Officers, Membership and the Banquet

First a quick recap… In our own extremely uneventful version of the national midterm elections, new club officers were nominated and elected.  Please offer your support and congratulations to:

  • Larry Haas has been re-elected for a second term as Vice President.
  • Fraser Yarker has been elected to Treasurer.
  • Mike Peters has been re-elected for a second term as Safety Director.

Any officer is eligible to serve two consecutive two-year terms at the will of the club.  For more information on how our elections work, visit the Bylaws page.

December is a quiet month for the club, with colder weather shutting down wheeling season and family time around the holidays keeping many of us busy.  Our regular monthly meeting (at which we elected our officers) has passed, and there are no wheeling events scheduled.  You could still suggest something if you like… for example, the Midwest Jeep Thing club based out of St. Louis sponsors a day of wheeling at A&S Proving Grounds, the now-private land formerly known as Rockport Off-Road Park Washita Off-Road Park.  This event takes place on New Year’s Day.  The land is no longer a park available to the public, so this is a once-or-twice-a-year kind of thing.  Rockport used to do a New Year’s Day event every year and several MIJC members used to participate regularly Back In The Day.  (EDIT: Matt Brown reminds me this was actually Washita!)  So if you’ve got an itch to do some wheeling, post in the forum and sell it!

In January we don’t have our normal start of the month meeting, but instead we celebrate the previous year with our annual banquet.  This year it will be held on Saturday, January 19th, 6pm, at our usual location, the American Legion in Pekin.  You need to RSVP to Jill Martin by January 10th.  You should have received an email from her, but you can also download the form here and mail it with your deposit ($5 per person).  Any member who (re)joined in calendar year 2018 can come to the banquet.  MIJC provides the main course but please bring a dish to pass.  Jill and Jon Martin also host a pre-banquet party open to all club members at their house at 3pm.

December and January is also the time to renew your membership.  The cost is $30 per family.  You can also download our membership form and send it to Jill along with your banquet form and a check.  If you’re new to the club, as per our bylaws, you need to rejoin by the end of January or there is a $10 penalty fee when you do re-up.  Don’t make us enforce it!

There are no other scheduled events for January.  Our next regular meeting will be February 2nd, 12pm at our usual location of Avanti’s in Pekin.