FEATHER RIVER LAPIDARY & MINERAL CLUB Oroville, CA E-mail:  president@orovillerocks.com Member of California Federation of Mineralogical Societies  and  American Federation of Mineralogical Societies

General Membership Meeting Minutes

Meeting of 7/22/2008

• Club President Steve Hill opened the meeting at 6:35pm with the Pledge of Allegiance.  34 members were in attendance. The meeting was held in the new shop on Mitchell.
• Steve gave thanks to the Feather River Parks and Recreation for the shop they are allowing the club to use. They have put in about $25K into this project because they believe the club is good for this community. They are planning another location for us that will be a combined work shop and retail shop.
• Steve pointed out the lists along the wall that indicated club needs…equipment and volunteers. He described an education partnership with the community that our club could develop for skills such as flint knapping and jewelry making. Classes to be held in the first room of the FRP&R building.
• Steve reviewed the state of the donated equipment thus far. There are three slab saws: 1 in good condition, 1 in poor shape and 1 still to come. We also have a machine for faceting stone. Training will be necessary before anyone can use the machines.
• Steve said we are looking for a new Shop Foreman. Our previous foreman needed to resign due to other commitments.
• Liability forms were passed out for signatures and collected for the club. Every member must have one on file.
• Steve discussed the trip to visit the Castro Valley Club and their donation of display cases. He displayed our new club’s official membership plaque to the California Federation of Mineralogical Societies, Inc. noting our ranking by size as 51 out of 111 clubs in California.
• Steve reviewed the three types of insurance the club must carry. 1) Field trip insurance   2) Premises (shop) insurance and 3) General Liability Insurance for fire and theft. All told the costs are about $700/year.
• A Yard Sale with a bake sale is planned to kick-start the fundraising. The tentative date is 8/23/08.
• David Cossey announced that he would like a committee to help him with fundraising and asked for volunteers. (Note: He later announced that five people signed up with him during the break.)
• Steve announced there were opening for six board positions and asked for volunteers. He said the goal was to produce a newsletter and an internet site. The need now is for an editor to do this. There are several other areas that need chairs and volunteers: Refreshment Committee, Raffle and Auction Committee, Greeters, Librarian, Program Committee and Communications Committee to name a few.
• The first field trip is scheduled to the mineral wall in DeSalba on August 3rd at 9:30am
• The minutes from the last general meeting were read and approved with 2 corrections noted.
• Club activities will include rock identification, and training on jewelry making.
• Pam Ishmael passed out Oroville Adult Education brochures and invited anyone interested to take John and Sue Hees’ class in Rockhounding 101. She also suggested that collecting cans for recycling would be a good fundraiser and encouraged people to bring cans to the next meeting. She will establish the guidelines for this fundraiser.
• Ben Halpin stated that the use of the funds raised by the monthly club raffles are to go to buy shop needs, such as blades, oil, grit etc.
• Manuel Garcia announced a work party scheduled for the next Saturday from 9:00-Noon in the shop.
• Steve announced a CFMS show in Visalia in September and encouraged members from our club to attend.
• Three new members were added to the club tonight.
• Becky Rogers volunteered to be temporary Communications Chair.  She asked for everyone to give her their email address as this will be the main way she will communicate.

NEW BUSINESS:

• John Scott asked the club to consider changing the meeting time to the 4th Tuesday of the month. The club will take that into consideration.
• The raffle tonight raised $72 for the club.

Adjournment:  Meeting was adjourned at 8:30pm. The next general meeting will be at 6:30 on July 19th in the same location.