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 April 17th, while the Lodge Officers will meet at 7:00 pm on the same evening. We are still looking for 2 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 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 and in paying your dues is what keeps the Club going and not me. Without you, we would have turned in the Charter for the Lodge a long time ago. The April meals are:

All of us need to thank Roger Mellendorf and Ron Deutsch for the great job they did at cooking the steaks on the last Thursday of March in spite of the snow storm.

Dues Renewal
To date, 234 individuals have mailed in their dues for the upcoming year. This leaves 98 members that have not yet paid their dues. There are 31 of the 98 that are life members and 67 that are non-life members. Please help the Lodge out by sending in your dues today. In fact it would be really nice if we did not have to lose any members this year due to failure to pay dues. The members of the Board of Trustees and those in the Chairs want to thank all of the members that contributed to the scholarship fund. So far, we have received contributions totaling $1,433.50, which means that we can give the amounts recommended by the members of the Scholarship Committee to the 8 students chosen by the committee to have their names forwarded to the state level of competition. Just think what we could do if we had not lost 388 members that did not pay their dues since 2002 and this number does not count those that transferred, took out dimits or passed away. If you know anyone that has dropped please try to get them back so that we can save enough to purchase out own building and continue our charitable work.

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 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:
Thanks to individuals like Ron Deutsch, we have been able to have some very successful parties at the Club. Some of these include the Bobcat Backers, The Entringer Coaches and Referees, fans looking to relax after a football or basketball game and individuals retiring from work. If you are interested in having a party at the Club or if you know of someone that wants to have a party just give us a call and we will do everything we can to make sure the party is successful. We had 7 parties take place in March and we have 5 parties scheduled for April. 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, class reunions 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 starting at 6:30 pm. Any member interested in attending the banquet should contact Jerry at 692-4640. The meal will be free. For the upcoming year, thanks to the generosity of our members and the gift by Roy Muchow, we will give out 8 scholarships to local students for a total amount of $5,500.

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.

Get a delinquent member to return to the club or bring in a new member!! The faster we get more members the faster we get our own building. The 388 delinquent members cost the Lodge about $25,000 per year. In five years, with interest, we would have about $150,000 more for a new Lodge. This way, we could pay cash for the new building.

Jerry Bergum, ER