Meeting Minutes for 11/25/2018 General Meeting

Meeting Minutes for 11/25/2018 General Meeting

Meeting began at 2:10pm by President Larry Heagy
19 Members were in attendance (BRIAN CARLSON WAS LATE!)

Ed Montgomery read the minutes from the Jan 28, 2018 Meeting, motion to approve the minutes as read was made by Carl Gansner and seconded by Sergio Cortes.  All members in attendance voted to approve the minutes.

Membership dues are currently being accepted by Ed Montgomery,  The $65 annual dues are due before fishing the 2019 Season.  The club is handing out raffle tickets to the members who pay their dues.  These raffle tickets can be sold for $1 each and the awards will be given out at the Awards Banquet.  The member keeps the money generated by the raffle sales since they already paid their dues.  The member can also keep the raffle tickets for themselves and enter into the raffle at the banquet.

The agenda for the meeting was presented by Larry.

We will cover the 2019 Schedule, nominate Club Officers and Board Memebers, discuss awards banquet and Lets Go Fishing Show.

Larry recognized Russ Rensing as the Angler of the Year winner for 2018.

Bert Houston mentioned that Tom Jenkins Boat was for sale.  Please contact Bert if Interested.   Slim details were given as to the boats make and model other than it was freshly rebuilt and is a Champion.

Larry discussed that the club lost two prominent active members this season, David R. Brown and Steve Ficker.

Steve Ficker wanted in lieu of flowers for gifts to be given to the Steel City Bassmasters for use with the kids fishing programs such as Shielded Waters.  The board and membership will discuss where the donations go in the name of Steve Ficker.  We will discuss this further at future winter meetings.  Donations are still being accepted and get them to Ed Montgomery and he will ensure the funds go into the account for this program.  Jack Watkins made a suggestion to have a tackle auction comprised of unused fishing equipment and tackle, this could be a significant fundrasier for this topic.

Eric Alberter mentioned that his father passed away last summer.  He would always follow the club and would ask who won immediately after the event.  While he was not a fisherman he followed the club and knew the members names and was genuinely interested in the outcome of the tournaments.  Our deepest condolences to Eric and his family on his loss.

Larry discussed the Let’s Go Fishing Show.  The Steel City Bassmasters will be hosting the Kids Corner at the show this year.  The show dates are Jan 4-6, 2019 at the Gateway Center in Collinsvile.

Larry was asked by the Lets Go Fishing show management if our club could volunteer to run the Cabelas fishing pond in the main area.  A show of hands indicated that all members in attendance were in favor of volunteering for this.  Larry will discuss with the Gateway Center the time and date that we would man the fishing pond.

Larry discussed the club relationship with Sportman Factory Outlet.  Sportsmans Factory Outlet
3031 N Martin Ave, Springfield, MO 65803.  Phone: (417) 881-1635.  They have been very generous to our club and we should make every effort to stop in when near Springfield.  Larrry purchase 3 Rod/Reel Combos for the Banquet, Let Go Show raffle and the Table Rock tournament.

The Club reviewed the tentative schedule that was posted on Facebook and the club website since October 25, 2019.  After discussing the schedule a motion was made by Mike Anderson and seconded by Russ Fairbanks to accept the schedule as presented.  A vote was taken and all members in attendance with the exception of Barry “no fish” Koblitz approved the motion.  The motion passed and Barry surprisingly did not receive any crude remarks.  The 2019 OFFICIAL schedule  is on the website.

Rocky then ordered and received a Pizza.  He immediately shared with Johnny and Sergio so he could hopefully cash in on their winning spot at the Fall Table Rock event.  Only after the pizza was cold did Rocky offer pizza to anybody else.  I think Rudy and Eric grabbed a piece when he wasn’t looking.

Bluff City Outdoors received an award to further enhance their business.

ALTON – March 27 2018, The Small Business Revolution host Amanda Brinkman and season three co-host Ty Pennington, announced the six Alton businesses chosen to split an investment sum of $500,000 from show’s sponsor, the Minneapolis-based Deluxe Corporation.

