President’s Message – March 2024

From the Top of the Rock Pile

Our Gem Show is on June 29th and 30th, with set-up on June 28th. Roger is looking for volunteers, so be prepared to help when he calls or emails you.

We need a volunteer to ensure all the signs we need inside the venue are made and printed. We also need a volunteer to order street signs for our new location, place them before the show, and take them down. Then I am looking for a volunteer to take charge of the club sales table and set up the sales table.

We need tumble rocks for the spinning wheel and free rocks for the kids attending our show. So, if you are tumbling, please remember to tumble for the show. We need stones that are at least 1″ in size.

We have received donations of cut and polished geodes for the kids door prizes, selenite, hematite and mineral sample cards for the club sales table. Thank you!

We continue to get new members every week. Welcome to our club! To our members who have yet to renew this year, please visit our website and renew your membership online. If you attend a meeting, you can pay your dues with a check, cash, or credit card.

If you are a new member, please come up and introduce yourself. I look forward to meeting you.

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. Roger has posted his planned field trip itinerary for 2024 on our website. Be sure to check it out.

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

I look forward to seeing everyone at our March meeting.

Kat Koch, President

Updated: September 8, 2024 — 4:35 pm

Presidents Message

  • Digging It!  Thanks to everyone who came to the club camp out at Teanaway campground near Cle Elum last month. After a brief spell of rain the first night, we were blessed with sun, clear skies, and rockhounding the rest of the weekend. And a big thanks to Roger Danneman for doing all of the trip organizing, and keeping us all warm and well fed during the weekend. This month I’ll be giving a talk at our club meeting about how to use Gaia for rockhounding. If you have specific questions, please bring them along or feel free to email …

Meeting Announcements

  • Noelle Barnes will present Using Gaia for Rockhounding, an overview of the features and tricks associated with the app Gaia and how you can use it for GPS, saving waypoints, navigation, photo tagging, trail recording and more. Show and Tell: Bring the rock(s) that have the best “story” – and tell everyone how you found them and where!

  • Club board member Paul Ahnberg will talk to us about the impact of wildfires on our lives – from protecting your home to staying safe while out rockhounding – and what we can do today to help mitigate our risk. Paul will combine his knowledge gained from learning at both the WSU Green School (Master Gardener) and WSU Climate Steward programs. Show and Tell: Bring something you found, from a place that you know has since been impacted by floods or wildfires – or was impacted shortly before you arrived. Tell your story!

  • December’s date and time is coming soon. We will update this page as soon as we know more.

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