The April 16, 2005 meeting was held at Red Coach Restaurant in Newton.  The meeting was called to order at 9:05am by President Kent Harder.  Present were Fred Becker, Lon Buller, David Duerksen, Marc Friesen, David Godshall, Bob Harder, Kent Harder, Marion Harper, Robin McDaniel, Bob Ogden, Kent Stutzman, and Roger Wilson.

Kansas Sampler Festival: Roger couldn't stay but passed around a signup sheet to confirm who could help with the Sampler Festival and which day.  People on the list will be able to enter for free.  The operation will be similar to last year.

Kansas Mennonite Relief Sale: Bob Harder passed around some photos he took at the sale.  The sale went off very well, with 7 people on Friday and 8 on Saturday; could have used a few more.  On arrival couldn't find the new First Aid location, Bob eventually found it in an out of the way location.  There was one minor medical emergency with a cut and three minor burns but otherwise very uneventful.

Minutes: March Minutes were accepted with one correction -- the Treasurer's numbers didn't quite add up; they included some dues that had not yet been officially added.  The correct total last month was $904.37.

Treasurer's Report: Added $45 from club dues for a total of $793.37 in the checking account and $155 in petty cash for a total of $948.37.

Repeater: There appears to be some interference on our repeater, possibly from the Police radios.  Robin said we are lacking some tools to really be able to troubleshoot.  Dave Duerksen has a frequency counter available.

RACES: The recent RACES eyeball meeting was productive; there was a lot of good discussion regarding how to manage RACES, activations, storm watches, etc.  One thing to work on is to get a better idea of who is an active RACES member and participant and who is showing up on the lists but not really active and perhaps should be either removed entirely or encouraged to become more involved.  Another concern is to get more people into the EOC and rotate that position so the same person is not always stuck in the basement and everyone has a chance out in the field.  Lon is concerned that participation has been pretty low recently.

Meeting Location: Lon expressed his view that the club has gotten a little stagnant and club dues tend to leave enough money for operation but perhaps not enough to tackle major projects.  He would like to encourage us as a club to become more active.  Fred agreed with Lon and encouraged us to come up with some priorities and goals and work towards those goals.  Lon noted that we discuss things at the club meeting but they don't seem to progress much from there.  David Godshall agreed and suggested maybe the club should try meeting at some other times and in other contexts such as work parties or get togethers to try to accomplish some of the club's goals that aren't getting done between the regular meetings.  Bob Ogden said another club he's been involved with had a specific goal of reaching out and showing the excitement of HAM Radio to new and potential amateurs.  Lon pointed out that Bob Harder was going to be offering his HAM Radio class again next year and thought the club could benefit and assist and work with Bob Harder on that class, to the benefit of both, and Bob Harder agreed.  Kent Stutzman used to put a blurb in the Newton paper announcing the club meeting and was encouraged to resume doing that -- Bob Ogden said he first found out about our club from the newspaper.  Marion Harper talked about how Elmers used to be a very valuable method of generating excitement and cultivating new amateurs.  Kent Harder notes that eating is essentially a passive activity and maybe that's helping to slow things down.

Repeater: Kent Stutzman noted our repeater volume is very low and encouraged us to get that fixed and also to use our repeater more.

Field Day: June 25-26 at Stutzman Retreat Center

Next Meeting: Kent Harder suggested we have all club members put together and bring their emergency "Ready Kits" to the next club meeting as a special topic.

Meeting adjourned at 10:15am

-- David Godshall, Secretary/Treasurer