President’s Message – January 2024

Presidents Message

From the Top of the Rock Pile .   .   .   .   .   .

I thank our membership for electing me as Club President for another two years. I am so looking forward to what 2024 holds for our club.

We have a great group of members who have volunteered for the Board and various 2024 Gem Show positions. I want to extend a personal thank you to each of you.

After a long search, we have filled two essential volunteer positions. Alex Williams has volunteered to handle our YouTube channel. We will once again have new content posted to our channel. Jim Cerenzie is very active in searching out and preserving our club history. If you have any history, please get in touch with Jim to see if he has a record of it.

Our young Tumblers Club is active. Hopefully, more of our Young Tumblers will decide to participate in the club and earn Rockhounding Badges. If you are active in the badge program, the CMS will buy you a rockhounding vest for badges and field trips. I am still looking for a Mom or Dad to volunteer to help me with the program.

We have closed out 2023 with a membership of 145 families or 288 individuals — a recent milestone for our club. Welcome to our club, and I hope you renew your membership for 2024.

Thank you to Roger Danneman for his excellent job leading our field trips every month. Our field trips are one of our most attended club events.

Our monthly meeting attendance continues to grow back to the pre-pandemic levels. Since we have a growing membership, I hope more of our members decide to attend our monthly meeting. The larger our meeting attendance is each month, the easier it is to book quality speakers.

I look forward to seeing everyone at our January meeting.

Kat Koch, President

Updated: January 5, 2024 — 7:44 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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