ICGS Meeting May 20, 1999
Present: Ron Stacey, Dick Rohowetz, Peggy Perry, Cheryl Schmidt, Kathy Stoltz
Secretary's report read and approved. Motion by Cheryl, 2nd by Dick
Treasurer's report read and approved. Motion by Dick, 2nd by Ron
Cemetery project update: An individual sent Cheryl a listing of everyone buried in the Hyde Cemetery. There is no other information other than their names, but it's a definite start at indexing this cemetery. Neither Dick nor Mark/Peggy have had an opportunity to get out and do any further cemeteries yet this season.
Probate indexing project: Cheryl and Kathy did not have an opportunity to work on this further this past month.
Library project: Lots of new materials have come in again and we have more on the way. Helene and Peggy visited a couple of seminars and found quite a bit of useful information to add to the library. At this time, the Author/Title portion of the cataloging is complete. But what remains to be done is some of the articles within each magazine and the keywords for both the publication and the articles themselves. Peggy discussed the Open House that was anticipated for this spring season yet. It has been decided to wait until fall and hope that more of the cataloging is complete at that time. We want to be sure that we have a good chunk of the library available and ready at the Dodgeville Public Library before we host the Open House. Attendance is projected to be extremely small during the summer months, thus the reason for waiting until fall.
Web site stats - numbers were down a bit again from last month but we did have 5 days with no reporting. Not certain if that was because the website was down or because the reporting tool was down. Decided to save a tree and just print 1 copy of all the reports each month going forward and present highlights to meeting attendees.
We looked at the upcoming events around Iowa County to determine which ones we felt ICGS could or should be represented at. Montfort Heritage Days June 4,5,6 is one that appealed to the group. Ron Stacey volunteered to be our host for that event if we can still attend. Peggy will found out contact information and work on it and see if this is still a possibility for us to attend. She will contact Ron when she knows further information. Other ones were the 4th of July in Mineral Point and perhaps Lone Rock's as well depending upon the time of each parade and that following weekend in Dodgeville for Farmer's Appreciation Day. Mark, Peggy, and Cheryl Schmidt would be available to do both weekends. Ron has also volunteered to work a booth in Arena on August 14. Cheryl and Kathy will find out more information on this event for us.
A very long discussion was held regarding souvenirs to pass out at these events. We discussed everything from pencils (16 cents per 1000) to magnets (21 cents per 1000). After looking at pros and cons of each item, the attendees felt that this was too much money to outlay at this time. It was felt that the money would be a waste with just the kids grabbing hand fulls and then information would not be passed onto the projected audience that we were targeting. Instead, we decided to look at the cost of having brochures printed and folded at some place like Office Depot, Office Max, Insty Prints, etc and hand them out to people during the parades and have them available at the booths for these events. Ron offered to look into this for us and gather prices, etc. Peggy will update the brochure, if needed, and send a copy to Ron. This was felt to be a better use of our money for this year at least. Kathy has asked for some brochures as well. She will distribute these around the Mt. Horeb area for us. It was also suggested that we send brochures to some of the local historical societies (Iowa county, Mineral Point, etc) and ask if they would display them for us.
Effective January 1, 2000 the membership price for international customers will be $12.50. The cost increase is needed due to the postage cost of $1.00 for each mail item that we send these folks. We currently have 2 international members, and another person may be joining soon. Motion by Dick, 2nd by Cheryl. It was also suggested that we contact our international customers to see if they are interested in working out a reciprocal research option for members that are interested in doing so. Peggy will follow up with these members on that idea and gather their opinion before any decision to go forward with that idea is decided upon.
A revision to our existing bylaws in needed to apply for Federal Non-Profit status. We need to address how to liquidate our assets if the society should ever dissolve. 2 options were presented and will be put up for members to vote on either by proxy or at the next scheduled meeting on June 17.		
Option 1:
Option 2:
There will be refinements needed to each plan, but this is the basic information to start with and to get a vote on. The other details can be worked out once a plan has been chosen and we can concentrate on just that chosen plan.
Peggy received a letter from WSGS that there is a proposed legislation in Wisconsin to temporarily increase the birth certificate fee charged in Wisconsin from $12.00 to $13.20. This temporary measure is being sought to fund a new hearing screening program for newborn children. All genealogists and organizations are encouraged to write a letter to your state representative requesting that this bill be dropped. Motion by Ron and 2nd by Cheryl that ICGS write such a letter. This information will also be sent to all members in some format - either by separate note or in the June newsletter.
The next meeting will be held on June 17 at a member's home in Avoca, WI.