DE General Meeting - Saturday March 2, 2019

DE Meeting Minutes

Saturday, March 2, 2019 • Photos by Julie Smith and Allan Wicker

Meeting Open 11:30 a.m.

Regrets Jerry Dupree, Deb & Steve Marschke, Mal & Jean Roode

Attending Neal & Marian Johns, Terry Ogden, Allan Wicker, Jean & Sunny Hansen, Daniel Dick & Bobbie Sanchez, Ruth & Emmett Harder, Bill & Julie Smith, Nelson Miller, Axel Heller, Steve Richards & Esther.

Previous Minutes Approved

Treasurer Bill Smith reported we have 10 recent new members, current funds are 5,189.94 including checking, savings and PayPal accounts. Rondy signups at this time are 48 participants, 27 vehicles plus some promised in the mail. The river trip and the venue have both been paid. Rondy funds are currently $339 to the good. Nelson would like to close out the Walking Box tour so any extra spaces can be made available to the presenter.

Newsletter Jay Lawrence reported everything is great in newsletterland, we ALWAYS need new and more material, please send what ya got.

Rondy Mignon has done everything to a fare-thee-well. The trips are in place, Walking Box tour has 12 of 20 possible signups. Reminded that March 5th is the deadline for DE motel discount. Speaker Peter Mays will talk on the history of the dam and Boulder City. The Elks have RV camping spots if you are a member. There are local mountain bike trails, zip lines, train, helicopter, and plane rides to the dam and Grand Canyon.

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Website Kudos to Deb Miller-Marschke and Crazy Suzy for making us look good on the interwebs. The site is terrific and everybody had compliments to share.

Museum Nelson reported we had a great work crew weekend. The Cambridge collection came, three new cases were placed, and the Moon Dolls were spiffed up. The HUGE collection of East Mojave topographic maps were inventoried. Nelson would be there on Wednesdays or Thursdays to supervise cataloging the map collection. In related news, Friends of Calico is collapsing and would like 

MRVM to take over. All agreed we should make the work party an ongoing annual event. Nelson declared that the museum had the best collection of desert books available anywhere, so look there first! MRVM published books are available now online. The Death Valley 49ers have been struggling and turned over their books to the museum. Several folks mentioned the Desert Dictionary as a great reference book to own. MRVM elections are coming up in March and the 2019 BBQ is being discussed. No details were available at the moment. Nelson recommended that we all watch the MRVM calendar for the next lecture by Mike Boltinghous. His first one was terrific. A short sidebar covered whether or not the MRVM insurance covered leaders or any other aspect of the Desert Explorers. The answer was no, it only covers museum operating museum equipment.

Trips More! We always need more! Jerry Dupree and Bob Jacoby will be more aggressive looking for trips in the next few months. Nelson Miller, who has led a huge amount of trips in the last few years will be traveling from June through September, so others will need to step up with trips through the summer. Ron Lipari is leading an Eastern Sierra trip this summer, details are in the newsletter trip calendar. Axel Heller and Bob Jacoby are leading their Route 66 trip. The dates have changed, so check the trip calendar for details. Bill Powell will be leading a trip on the Applegate Trail. There will be a fall trip on the Arizona Peace Trail. Probably October. Look for details in the upcoming newsletters.

New Business Discussion included: • Talk to attendees at the Rondy about becoming trip leaders and leading new trips with experienced leader help.

• Do an email blast from the Trip Coordinator each quarter asking for members trip wish lists and trip ideas.• Current trip leaders can/should buttonhole folks to run new trips and develop new leaders. This has always worked well in the past, when we suggest a new trip leader run a particular trip and offer up an experienced trip leader to help them plan and run the trip.• Do an annual calendar for DE meetings so folks can plan WAY in advance, since many of us travel quite a bit throughout the year.• Jay asked for opinions on running any commercial listings in the newsletter as several requests had been floated. The concensus was no, with little real debate. Nobody wanted ads in the newsletter. Listing DE friends and related groups was fine on a space-availble basis.

• Next Meeting Ding and Allan Wicker’s house on May 18th, 11:00

  Christmas Party Ding and Allan Wicker’s house on December 14th

  Adjourned 12:56 p.m.