, Tony Johnson and Diana Horsfall. If I have left someone out I am so very sorry, it’s an unintentional oversight.

Thank you to everyone that has volunteered at the Puyallup Fair and Gem Fair booths. It was a big committment on the part of our club and I sincerely appreciated your help.

In 2017 I will be again committing our club to doing the Puyallup Fair and the Gem Fairs. So again I will be looking for volunteers to help at our booths.

We are continuing to seek a location to put on a club Gem & Rock Show in 2018. I am also continuing to seek a indoor location for our lapidary shop. If you have any location ideas for the Board to check out please let me know.

Kat Koch, CMS President

Updated: January 14, 2017 — 12:01 pm

Presidents Message

  • From the Top of the Rock Pile Our annual club picnic went off great. The grass and Arboretum area was not wet or muddy, plus it didn’t rain while we were there. We had the usual club members attend, plus a few new faces. I forgot to count how many people attended, but I estimate around 40. Thank you, Angie and Brian, for shopping for the food and setting everything up. Thumbler’s Tumblers donated a tumbler for our picnic auction and another one for our holiday auction in December. The new double-barreled 15# tumbler sold for $120, approximately one-third the …

Meeting Announcements

  • We are going to show a video of the most unusual and amazing things found in Amber. It isn’t just insects. We are also going to have a recap of how our Gem Show did last month. Show ‘n Tell: An item that has something trapped inside or a picture rock, thunder egg, or geode that looks like it has an insect, animal, or face inside.

  • Maureen will speak on the geology and the movement of the Washington coastline over millions of years. Show ‘n Tell: Favorite rock or mineral from Washington

  • Glen Ripper is a leading authority on Obsidian. He is a walking encyclopedia which should make this an interesting and educational meeting. Show ‘n Tell: Obsidian – let’s see your colors.

  •   We start the day off with a potluck holiday meal. The club provides roasted turkey and ham. Members fill in with their favorite holiday potluck dish. We follow our meal with the election of officers for the coming year. Our final activity is our club auction. It is a great time to pick up great bargains on rough rocks, polished rocks, slabs, fossils, opal, etc. Our Young Tumblers can use their Rock Bucks to purchase auction items. This meeting is also our semi-annual food drive for the Kent Food Bank. Please remember to bring something. The Food Bank has informed us that they need feminine hygiene products and grape or strawberry jelly. People donate loads of peanut butter but never jelly. They also receive very few donations of feminine hygiene products.

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