Storm Mountain Chapter

Howdy one and all,

In this email, I will discuss:

Ronald McDonald House
Chapter Elections
Upcoming Chapter Events
The Chapter Online
IDOS Memberships and Chapter Dues

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Ronald McDonald House

Debbie Hair is volunteering her time this New Year's Eve (Monday, 31 Dec) to serve dinner to about 40 people at the Ronald McDonald House in Salt Lake City. I'm hoping some of the chapter will be able to help. Dinner is to be served at 6:00... allowing plenty of time for those that want to celebrate later.

Debbie Hair and Cindy Ayres are making the main dish... Mondo Meat Balls. They need people to help cook and / or donate food for the rest of the meal. They need desserts, dinner rolls, green salads, drinks, etc. Debbie hopes that at least the main dish and desserts will be made on site.

If anyone is interested in helping or donating, contact Debbie at debDhair@yahoo.com. Or you can call her at 484-6966 (home) or 585-3296 (work with voice mail).

Debbie has signed up for this event under the name of Storm Mountain... making this a chapter event.

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Chapter Elections

My first DOG event was at Falcon Park with Storm Mountain in the fall of 2006. My second DOG event was Feb 2007 where Scott asked if I would be the chapter assistant director. I think we may have had somewhere between 10 and 20 families with the chapter at the time. My current chapter list has 52 names!! I'd say it was a great year for the chapter!

It's time for the chapter to elect their officers for 2008. I'm not really sure how to go about the whole process, but I would like to have an event in January or February where the chapter can voice their opinions, concerns, complaints, etc... make any suggestions to help improve the chapter... and vote on next year's officers. I have thought about having this event at a restaurant so we can all socialize instead of stressing over cooking and cleaning. Otherwise, the event will probably be at a church where we can cook outside and eat inside. I'm open to suggestions.

If anyone has any interest in running for office, or wants to help the chapter in any way, please contact me.

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Upcoming Chapter events

So far, I don't have many firm dates for events next year, but there are already a lot of events being discussed and planned. On the bottom of the Chapter DOG events main page, I have a table that lists the months and the chapter activities that are being discussed and planned. I am listing these events so we can plan around cook-offs and other Dutch Oven events. If you would like to host, or help plan a DOG event, Demos, or cook-offs, feel free to contact me. We are in need of some locations for the upcoming months.

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The Chapter online

As most of you are aware (like I give anyone the chance to forget), I think communication is very important. Because of this, I try to keep the Storm Mountain Chapter website up to date. On this website, I keep a list of the past DOG events and past Cook-Offs. I try to maintain a calendar of ANY Dutch Oven Event for Utah (and a few from Idaho). And, I have a web photo album that contains pictures from our events. One or two of you know about the Chapter Blog site that I created a month or so ago. Okay... only one person has really hit the blog site (thanks Ted). The blog site will be where I post these chapter emails... so those that aren't on the chapter list can get the same information and so new members can see what we have been doing. It's not a site that needs to be visited on regular occasions, but it can be a site that you can offer your friends that are interested in what we are doing... or instead of fowarding these emails, you can just offer a link to the blog site.

This past week, I was granted access to update our Chapter page on the IDOS site . I spent a little time today playing around with the page... maybe a little too much time... but I think it looks pretty good. Earlier this year, Clyde was nice enough to point the links on the IDOS page to our chapter website. I think it's better to maintain consistency within the IDOS site and changed those links to point back to the IDOS chapter page. Of course, I've loaded that page with links to our website! =0)

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IDOS Memberships and Chapter Dues

Of the 52 names I have on the chapter list, there are six or seven families that have lapsed with IDOS, or never signed up. I only bring this up in case a few of you may have forgotten. If you think your membership maybe have lapsed, feel free to contact me and I'll help you renew. You have to be an active IDOS member to be eligible to vote for chapter officers.

As most of you know, the Storm Mountain Chapter doesn't charge a fee or have dues anymore... though you are supposed to be current with IDOS. Because we no longer charge fees, we have been relying on selling items at our chapter events to support the chapter. Next year, I would like to keep a few standard Dutch Oven items to offer to the chapter and to the public that visits our events (Dutch Ovens, Cook-Books, Trivets, etc). And, I am thinking of offering a 'kitty jar' at our DOG events for donations... unless there are any objections.

A few people have mentioned having a fund raising event for the chapter... like possibly a Thanksgiving event were the chapter members will demo the menu items for a Thanksgiving meal... then offer the food as a complete meal. I think this would be a great opportunity for some of us novices to do our first Demo with some pros behind us to help us out. And, it would be a great social event for the chapter. If anyone is interested in helping... or planning... such an event, please contact me.

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Many thanks,

Ranes