President's Message
Well gang, another Show has come and gone! And what a show this was!
Congratulations to everyone who volunteered because you and the show
committee made this one of the best in the history of the club!!!
As you know last year was our first year at Del Tech. Even though it was our
first year in the new facility, we broke all kinds of records from the past several
years, including attendance and sales. This year we did even better!!! This
year
we had around 1650 paid entries. This figure does not include kids with parents,
school groups, scout groups or church groups, all who get in free.
The Demonstration area was a
great success thanks to Margie and her crew
of volunteers. There was always a crowd of people and kids around the
demonstrators, in line for ringmaker, Eric Sheridan!!!
Also, Tom Pankratz on
faceting and flint knapping, Kevin Rissolo
doing chain mail and Joe Madison on
the cabbing machine.
As for the Junior
Booth, I heard they sold even more over the weekend than they
did last year!!!
Thanks to Ken Casey, our new
webmaster, our webpage is an unequivocal
success! 133 coupons came in from the web page alone! We had numerous
compliments on its appearance, ease of use and pertinent information on the
show, dealers and our theme "The World of Agates". Check out the web
site, if
you haven't already at: http://www.delminsociety.net.
Most of the dealers had a great show! We had complements from all of
them on
the number of people attending. They advised whatever advertising, we were
doing to keep it up!!! Some of the dealers had their best show ever!!
Congratulations go out to our three
Grand Raffle winners this year! Our first
winner, Susan Corey of Wilmington, chose the
Amethyst Cathedral; the second
winner, Cindy Miller of Newark, chose the
Ammonite fossil plate; and our third
winner, 6 1/2 year old Brennan Stark and his sister, Lucy,
of Wilmington, chose
the Malachite specimen. All three winners were given free 2005 memberships
to DMS. We hope to see all three at our next meeting! Look for their pictures
on the Website.
I'd like to extend a very heartfelt thank you to Wayne
for chairing the show
committee and working with the facilities personnel, Bob
Asreen for all his hard
work getting the dealers their contracts and staying in touch with all of them until
all the particulars were dealt with and to the rest of the show
committee for all
their hard work!!!
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Esther, Wayne, and
Alex setting up
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Karissa and Bob
discuss setup
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Sophie at the
Junior Booth
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Fran talks with
showgoers
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Scott assembles
display case
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Members greet
guests
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As usual this show does not happen without the countless volunteers that come
out to help. So, a grateful thank you to Tracy Allen,
Bob Asreen, Jason & Willard Barrowclough, Tom Brennan, Tim Bryant, Ken Casey, Jeff
Chalfant,
Bob Ehrlich, Glenn Elliott, Reuben Evans, Frank & Mary Fravel, Gene Hartstein, Bill
Hatzell, Alice Hober, Sophie Homsey, Eric Hottenstein, Alex & Jeff Kane, Esther Kerns,
Mary Ann Levan, David Lerner, Lockard Family, Marty Mackereth, Margie Marshall, Christine
& Eric Meier, Carl Muendel, Vijay Naik, John Osoinach, O'Sullivan Family, Tom
Pankratz, Gwen & Scott Peters, Fran Poniecki, Edward Rowse, Guy & Wendy Sbriglia,
Dennis Schnee, Charles & Izetta Shain, Teddy Silver, Marion Smith, Robert & Karen
Statz, Ed Strickler, Bill Stulpin, Robert Todd, Wayne Urion, Juan Villamarin and Diana
Volcheck.
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| Unloading the truck |
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Bob, Willard, and Eric help set
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Tracy's beads at our Club Table |
A very special thank you to our Junior
Volunteers, Erik and Danah Sheridan
for
helping their Grandmother Margie Marshall.
Also to David Peters for helping at the Junior
Table and Jason Barrowclough
for helping Jeff Schlottman, of Crystal Perfection, man his booth.
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| DMS Volunteers greet show
visitors |
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Jeff Schlottman |
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Discussing setup |
Congratulations to Wayne
Urion, who won Best-in-Show;
and everyone who put in a show case this year! The praise from our club members,
dealers, and the public was overwhelming. Representatives from numerous local clubs
were impressed
with our cases. We had representatives from EFMLS and AFMLS. They gave the
cases and the show high marks as well!!! I'd like to extend a special thanks to the
University of Delaware Geology Department,
the Iron Hill Museum and Jeff
Schlottman, of Crystal Perfection, for their displays and to Phil Schmitz for his
willingness to stay and talk to people and answer their questions about his collection,
and meteors, meteorites, and tektites in general. [Karissa Hendershot]
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| Wayne Urion's Display [Best in Show] |
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Phil Schmitz answers questions |
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