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FEBRUARY 2011 MINUTES
10
February 2011 BOARD MEETING
Board members present:
Virgil Lueth, Anna Domitrovic,
Jamie Newman, Jean DeMouthe, Terry Ottaway, Tony Kampf,
Katherine Dunnell 2:05 pm called to order by President V. Lueth VL went over the agenda for the general meeting.
This includes the budget report & committee reports (the usual stuff).
Collections committee will discuss changes at the U. of
Arizona museum and Bob Downs, curator, promised to come and speak about it.
Membership is going to drop non-paying people from the
roster and web site. Int'l members
still having trouble with transfer of funds. DeMouthe brought up the difficulty in getting participation
from SMMP members for exhibits at Denver and Tucson, and suggested giving up the
mystery-rock case. Nothing new in Best Practices, and there is 1 applicant for
the research grant. Some people have requested that SMMP meetings be held later
in the day. Maybe starting with
board at 3:30, general from 4 to 5, and program from 5 to 6.
GENERAL ANNUAL MEETING Meeting called to order at 3:01 pm by President Lueth. Lueth welcomed members and guests, and asked everyone
present to sign the attendance log being circulated during the meeting.
No verbal introductions were made. VL called for a vote on the Denver minutes, which was
moved, seconded, and unanimously approved without corrections. Domitrovic gave the treasurer's report.
As of 1 February, there was $2080 in the checking account, $1101 in the
business savings and $4717 in the money market account.
Interest rates are very low and we get little interest from any of these
accounts. AD asked for dues, and presented a printed membership list
for people to check for errors. She
also reported that non-paying former members who had not paid dues in 3 years or
more had been dropped from the roster and web site. Dues can now be paid using
PayPal, and there is a link on the SMMP web site for this service.
You do not have to be a member of PayPal to make a payment. The
treasurer's report was unanimously approved. Lueth reporting for the Collections Committee asked if
anyone knew of collections or museum positions that are in danger of being
eliminated. No suggestions were
made. He mentioned that changes were
being made at the Univ. of Arizona museum in Tucson, and introduced Bob Downs,
the curator. Downs reported that 2 years ago, he was made curator of the
mineral museum of U of A. Then the
State decided to close the museum or to dispose of collections.
Local collectors contributed to sustain the collection staff, two of whom
quit or retired. Mark Candee,
part-time mineral dealer, was hired as curator.
There are about 20,000 specimens, 2,000 of which are on display.
There are lots of duplicates.
The decision was made to sell specimens to fund an endowment to support the
museum. A Board was created and
museum policy document written by Violet Wolf and Carl Francis from Harvard.
It was decided to sell duplicates and low-end specimens.
No accessioned or display specimens were to be deaccessioned.
There was a gift of $750,000 from Freeport McMoRan, $600,000 of which went
into the endowment. Specimens to be
sold were distributed among four dealers on consignment, with a target income of
$1.6 million. Anticipated estate
gifts are to fund a curator/professor position. Discussion followed Downs' statement.
There was an article in USA Today about the museum. DeMouthe described the two SMMP cases in the public
exhibit: "mystery specimens" and
"unexpected specimens from California."
She suggested that the mystery specimen displays be discontinued, since
it was very difficult to get the membership to participate.
She reported that Russian Minerals would be the Denver theme in 2011, and
asked for suggestions. The only one
made was for "red minerals," which was discarded as a bad joke. SMMP Europe: no
report The date and time for the SMMP meeting in Tucson will in
the future be Thursday afternoon, with the board meeting at 3:30, general
meeting from 4:00 to 5:00, and program from 5:00 to 6:00. Gail Spann issued an invitation to SMMP members to attend a
social immediately following the meeting at a nearby restaurant.
She said the Spann family would like to sponsor this event every year. Kampf reminded people about the list server and urged them
to use it for communicating with their colleagues. Williamson reported having problems with getting access to
the web site. It was thought that
the continued presence of the old web site on the LACM server might be causing
this. Kampf said he would take care
of that. Renate Schumacher spoke about the MM7 meeting, which will
be in Dresden, Germany in August 2012.
Carol Francis spoke about the "All That Glitters" exhibit
at the San Diego Museum of Natural history, to which Harvard had contributed
specimens. Dona Dirlam of GIA spoke about the upcoming GIA symposium
and mine tours to be held over Memorial Day weekend. ****************************************** Attendance:
There were 48 people present, with 29 institutions represented, from 8 countries
(US, Canada, England, Australia, Germany, Russia, France & Italy) Election:
Nominated were Julian Gray, Bruce Geller (outgoing board member), Penny
Williamson (outgoing board member) and Terry Ottaway (outgoing board member).
Elected were Gray, Williamson and Ottaway. A general election was held, and the elected board members
chose this year's officers (see below).
Board terms are from February to February, with elections always held at
the Tucson meeting. Board members'
terms are for three years.
Meeting adjourned at 3:52 pm
POST-MEETING |
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