Club Hours and Meetings:
We will continue to be open every Wednesday, Thursday and Friday night during the hours of 4:00 – 9:00 p.m. throughout the month of December. The Board of Trustees will meet at 5:30 p.m. on the 21st of December while the Lodge Officers will meet at 6:30 p.m. on the same days.

At the November meeting, two bylaw changes were recommended. These changes will be discussed at the December meeting and voted on at the January meeting. The first bylaw change concerns the meeting time of the Lodge Officers. It has been recommended that the Lodge Officers meet at 7:00 PM on the third Thursday of each month. This change was recommended since those going to the Board and Lodge meetings did not have enough time to eat in between the meetings. The second bylaw change deals with an adjustment of the membership dues. The national office and the state office have both increased the amount they need by one dollar. To adjust for this in the bylaws and not increase our dues, we need to change the regular Lodge dues from $62.15 to $60.15 for non-life members and from $24.65 to $22.65 for life members. Note that the annual dues will not increase!!!

Meals on Membership Nights:
We will continue to have meals every Thursday night from 6:00 – 8:00 p.m. on a first come first serve basis. Once again we wish to thank all of those members and their guests for regularly using the club to eat, to play cards or to visit. Your loyalty is deeply appreciated. For those that came down for the first time in quite a while, we hope you had a good time and will continue to use the club. The price of the meal is $7.00 per person. Where in town can you get a full meal for $7.00 per person and have free coffee? If you have not yet tried the meals just bring some friends to play cards or to visit with while you have a meal and enjoy the Club. You may be surprised at what is going on. The meals for the month of December are:

Here are the meals for the month of December:

Past Events:
1. We had thirty-four people attend the dinner and ceremonies on Old Timers Night. It lasted for about and hour and a half. We had good food, a great time visiting and pins were given to those in attendance. State President Don Bolton gave a four to five minute presentation on how important membership is. Please let me know if you could not attend and want your pin.

2. Thanks to Phil and Winnie Baker, Shirley Bergum, George Buchenau, Sally Damm, Don Denure, Arvid Dills, Don Hind, Ralph Harvey, Spencer Hawley, Merwyn Hendricks, Art Kranz, Chuck Kuechenmeister, Pat Leary, Ray Pottratz, John Ruffolo, Jim Smolik, Kosta Theodosopoulos, Ed Williamson and Bill Zink, who worked the Pancake Feed for Veterans and their families, everything went well. We served between 275-300 people. Forgive me if I forgot to put down the name of somebody that worked.

Future Events
1. The Elks Memorial Service will be on December 3rd at 4:00 pm in what used to be the Joe Garity Ballroom. The Memorial List for 2006 is Algridas Greichus, Delmer Harvey, Dale Junker, Laverne Kortan, Thomas Lyons and Roy Muchow. Please attend and pay respect to your deceased brothers.

2. Tom and Jerry night will be at the Club on December 15th from 6 p.m. until the last person leaves. There will be a cheese and cracker plate along with chili to fill you up as you test the free Tom and Jerry’s. Do you remember the great time you had last year? Nothing is going to change this year so be there and celebrate. If you were not there last year then try it this year.

3. The Elks Hoop Shoot will be on December 17th at the 5th Street Gym with the doors opening to set up at 1:00 pm, registration at 1:30 and competition from 2:00 till done. We will be calling for volunteers so say yes if you are called to work. Kids love this and it is a great activity!!!.

Home Page and e-mail Addresses:
Remember that the Lodge home page is www.brookingselks1490.org. You need to check this out, as it will always contain the most recent newsletter as well as other pertinent information concerning the Lodge and the Club. Our e-mail address is Elks1490@mchsi.com and this can be used to contact the Lodge Secretary or the Exalted Ruler. If you are a Snowbird call the Lodge before you go and leave your new address in order to save the Lodge some money.

Parties in the club area:
If you are interested in having a party at the Club just give us a call and we will do everything we can to make sure the party is successful. We already have four parties scheduled for December. One of these is a graduation party and another is the Bobcat Backers. There is no rent to use the club if you are a member of the Lodge.

Delinquent Members
Early in November, a renewal notice was sent to 25 delinquent members asking them to renew their dues. Eight of them responded positively. Of the 17 remaining, 4 have been members for 33 or more years and 13 have been members from 4 to 24 years. It sure would be nice if these 17 people would let me know why they are leaving the Lodge. Maybe they don’t realize that their dues no longer support the club but do support the charitable work that we do.

Merry Christmas to all.
Jerry Bergum, ER