Monday September 2: Labor Day
Thursday September 5: General Meeting - 7:30 pm at Northridge United Methodist Church
Sunday September 8: Field Trip - Paid Members Only
Wednesday September 11: Patriot Day
Thursday September 19: Board Meeting - 7:30 pm at Bernadette Friedman's home
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Annual Silent Auction - Presented by your Board of Directors
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Vote on the Club's By-Laws
At this month's meeting, all adult members will be asked to vote on the approval or denial of the revisions to the club's by-laws. After many weeks and much review, the board has approved the revisions and they were emailed to all members approximately two weeks ago. We require a two thirds approval of the entire membership to pass these revisions. If you are unable to attend the September meeting, please submit your proxy vote of yes or no via email to delairrockhounds@gmail.com before Thursday September 5th, 2024.
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New Members to the Del-Air Rockhounds Club
We are extremely proud to welcome new members Adriana Hrenciuc and Sandy Lee to our club. They were both voted in unanimously at our August 2024 meeting. Welcome… Adriana & Sandy!
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WE HAVE MOVED!
The Del-Air Club had an outrageous increase in our storage unit and a plea was put out to our membership for possible better rates at a different location. We had responses from many members about the same size unit and a much better monthly rate. BUT THE BEST OFFER WAS FROM OUR MEMBERS, THE KALMA FAMILY, WHEN THEY SAID WE COULD USE PART OF THEIR GARAGE FOR OUR STORAGE! We took them up on this right away and just before our yearly rent was due again the last of July. Our member team of: Jeff Dengrove, Dan Farber, Michael Tschacher, Dan Durfee and Eitan Kalma filled a U-Haul truck, a pick up truck and a small car full of our storage stuff and got it into the garage in about 3 hours. And on a very hot day! WE WANT TO THANK THE KALMAS AND OUR MOVING TEAM FOR A JOB WELL DONE.
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Just a Friendly FYI…
Refugio State Beach in Santa Barbara has now reopened after the damage done by the February 2024 storms. Feel free to meander down the 101 freeway to our favorite whale bone hunting location. Welcome back, Refugio. We missed you!
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Bench Tips from Brad Smith
NEW MELTING DISH
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PROJECTS IN MOTION By Jennifer Haley, AFMS Historian - www.cfmsinc.org
I love my volunteer job as the American Federation of Mineralogical Societies historian. It is fun for me to think about you, and about what you might enjoy reading. You make my day, in this way! I have a bundle of creative projects I would love to do for you as special projects. These are going to take some time pulling together, but it will be well worth the time that goes into it. These projects, when they are completed, will be able to be given to the Federations for their clubs to use in their newsletters, and as club programs. One of the projects will be a collection of vintage cartoons going back to our early days when the generations of rockhounds before us were creating wonderful cartoons for their bulletins all the time. Another project will be a collection of all those wonderful poems, again from vintage bulletins. I’ve been going through some I currently have, and they are so creative and fun. They express the love and joy for our hobby, and are such gifts to bring out and enjoy again for today. Plus, they are such an inspiration for those of you inclined to create your own poems. One other project is for creating a special edition of articles dedicated to telling the true stories of how rockhounds with their talent in lapidary and geology, helped in the war effort during WWII. I have a couple of these stories already, and they are meant to be told. One of these involves a copy of an old Navy report I was able to hunt down that would also make a fantastic program for our clubs. So, wonderful things are in store for you. I am one of those people who enjoys creative chaos, so I can work on all these projects at once as I find more of what I am looking for. I could really use your help in making these projects become a reality. I know many of you have boxes of older club bulletins in which to find the early cartoons and poems. Please look for them and let me know what you’ve found. I wish to borrow them and will return them to you or you can scan them to forward them to me. Contact me, and we’ll work out the details. And of course, I will give credit to the author and your club. Sometimes these vintage poems and cartoons were in a bulletin or just typed out on a piece of paper without an author’s or club’s name on them. Some are very faded, almost hard to read or see. I can still use these and most likely be able to bring them back to life, and I will give you the credit for bringing them to my attention. We have so much to celebrate as rockhounds. Help me celebrate the delights and the honor of being AFMS rockhounds. Reprinted from September 2024 CFMS Newsletter
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From the Desk of the President, JC Moore, AFMS President - www.amfed.org
As I begin this message, an update has been received from Roger Burford concerning Liz. After being in the hospital for the last 3 weeks with major back pain, tests indicate that the cancer has spread to her spine with infections in the bones and, as a result, Liz has decided to go into Home Hospice. Please keep Liz and Roger in your prayers and thoughts at this extremely difficult time. Since my last message, the AFMS Convention in Ventura has concluded and was a great success. There were 55 competitive exhibits that took all day to judge, with several excellent junior entries. I added a learning experience concerning a Japanese art form that has different parameters than what we normally see in exhibits. Of course, there were more vendors with material we do not see in the Midwest, and I could not keep my wife, Donna, away from the silent auction. During the meeting, vacancies were filled for Publications (Ron Carmen), Show Consultant (Jean Charsky), By-Laws (Matt Charsky) and Uniform Rules Eligibility Files (Larry Hulstrom). Again, I would like to thank Ron, Jean, Matt, and Larry for stepping up to fill these positions. We are still looking for someone to be the Chair for Judges Training and Media Director. Again, thank you to the Ventura Club for hosting a wonderful convention. Following our return from California, we spent a quiet few days before heading to New Jersey on June 7th for the Eastern Federation meeting at the Sterling Hill Mine. Since retiring in 2004, this visit has been on our bucket list, and now we can scratch off one item from our list. The meeting was an enjoyable re-connection with people we knew and making new friendships with fellow rockhounds. The mine tour was great, and the collecting even better. If you ever get a chance, this is one site you really want to visit. Now we are preparing for the MWF Convention in East Peoria, Illinois and wish to invite everyone to come and attend August 24-25. Again, please keep Roger and Liz in your prayers as these are difficult times for them. Reprinted from the August 2024 AFMS Newsletter
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