Our first meeting for the 2025 Season begins was held on 12/1/2024 at Larrys Barn, 120 N Parkview St. Maryville, IL 62062. Larry provided some excellent smoked vittles for us to eat and the members brought excellent snacks as well.
17 members and 1 guest (Mary) was in attendance.
The meeting was started at 2:22pm by president Larry Heagy.
A quick discussion was had that the next General Meeting will be on SATURDAY, December 21, 2024 at Larrys Barn. We hope that the change in meeting day to Saturday will draw more attendance to the meetings.
Larry started off the meeting with a recap of the 2024 season. We recognized Chris Rensing as the 2024 Angler of the Year. He then mentioned some of the topics for todays meeting including the review and voting on of the 2025 Schedule, The Lets Go Fishing Show, the Officer and Board Member nominations as well as the annual banquet on 2/1/2025.
Ed read the minutes from the March 2024 meeting. Paul Davis made a motion to approved the minutes with Carl Seconding the motion. the Motion was passed unanimously.
A discussion of the 2025 Schedule was started off by Larry discussing the process by which the Officers and Board Members can up with the schedule during a closed doors meeting on November 10, 2025. Ed posted the results of the Tentative 2025 Schedule to give the members some time to evaluate and discuss the proposed schedule before coming to todays meeting. With only 17 people in attendance the schedule must have been pretty good otherwise we feel that more would be in attendance. Absentee ballots are never taken so if you want your voice heard you must attend the meetings. Larry discussed some of the reasons to hold one day events at locations that were traditionally two day events. The schedule will be voted on then we will discuss the 1 or 2 day event schedule.
Denny Beiter motioned hat we approve the schedule as written with the note that we will discuss each venue to determinate of they should be one or two day events. Carl seconded the motion. The vote was 13 people for the approval of the schedule and 4 people against approval. The motion passed and the schedule is now set.
Larry kicked off the discussion of 1 day travel tournament vs. 2 day events. There are 5 events that fall into this category. LOZ-Spring, KY Lake, Truman Lake, Pomme (David r. Brown Memorial) and LOZ-Fall. After a discussion as to why people perfer 1 day events and a rebuttal of people wanting two day events we decided on a vote for each venue. The vote was to approve each location as a 1 day event. the results by event are as follows:
- LOZ- Spring: 9 people for a 1 day event and 8 against a 1 day event. This event will be 1 day.
- Kentucky Lake: 6 people for a 1 day event and 11 against a 1 day event. This event will be 2 day.
- Truman Lake: 9 people for a 1 day event and 8 against a 1 day event. This event will be 1 day.
- Pomme (David R. Brown): 8 people for a 1 day event and 9 against a 1 day event. This event will be 2 day.
- LOZ – Fall: 6 people for a 1 day event and 11 against a 1 day event. This event will be 2 day.
Just because the event is one day does not mean that the membership has to leave after the tournament, if is encouraged to stay the night so you can be refreshed when driving home in a manner of safety on the road. Ed has agreed to work with the Board Member who is the Food and Beverage Coordinator to provide food after the event on the 1 day tournaments to encourage the members to stay the night.
Next up on the agenda we the annual banquet. Larry and Ed went to the Collinsville VFW and signed the contract for February 1, 2025. The venue will have an excellent place to collect dues, sell raffle tickets, do a 52 card raffle for a high quality rod/reel and maybe even offfer some silent auction baskets, we are looking for volunteers to assist coordination the Silent Auction baskets (The baskets do not have to be fishing related as many members in attendance would gladly bid on other items such as items for the home, car, garage, etc…).
We discussed the finances at the Table Rock Events. The price for Danna’s BBQ has went up but since we raised the entry fee for this season we did not lose money for the event. Some discussion was had about an alternative to Danna’s BBQ as we have been using them for quite a few years and some members would like to see a change. We discussed this and Danna’s BBQ is the easiest option we have as some options will not deliver to Lazy Lee’s. We will gladly evaluate any alternative people can come up with at these winter meetings but for now it will remain with Danna’s BBQ.
Larry discussed the Let’s Go Fishing show to be held on January 3-5, 2025. The Steel City Bassmasters will once again be hosting the Kids Corner with a fish pond for the kids to catch fish. We are working with the Gateway Center to once again provide Ice Cream to the participants free of charge in order to drive attendance to the LaSalle Room (where we were in the past). Ed will be updating the club brochure and will have them available at the December 21 (Saturday) meeting and we will give them out not only at the Steel City booth but an offer was made to us to have a table at the Razr Rods booth.
On Saturday, January 4th the Steel City Bassmasters will gather for a Club Dinner and Social at Zapatas after the Let’s Go Fishing Show. All members and their guests are invited to attend. We do need an accurate number so we can get a reservation big enough to accomodate us. The bill will NOT be placed on the club, each member must pay their own bill.
A discussion on offering a rod/reel to raffle off at the Let’s Go Fishing show was discussed and it was the general consensus that we should affer a quality rod/reel as opposed to a sale item. We will discuss this at the next general meeting.
Larry discussed the weigh in procedures and asked for any input to make the weigh ins more efficient. Having the tub has greatly enhanced the procedure and we are always accepting of any improvements that can be made.
And finally we took nominations for Officer and Board Members. Larry explained that there are 3 officer positions and 7 board positions needing to be filled. We did have a long time board member drop out for the 2025 season so we will at least need to fill that spot. The nominations were as follows in order of the nomination :
Persident – Larry Heagy (accepted nomination)
Vice President:
- Paul Davis (accepted nomination)
- Mike Vallino (declined nomination)
Sec/Treasurer/Webmaster: Ed Montgomery (accepted nomination)
Board Members (in order of nomination), we need to vote on 7 for the board positions:
- Marj Wilcoxon (accepted nomination)
- Denny Beiter (accepted nomination)
- Mike Vallino (accepted nomination)
- Carl Gansner (accepted nomination)
- Russ Rensing (accepted nomination)
- Mike Anderson (accepted nomination)
- Rudy Cardenas (accepted nomination)
- Chris Rensing (accepted nomination)
- Frank Wilcoxon (declined nomination)
The vote for the board positions will be at the December 21, 2024 general meeting. Yes, that meeting is on a Saturday so be sure to put it on your calendars in order to attend and vote on the new 2025 board members. Absentee ballots will not be taken, you must be in attendance to cast your votes.
Meeting was adjourned at 4:35 pm.
The 50/50 drawing was won by Rocky Horrighs.
*** Next Meeting, SATURDAY, December 21, 2024 at 2:00pm in Larrys Barn, 120 N Parkview St. Maryville, IL 62062
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