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

  • Many of our members may recognize Tom as a vendor from our gem show and many other shows. His booth is “A Point in Time.” His presentation will focus on regional archaeology and how it relates to geology, paleontology, astronomy, and more. He promises to be a “traveling museum of prehistoric artifacts,” many of which can be passed around! He is always so interesting to stand at his show booth and listen to him talk. This meeting will be fascinating and hands-on. Show and Tell: A fossil of any type.

  • Our wagonmaster, Roger, will go over the field trips he has planned for this year, including samples of what you can find at each location.   Show and Tell: Your Best Rock Find Of Last Year.

  • We’re still developing the 2026 calendar of events, but we know one thing for sure – our March general meeting will happen on the 12th at 7pm. We hope to see you there! Show and Tell: also coming soon!

  • Come one, come all and play ROCK BINGO! With schools out for many local school districts, we invite members, guests, and especially families and kids to come and enjoy one of our most fun nights of the year. Everyone is guaranteed to win at this FREE event! All you have to do is bring three wrapped presents – presents can be rocks, gems, minerals, crystals, fossils, cabochons, slabs, jewelry, tumbled stones – anything you think might be a nice gift for a rock enthusiast. 

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