A meeting of Washington Agate & Mineral Society (WAMS) was held at First Baptist Church of Lacey on Tuesday, April 4, 2023 from 6:35 PM – 8:40 PM
Call to order: The meeting was called to order at 6:35 PM by the President, Jim Sachet.
Attendees: 17 in attendance
Agenda: business, show and tell, break, program, announcements
Jim Sachet gave a special eulogy in honor of Bryan Tallman acknowledging our past president for all the wisdom and joy of rock collecting he passed on to other Rockhounds from many rock clubs.
Business:
1. Making changes to the newsletter; adding new features, Notes From the President or someone with a strong message they would like to convey to everyone, and suggestions for articles. Must remove website links that do not work, and commercial links that we are not affiliated with in any way. Maybe add a section for selling or advertising a small business.
2. Continuing to make improvements to the website: conduct personal interviews and post them with photos, Link our InstaGram account to Facebook and to the website.
3. Programs: Assign someone as manager of the programs and create a 6 month program calendar. A program could include workshop tours, a guest speaker, “how-to-do” tutorials, show educational videos.
4. How to build WAMS membership after it being disrupted by the pandemic. Get the word out to people by; business cards at shows, posting flyers at local businesses, having a club booth with information and maybe an exhibit at more events like the Lacey Fun Fair, presentations at schools, finding access to lapidary equipment. Contacting Panorama City about allowing our club members to use their equipment.
5. Is it time to increase the cost of dues from $5 to $10? It will have to be voted on by the club.
Show and Tell:
Sandy- stauralite from Norway, stalactite from a mine in California, slag glass
Emery- a box of her Uncle’s petrified wood, jasper, and agates
Jim Pruske- a botryoidal specimen
Becky- fossils from the Mt. Baker/Chuckanut formation area
Doug- a couple of handmade hearts from Death Valley paint stone and larimar
Gretchen- handmade by her; cabs, faceted turquoise, and intarsia
Christina- pebbles she gathered from Damon point for a project
Paul Strawn- handmade jewelry from stones he collected
BREAK
Treasurer Report: report was given to members at the meeting
Program: The program for tonight had to be cancelled. It was going to be about the rules and regulations for collecting along rivers, streams, and posted land.
Announcements:
- The club voted to release funds for an educational only booth set up at the Lacey Fun Fair in May
- Dan gave updates to the Tenino Oregon Trail Days show on July 22-24.
- Ideas for having a club member set up a personal booth adjacent to the club’s booth or separately at the Tenino show. More to follow at the May meeting.
- Selecting an alternate date for the July meeting since our regular day falls on the 4th holiday. That meeting could be focused only on the Tenino show and include volunteers and board members only. Tentatively set for 6 July, Thursday.
- Do we have a club banner? If not, let’s make one.
Meeting was adjourned at 8:40 PM
Approval of minutes: Douglas Shank, Secretary