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January 4th Business Meeting Report

by Andy Thompson, MSDC Secretary

Election of the 2023 Board of Directors

President Kenny Reynolds welcomed and thanked everyone for coming to MSDC’s first meeting of the New Year. The first agenda item was the election of the club’s officers for 2023. The way it works is:

1) The Board of Directors (BOD) in December welcomes nominations of potential BOD members including people who nominate themselves by saying they are willing to serve a specific position and who then provide in writing why they are interested in serving.

2) For this election, the BOD held a special meeting on December 28 to pull together and recommend a potential slate of officers and published that slate in the January 2023 newsletter. It is the MSDC club members who decide the election results, not the prior year’s BOD.

3) For the two vacancies, both for the positions of Director, the members in attendance at the January 4 meeting elected Craig Moore and Brian Silver. The other five BOD positions were filled by persons who were already serving and said they were willing to continue in their roles. All returning BOD members were reelected.

4) At the January meeting, no new candidates were nominated. The BOD’s slate was elected and the entire 2023 BOD list is published elsewhere in this February edition of the Mineral Minutes.

Ken Rock Named MSDC’s Rockhound of the Year

The second agenda item was to honor our MSDC Editor, Ken Rock. President Kenny Reynolds said how very lucky we have been to have Ken Rock as our newsletter editor and online innovator.  The BOD gratefully honored Ken as the club’s 2022 Rockhound of the Year and submitted that decision to the Eastern Federation of Mineral and Lapidary Societies. The full text of that honor is published below and on the club’s website: https://www.mineralogicalsocietyofdc.org.

“Ken became our newsletter editor with the January 2021 issue. All or nearly all members had been receiving the newsletter as an email attachment rather than in paper form for many years. By July 2021, Ken had quietly researched and then offered to the Board a new approach to bring the club into the modern age of communications: a newsletter similar to others we all receive, more visually inviting and more readily accessed, in which a newsletter email contains each article’s headlines and leads (each with its own image) and a click-through option for more of each story. This approach has proven popular with members and others – and we know that because readership statistics are instantly available to the editor.

Ken’s innovation didn’t stop there. In May 2022, at his recommendation and through his work, we started a new process for online membership application and renewals. We use an online form, still printable and mailable if someone wants to do that – but quick and easy to complete online and with online payment of dues. It makes new membership or renewal a very simple process.

Thanks to Ken’s newsletter and application/renewal process, and also thanks to our excellent Zoom programs and friendly, open club camaraderie, membership keeps growing. We love meeting both visitors and new members and we are deeply aware of how much we owe to Ken, who has made us welcoming not only in person and on Zoom but also in our communications and sign-up processes. We enthusiastically name Ken Rock as our MSDC Rockhound of the Year."

Geology in the News

Dan and other members discussed how Hawaii volcanoes have been particularly active of late and referenced how human activity may be influencing geologic events. This modern age, the Anthropocene, was cited as the period when human activity as been influencing environmental and climatic changes.

Future MSDC Monthly Programs

Kenny then asked Cindy Schmidtlein, our Vice President or Programs, for a report on the club’s upcoming programs, always a work in progress. Check out MSDC's website for a list of planned speakers for 2023, as well as a link to MSDC's YouTube channel. We salute Cindy’s extraordinary success in lining up our presenters and topics for the entire coming year.

With no further business to conduct, Kenny asked for and received a motion and affirmative vote to conclude the business meeting. He then turned the meeting over to Cindy to introduce the presenter for our January meeting.