A meeting of Washington Agate and Mineral Society (WAMS) was held at First Baptist Church of Lacey on Tuesday, November 1, 2022 from 7:00 PM – 8:10 PM
Call to order: President Bryan Tallman called the meeting to order at 7:02 PM
Attendees: 17 in attendance
Agenda: Announcements, new business, old business, show and tell, break, program
Announcements:
The election of new board members is postponed until January. We will need to elect a President as well as Vice President. If anyone is interested in one of these positions please volunteer.
Last show of the year as far as I know
Fall Festival of Gems – 11/19/2022
- Start Date: 11/19/2022
- End Date: 11/20/2022
- Hours: 10:00 – 5:00
- Address: 1200 NW Fairgrounds Rd, Kitsap County Fairgrounds – The President’s Hall, Bremerton, WA 98311
- Website: https://www.kmgsrockclub.com/
- Types: Rock & Mineral Shows
Christmas party:
- When: 6:00 PM, December 6, 2022
- Where: First Baptist Church of Lacey
- What to bring: potluck (finger foods, side dishes-potato salad, “snacks and such”, deserts, cookies, fudge, banana bread…along with crackers, cheese, salami.) drinks
- What else to bring: The Christmas spirit and rocks for show and tell
- Gifts for exchange: can be rocks, can be something purchased,
Old business: No old business
New business: The club now has an Instagram account: @wamsolympia is the handle or name. Please visit and if you want to make a post you must contact Audrey for the password. We encourage you to post photos of your favorite rocks or anything rock related.
Daniel has volunteered to start us a Facebook group page and post meetings as events.
Gretchen mentioned there is a lapidary instructor in Tacoma/Spanaway that gives classes on faceting and asked would anyone care to join her in attending? There is a fee for the classes ($20-$30?), and he also offers to facet your gems at a reasonable price.
Show and Tell:
- Casandra- rocks that looked and felt like basalt, from a trip to the Midwest, Duluth Minnesota, and Lake Superior
- Bryan- Actinolite from Blueth Pass, WA, small rhodonite and pyrite specimens in tiny little jars, and a large jasper for the yard.
- Jerry- samples of rhodochrosite form Argentina
- Wendi- polished beach finds from the upper North West Olympic peninsula
- Kathleen- two very nice clam fossils that self admittedly were bought and not found
- Mark- pocket rocks, agates and whatnot
- Bob- favorite agate and petrified wood specimens with polished windows to the insides of them
- Christina- cut thunder egg from a collection of world travelers, wanted to know specifically what it was
- Sandy (new member)- lots of green rocks from the beach trying to get an identification of what they are. It’s hard to precisely ID green rocks.
Raffle: there were 10 drawings and ten prizes to give away; please bring items for raffle prizes
BREAK and Silent auction: the silent auction made $14; bring items for silent auction
Program: Bryan gave a short lecture on the basics of rock tumbling. He explained the different grits and polishes which are the crucial component to shaping and getting the rocks to shine. There were a lot of questions: how long should I stay in each stage? What should I do with the rock slurry after they’re done tumbling?; DO NOT POUR DOWN DRAIN! Why are there different types of polishes? What are the differences between a rotary tumbler and a vibratory tumbler? There seemed to be a fair amount of interest in tumbling.
Meeting adjourned at 8:10 PM
Approval of minutes: The Secretary, Doug Shank approved the minutes