May 2024 Business Meeting Summary
Summary by Andy Thompson, MSDC Secretary
President Kenny Reynolds was under the weather so he asked Andy Thompson to stand in for him. Andy welcomed everyone and thanked them for joining the evening’s meeting. Three of the club’s past presidents were in attendance and he thanked them for their service to the club.
Andy then called for and received a motion to accept the April Business Meeting Report as published in the May Mineral Minutes newsletter. Members unanimously approved the minutes as published, without making any suggested changes.
Expediting this Evening’s Program
The agenda for our May meeting was fortunate to have two presentations, including Gabriela DeSanto's short report on the results of her research supported by the 2024 MSDC Award for Undergraduate Research, and David Powars’ longer presentation on the Chesapeake Bay Impact Crater, so we streamlined our normal pre-program reporting.
Geology in the News
We referred attendees to the list of "Geology in the News" items in the May newsletter. These items are all from news items published in April and are submitted by readers for use in the newsletter.
Please keep your eye open for items that would be of interest to our readers and send a link to our editor, Ken Rock.
New Business
Two important new business issues were raised and discussed.
1) An MSDC Field Trip
A non-mineral-collecting field trip will be led by Dr. Richard Tollo of the GWU Department of Geology and Earth Sciences. Richard has invited MSDC members on an all-day field trip on Saturday, June 22. The trip will not include collection of minerals (forbidden in National Parks), but will focus on geological education while traveling through the Blue Ridge National Park and the adjacent Shenandoah Valley.
All dues paying members will be notified about this opportunity. The number of cars that the sites can accommodate is limited. Car pooling is encouraged.
Update: those wanting to go need to respond to the invitation which was sent out on May 5 by Andy. If you did not receive it, check your spam folder or send us your correct email address at thompson01@starpower.net and jfweidner42@gmail.com.
Dr. Tollo would like to accommodate all members who want to attend but ideally, based on the site’s limited space, there will be room for about a dozen participants. Do not delay responding.
2) A Possible Temporary, In-person MSDC Meeting Site
This second salient issue was raised by Ken Rock concerning a possible location adjacent to the L’Enfant Plaza metro station near the corner of 9th and D streets in Southwest DC for a possible in-person meeting location for MSDC’s future monthly meetings. The location would be within the Capitol Gallery in Smithsonian office space. We asked Ken to follow up on this lead and provide more information to the MSDC board at a later meeting.
We will keep MSDC members updated on the progress with regard to this possibility. For now, however, we will continue to meet via Zoom and perhaps, down the road, may transition to hybrid meetings if possible.
Presentation for the June Meeting
Cindy announced that our June program presentation will be given by Dr. Gabriela Farfan of the Smithsonian. Gabriela is the Coralyn Whitney Curator of Gems and Minerals at Smithsonian Institution, National Museum of Natural History.
With an eye toward expediting the evening, Andy asked for and received a motion and second to close the business meeting.
He turned the microphone over to Cindy Schmidtlein, MSDC’s Vice President for Programs, to introduce the first presentation by Gabiela DeSanto.