Club Hours, Meetings, Definition of Sexual Harassment
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 from 4:00 pm until the last customer leaves. We will continue to be open every Thursday night during the hours of 3:30 – 9:00 pm throughout the month of August.

The Board of Trustees will meet at 5:30 p.m. on the 16th of August, while the Lodge Officers will meet at 7:00 p.m. on the same night. At the May 17, 2007 meeting it was proposed that we adopt the Discrimination and Harassment Policy for Subordinate Lodges found in the Manual #510900 dated March 2004 and revised June 6, 2004. The adoption of this by-law was discussed at the June 21, 2007 meeting and was passed by those present at the July 19, 2007 meeting.

Here is the new policy found in manual #510900:
“For purposes of this policy, sexual harassment is defined as unwelcome or unwanted conduct of a sexual nature (verbal or physical) when: (1) submission to or rejection of this conduct by an individual is used as a factor in decisions affecting hiring, evaluation, promotion or other aspects of employment; (2) this conduct substantially interferes with an individual’s employment or creates an intimidating, hostile or offensive work environment.”

Meals on Membership Nights:
The meals will continue to be 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 give the meals a try, come down to make new friends, to play cards, or to visit and enjoy the Club. Once again, we would like 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 is what keeps the Club going.

Here are the meals for the month of August:

Once again, our thanks go out to Ron Deutsch and Roger Mellendorf for doing an excellent job of grilling the sirloin steaks we had in July. Just to keep the cooking team together we had to change the night we normally have steaks.

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 will normally contain all of the latest information and you should inform the Lodge if you have an address change. Remember that the cost of a newsletter returned and forwarded by first class mail amounts to about $1.68 versus 15 cents? Help the Lodge save money by informing the office of winter and summer addresses.

Parties at the club:
Once again we want to encourage members to use the club for special events. One member used the club for three straight nights in July and never had to pay for using the facility because as a member, you can have a party at the Club without a rental fee. If you are interested in having a party at the Club whether it is a anniversary party, birthday party, graduation party or just a fun party, give us a call at 692-4640 and we will do everything we can to make sure the party is successful. If you know of someone that wants to have a party encourage them to also call the Elks and check us out.

Dues Renewal
There are still 23 members that have not paid their dues for the new year. As I have mentioned on several occasions, the dues from members, which is used to save for our new building and for the charitable work we do, continues to decrease every year. Both hurt when we lose members. In the last 5 years, we have lost approximately 350 members, which cost the lodge about $20,000 per year or $100,000 over a 5 year period. Many members we lost want their own building with a dining area, a kitchen and a bar but they don’t want to help pay for it. Don’t join this group of people and stay with the Lodge by sending in your dues today. Everyone can help out by getting a new member or a past member to return to the Lodge. The exalted ruler needs every one to help.

GOLF TOURNAMENT
The Bobcat Backers are having their 9th annual Bobcat Backers golf tournament on Saturday, August 4th at the Brookings Country Club. We are sponsoring a team of four individuals organized by Ron Deutsch. It is my understanding that the people who play in this tournament have a great time and all the profit goes toward helping students that participate in extracurricular activities sponsored by the Brookings School System. Here is another way the Lodge helps to make Brookings a better place to live.

THE FINANCIAL PICTURE
For the past three years, we have made a small profit almost every month. In fact, this is the first time in the last ten years that we had made a profit for three consecutive years. When will we get a new building of our own? We can only get this if we have more members willing to return. Before getting a new club, we need to hire someone to do what the ER is currently doing free. We could afford a part time manager right now but the result would be little or no monthly profit. Do you want this and a new club or do you want to continue as we are? Speak out at the meetings for it is your Lodge.

Jerry Bergum, ER