The six chosen were: Lighthouse Sounds, Lovett’s, Today’s Beauty Supply, Morrison’s Irish Pub, Sham Pooches and Bluff City Outdoors. Bluff City Outdoors is an all-around outdoors shop located in the 2800 block of East Broadway in a building owner Mark McMurray said has been some form of bait and tackle shop since the 1950s. He said he purchased the shop in 2003, and business was good until online competition and the country’s economy made things bad.

Bluff City Outdoors has been a long time advocate for our club and please visit Mark and Bluff City Outdoors when you need your fishing tackle.  Reminder that each club member is required to bring their own weigh in bag to the tournaments.  You can pick one up at Bluff City or if you are like Russ Rensing you need a new bag because you flat wore out this years bag.

This is the Clubs 30th year in existence.  The club is extending invitations for the banquet to special people who made a difference in the history of the club.  Some notable invitations were sent to Jerry McKinnis “owner of B.A.S.S.” and notable Outdoor Writer John Neporadny “owner of JN Outdoors”.  Also invitations will go out to the former members of the club from the Cape Girardeau area.

The Collinsville Sports Store was a long time supplier of the Plaques and Trophies to the club.  Their business closed in 2018 and we are searching for alternatives.  More to come next meeting on the awards banquet.

Les Avery donated some of his winnings from the Rend Lake smack-down when he took at the awards for first through 4th place and Big Bass.  Les’ donation to the club is to offset the beverage expenses at the banquet.  We truly appreciate Les for this donation and we will raise a glass to him at the banquet.

Nominations for Officers and Board Members were made:

President – Nomination by Rocky and Seconded by Rudy for Larry Heagy, Johhny Morris motioned to close nominations and was accepted by the membership.

Vice President – After some discussion Rocky finally figured out the Mike Vallino was the Vice President.  Rocky then said he loved Mike (sounded kindof gay but that is what he said).  Sergio Cortes nominated Mike for Vice President and Rudy Seconded.   Johhny Morris again motioned to close nominations and was accepted by the membership.

Secretary/Treasurer – Motion was make by Mike Vallino and seconded by Paul Davis to retain Ed Montgomery in this role.  There was a long pause where no other nominations were made then Johhny Morris again motioned to close nominations and was accepted by the membership.

Therefor the club Officers will remain the same for 2019.

The Board Members nominations were made for the 7 board positions.  These positions are critical to the club functions and also to ensure everything goes smoothly with adequate help and support during the weigh in’s.  Voting will be made at teh general meeting on December 16th meeting.

Board Nominations (in no particular order):

Joey Ozanich

Johnny Morris

Sergio Cortes

Frank Wilcoxon

Rudy Cardenas

Rocky Horrighs

Carl Gansner

Russ Rensing

Paul Davis

Jack Watkins

Mike Anderson

Barry Koblitz

Remember to come and vote on these 7 board positions on December 16th.

Larry then opened up the floor for open discussion:

Eric Alberter brought up several suggestion on ways to increase participation in the tournaments.  His comments were not to disrupt the schedule put into place earlier in the meeting but they were good sugessions for the future of the club and we will discuss them at future winter meetings.  His suggestions were to create a Club Classic tournament where the club top anglers would participate.  Another suggestion was to have an online survey for all members as to where and when they would like to fish.  We would gather all the clubs recommendations and use it at next Octobers board meeting to discuss the future schedule for 2020.

Jack Watkins motioned to close the meeting, seconded by Rocky.  Motion passed and meeting was ended promptly at 3:57pm (unless Teri is reading this then the meeting ended at 6:45pm for which Carl left immediately after the meeting).

Meeting adjourned.  The winner of the 50/50 was Rocky Horrighs and asked that the money be donated back to the club.  He then said he loved everybody and pinched Larry’s ass as he was giving him a hug.