The March 18, 2006 meeting was held at the Food Court at the Newton Factory Outlet Mall. The meeting was called to order at 9:20am by President Dan Inskeep. Present were Lee Buller, Lon Buller, Tom Dhooge, Aaron Diller, David Duerksen, Ron Glanzer, David Godshall, Bob Harder, Mike Harvey, Dan Inskeep, Roger Jost, Bob Ogden, Kent Stutzman, and Roger Wilson.

Minutes: The February Minutes were accepted without corrections.

Treasurer's Report: We added $45.00 in club dues for $1,187.87 in our checking account, $105 in petty cash, for a total of $1,292.87 in club funds.

HAM Radio Class: Dan Inskeep got permission from the school to use the Cooper Learning Center, across from the Courthouse on 8th and Oak. The initial session will be held in the Cafeteria this Tuesday since it is unknown how much interest there will be. Classes will be 7-9pm on Tuesday for about 9 weeks. Will need volunteers; Lee Buller and Dan Inskeep will coordinate. Mike volunteered to help also. Lee talked about some of the materials they will use, and noted the class has been advertised in the newspaper and on TV.

Repeaters: The new 440 repeater, 444.675, is close to being ready to go online. Mike said when the weather gets better he wants to see the current 61 repeater site on the grain elevator to see about the options of putting the repeater up in that location. Mike has put a total of about $955 into the repeater and floated the idea of the club, possibly over a four year period. Roger asked whether Mike intended to put it on the new tower or on the grain elevator, noting that there might be permission issues at either site. The idea right now would be the grain elevator, possibly replacing the 61 repeater when it moves to the new tower. Dan Inskeep moved that the club reimburse Mike over a 4 year period at total of $955. Roger seconded. Passed unanimously.

Tax Exemption: David gave Dan some more information about our current non-exempt corporation status and Dan will continue looking into what would be required to turn it into a tax-exempt status.>/p>

Field Day: Coming up in June 24-25. Dan Inskeep got some long power cables.

MCC Relief Sale: David handed out business cards with the sale information -- April 7-8, 2006, http://kansas.mccsale.org/ -- and Bob said all amateurs are welcome and encouraged to show up and help. Friday setup starts around 2pm. The 146.82 repeater will be the talk-in frequency, and 146.48 will be the local simplex frequency.

Weather Spotter's Meeting: Good turnout. Lon said Chance had commented to him that at a lot of the storm spotter meeting around the state attendance has been down, in Newton it was up. Roger said, on an unrelated topic, Chance is doing a presentation at the Harvey County Historical Museum on Main Street (across from the Dairy Queen) at 3pm. The presentation is not a storm spotter presentation.

Landmark: This is the 100 year celebration of the first time voice was transmitted all the way across the Atlantic. The first word transmitted was "Hello." Kent Stutzman encouraged us all to spread the word about Ham Radio.

Meeting adjourned at 10:11am.