Club Hours. Meetings, Dues
The Club will continue to be open every Wednesday, Thursday and Friday from 4:00-9:00 pm. Due to vacations and conflicts, there will be no Board or Chairs meeting for the month of July. On August 17th, the Board of Trustees will meet at 5:30 pm and the Officers will meet at 6:30 pm. As of the writing of this newsletter, there are still 29 delinquent members. For those that are delinquent, please send in your check today because we do need you as members.

Meals on Membership Nights
We will continue to have meals every Thursday night from 6:00 – 8:00 pm on a first come first serve basis. Once again, we need to thank all of those members and their guests for using the club to eat, to play cards or to visit. Where in town can you get a full meal for $6.50 per person and have free coffee? Bring a friend with you, especially one that might become a new member. If you have not been there yet just give the meals a try.

Here are the meals for the month of July and August:

Thank you Ron and Roger for the excellent job of cooking the steaks. To give Ron and Roger a break, it would be nice to have a couple new cooks. Let me know if you would like to try cooking steaks once in a while.

Home Page and e-mail Addresses
The Lodge home page is at www.brookingselks1490.org. This page always contains 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.

Reason for a 2 month newsletter
The most important reason is that Shirley and Jerry will be going to California on vacation from July 13th to July 29th leaving very little time for Jerry to make up a newsletter when he returns. Hence, it was either an earlier newsletter or a later newsletter and Jerry chose the former. The second reason is that very little really goes on in the summer time so there is not enough information to fill two complete pages.

New Bartender
As many of you know, we have found a new bartender/waitress. Her name is Jen Connors. She is from Brookings and has had previous experience as a bartender and waitress. She is able to open the club thereby relieving me of the responsibility of opening and bartending. She has been doing an excellent job for the last four weeks and was officially offered the position by Sally Damm, the President of the Board of Trustees. Good luck to you Jen and thanks for taking the position.

Future Plans
It is now 2.5 years since we signed a contract to sell the building to the City of Brookings. Once the check was received, we paid off the bank loan of $200,000, we paid off $85,000 in debentures with interest and we paid off slightly more that $30,000 to vendors. It hurt me as much as anyone else to sell the building but we had no choice. The first 6 months after the sale were frantic and confusing. However, in the last two years, the club has become a self-supporting entity and is constantly making a monthly profit, even though it may no be a large profit. Hence, it is time to start thinking about a new building with a small kitchen, a dining area and a bar area. We can do this but we need to increase the membership by getting new members and by getting delinquent members to return. If we can obtain 300 to 400 more members we can have our own building within 5 or 6 years, totally paid for and having the facilities we need. However, it is going to take the help of all the current members to do this. All we need is each current member to get one new member or one delinquent member to join the Lodge. It isn’t going to happen if you expect 5 or 10 or 30 people to do all the work. This is a job all of us need to do, otherwise we might as well leave things the way they are. It is up to you as a member!!!

The Elks National Foundation (ENF)
Often referred to as the “Great Heart of Elkdom”, the Elk’s National Foundation funds many of the Elk’s charitable programs such as the Hoopshoot, the Veterans services, the State Elks Major Projects, Drug Awareness, and the Scholarship programs. The foundation is funded primarily by voluntary contributions from Elks across the nation and only the interest and earnings on the Foundation’s principal fund are spent. The principal changes only by the donations given to the organization. All it takes is $10/year for 10 years to be a member.

I have just been informed that the children of any deceased or disabled parent or stepparent that was an Elk can apply for an Emergency Educational Grant for an amount up to $4,000 if they can demonstrate financial need, are unmarried and under the age of 23. Contact Jerry for an application form if you know of anyone that might be interested in such a grant.

Jerry Bergum, ER