Club Hours and Meetings:
The bar will open at 4:00 pm and close at 8:00 pm on Wednesday and Friday nights unless there are customers in the club area. If there are customers in the club area, the club will remain open until the last customer leaves. We will continue to be open every Thursday night during the hours of 3:30 – 9:00 pm. The Board of Trustees will meet at 5:30 p.m. on the March 20th, while the Lodge Officers will meet at 7:00 pm on the same evening. We are still looking for 3 members to be on the Board of Trustees. This job takes about 1 hour per month so please help the Lodge out by talking to Jerry about being a member of the Board of Trustees.

Meals on Membership Nights:
The meals on Thursday nights are doing okay but we are down a little from last years figures due to basketball games and other activities as well as the cold weather. These meals are still catered by Hy-Vee on a first come first serve basis every Thursday night from 6:00 – 8:00 p.m. There is always room for more people so if you have not tried the meals recently you should bring some friends down to play cards to visit and to eat. Once again, we need to thank all those that consistently use the Club on any night whether it is to eat, to visit or to play cards. Your loyalty in using the club on Wednesday to Friday nights is what keeps the Club going. Without you, we would have turned in the Charter for the Lodge a long time ago. The March meals are:

By the way, whenever there is food left over, it goes to the Abuse Center or Team Challenge.

Dues Renewal
The dues renewal notices for the 2008-2009 year were sent out on February 15th. This year we had 15 more members fail to pay their dues. I wish I knew why but even when asked they don’t respond. If the Club is to continue to exist along with the Lodge so that we can continue to carry on some of the charitable work that we do then, we cannot continue to lose members. People frequently thank me for keeping the Lodge and the Club open. I am not the one keeping the Club and the Lodge open. It is members like you that continue to pay your dues and use the facilities. Currently, 163 of the 333 members we have are life members. That is, 49% of our current members are life members and each year we add 10 to 15 new members to this list. This is starting to place a financial burden on our ability to support those charities asking for money. We need new members and the delinquent ones to return. Please help me on this matter.

Home Page and e-mail Addresses:
The home page address is www.brookingselks1490.org and the e-mail address is Elks1490@mchsi.com. Use the latter to contact the Lodge Secretary or the Exalted Ruler. Remember that the home page contains all of the latest information and inform the Lodge if you have an address change please contact the Lodge and let us know so that we do not waste money on postage. Just call and give us your new address or send it by e-mail to the address given above.

Parties at the club:
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 had five parties in February and we have seven parties scheduled at the club for March. The charge for using the Club area is $100 plus $9 dollars per hour for the bartender. If you are a member then you do not need to pay the $100 but you still need to pay for the use of the bartender. Spread the word that the club is available for parties and that it is a great place to have them. We have had Christmas parties, business parties, birthday parties, graduation parties, the Bobcat Backers, parties after SDSU sports events, wedding rehearsal parties and retirement parties. We do everything we can to make these events very successful.

Scholarship Information
We are still waiting for some news on the Most Valuable Student Scholarships and on the Technical Grants which have been forwarded to the State level for further review and the possibility of additional awards. There will be an awards banquet at the Club for all the scholarship winners on May 16th. Any one interested in attending the banquet should contact Jerry at 692-4640. This year we gave out 8 local scholarships with the total amount of still to be determined by the Board of Trustees. By the way, we need to thank the members of the scholarship committee for doing such a great job.

Rumor after Rumor
Please remember that this is your Lodge and Club. If there is ever any information about the Lodge or the Club that you would like to know all you need to do is give Jerry a call or come to a meeting. Contrary to what an editor of the local paper said, we are not about to take a vote on renaming the Lodge (Club). Our relationship with the Senior Activity Center is great so they are not in the process of getting rid of us. Our Lodge is still alive and doing well and we plan on keeping it that way. If all of us work together we can still show the people of Brookings that we are a great organization to belong to and to support, with plans to keep the Lodge and Club going as long as we can. We need to teach those that are not members that

Elks care, Elks share.