Minnesota Shooting Range, Itasca Gun Club Grand Rapids Newsletter February 2009

    If you are a Life Member or your dues for 2009 are already paid, your new membership card is already included with this newsletter. The new card and gate combination becomes effective March 1^st, 2009. If your 2009 dues are not paid, your membership card is not included and you’ll want to get caught up before you plan to use the range.

    Please be sure to take the few extra seconds to update your contact information and sign the form. Your signature on the membership form IS REQUIRED. If you wish to receive a new membership card, be certain to sign it.

    While we’re on the subject, if your NRA dues are due for renewal, please remember to renew your NRA dues through IGC. You’ll receive a $10 discount and we’ll get a little financial help from the NRA.

    The 2009 annual meeting was held at The Eagles Club in Grand Rapids on January 9^th, 2009. The folks at the Eagles were welcoming in every way. We enjoyed a good meal along with good service and took note of a new "brighter" atmosphere in the meeting room.

    Thank you to our guest speaker, Staff Sergeant David Black of Grand Rapids' own C Company, 2nd Battalion, 136th Infantry. His presentation, an illustrated talk on "American Small Arms in the Iraq War", was informative and interesting. Along with the rest of 1st Brigade, 34th Infantry Division, Sergeant Black and C Company served in Iraq from November 2005 to April 2007, longer than any other National Guard brigade did. We really appreciate your service to our country, thank you.

    Elections were held and of eight elected positions, seven were uncontested. These included President, Vice President, Treasurer, Recording Secretary, Membership Secretary, Chief Range Officer, and Youth
Development Officer. All seven accepted their nominations and were subsequently re-elected in the form of a "white ballot".

    The nominee for Chief Instructor went to Bill Befort who accepted and was subsequently elected. Bill has already served IGC in this capacity in the past and done an outstanding job. We’re very happy to have him back and we’ll be looking forward to working with him this year.

    It’s been six years now since we’ve presented a single member with what we used to call the "most valuable member award". In the past, it was up to the club officers to try and single out one individual whose contributions during a year were more important to the club than those of any other were.

    To recognize the efforts of a broader group of folks who help out in various ways we now award eight members with the "almost as valuable as most valuable" member award.

    The members at IGC’s November business meeting are each asked to provide a list of folks they think should receive the award. All of the names are tabulated on a spreadsheet and the awards go to those eight members with the most votes.

    Each of the eight members receive gift certificates for the movie theater so they can sit down and relax for a couple of hours after all the work they’ve done for the club.

    For 2008 the awards went to Conley Janssen, Bob Ross, Phyllis Anderson, Joe Oliver, Joanne Baker, Jerry Lorbecki, Vince Rittmiller and Dennis Nix. Congratulations to each of you and thank you for everything you do.

    Awards for the 2008 Bullseye Pistol season went to Bob Ross for the highest average slow fire, Joel Adamson for highest average timed fire, Eugene Varani for highest average rapid fire and the league champion, Joel Adamson. Congratulations all.

    The business meeting was brief with only a few items of new business being introduced.

    Reporting on the building and ground projects, Vince Rittmiller told us that with water well and holding tank now installed, work on our clubhouse is 95% completed. A few finishing touches like the installation of some fixtures to help streamline presentations at classes, some new chairs and a bit of fine tuning are all that we need to complete the job.

    Joe Oliver has requested that volunteers who run matches or other events that utilize the indoor range complete a brief checklist of items as they close the range in the evening. There are a few more things to remember than we used to have and so he’s initiated the checklist to make it easier to remember. If you have any questions about the forms or how to complete them, Joe can help you out.