Custer Rod and Gun Club
Membership Meeting Minutes
January 21, 2017
Miles City Town and Country Club

Meeting Called to Order: 7:12 PM

Marty Scheid lead the club in the Pledge of Allegiance.

Roll call of officers:
Present: Randy Anderson, Jesse Smith, Cheri Reed, Shane Adams, Todd Burch, Daniel DeLong, Randy Hart, Jim Keith, Marty Scheid, Chris Schlepp
Not Present: Ty Rainey, Larry Hudson
Total attendance approximately 87 people.

Reading of Previous Meeting Minutes:
Jesse Smith motioned, “We accept the minutes from last year’s meeting as posted on the website.” The motion was seconded and passed.

Reading of Current Financial Report:
Cheri reported the club has $17,152.94 in the checking account, which doesn’t include any money taken in at tonight’s meeting or memberships paid through PayPal. Cheri also reported that we have two CDs. One with a balance of $2,304.72 which will renew at an interest rate of .25%. The other is at US Bank, has a balance of $2,304.54 and is also set to renew at an interest rate of .25
Debra Smith motioned, “We accept the financial report as read.” The motion was seconded, and passed.

President Report:
– Club memberships
Randy Anderson reported the Board changed the club Bylaws to extended the deadline for club members to renew their memberships until the 15th of Feb. each year but no renewal will be accepted after Feb. 15, only new memberships, and new memberships can not be purchased by a member who is delinquent in renewing their membership, until they either turn in their gate key card for the riffle range, or pay the $25 lost card fee. Otherwise they will have to wait until Dec. 1st to renew for the following year.

Keith Hall pointed out that he believed the change needed to be voted on by the club members in order to be a permanent change to the Bylaws.
Lee Wankel motioned “We approve the change made by the Board to the Bylaws to revise the club’s Bylaws Article 1, Section 1, Sub-Section C to read, “C) Membership renewals will be sold December 1 through February 15 at which time no further renewals will be sold for the remainder of the year. New memberships will be sold online throughout the year, only to applicants who have never been a member before. The club may, at it’s discretion, host a limited number of staffed “Range Days” where the public can attend for a fee per firearm.”” The motion was seconded and passed.

Randy Anderson reported the club was at 245 paid members before the annual meeting, and 2016 memberships were only down 65 people since the decline of the oil work in the area.

– Spotted Eagle Clubhouse
Randy Anderson reported the Board had approved a budget of $8,000 to renovate the inside of the Spotted Eagle clubhouse including replacing the bathroom and plumbing, refinishing the floor, and possible replacing the back room with a vault. He asked the members if they would like Board to expand the project to include a covered patio outside as well. Kathy Kaiser motioned, “We increase the budget and expand the project to include a covered patio on Spotted Eagle clubhouse.” The motion was seconded and passed.

Reports of Boards and Standing/Special Committees:
– Rifle Range
Jesse Smith reported the club held a work day in June where they painted the shed by the clubhouse, painted the shooting benches on the 200 yard range, and corrected the drainage so the new bathroom septic tank doesn’t flood again. He reported there’s been a lot of vandalism on the steel targets with people shooting up the frame instead of the targets, and people shooting armor piercing and rifle/carbine cartridges on the pistol targets leaving holes and dangerous dimples. He reported they have installed a couple signs with safety/range rules, and the pistol bays are to be pistol or shotgun only.

Jesse reported the Board has passed a motion to hire a dirt contractor to increase the height of the pistol bay berms as soon as the weather improves, now that they have had time to settle since their initial construction.

Jesse also reported that he has been approached by several people wanting the club to offer 3-Gun or other types of shooting events not currently offered. Jesse reported that he has never seen the Board turn down a request to start a new activity, as long as someone is willing to volunteer to organize and run the event.

– Action Pistol
Jesse Smith reported the Action Pistol shoots have averaged between 15-24 shooters each week, and over the 4 years it’s been running has collected just over $4,000, spent just under $3,000 and profited $1,137.83

– .22 Youth Shoot
Keith Hall requested members thank Cabelas for donating 5,000 rounds of .22 for the youth shoots.

– Cowboy Action Shooting
Randy Hart reported the Cowboy Action Shooting attendance has been pretty slow last year but if anyone wants to try it, it’s the 3rd Saturday of every month, and they are very accommodating with new shooters, they don’t require period costumes, etc. that other SASS shoots do.

– Shotgun Shooting
Jesse Smith Reported that one of the two trap throwers is working normal, the other one is still not oscillating but he didn’t think anyone had been working on it in several months. He reported that the club made a big push to get revitalize participation in the weekly trap/skeet shoots, starting the first of Aug. 2016. He said they had volunteers committed to opening the range every Wednesday and started with 12-15 shooters which quickly dropped to about 6 each week. Eventually they went 4 weeks straight without a single shooter showing up, and just canceled the shotgun shooting because the volunteers didn’t want to commit to showing up if there were no shooters participating. He reported that there were rumors that there were people interested in starting a league in the Spring, and the Board would make another push to get it going again in the Spring.

Cheri Reed reported that the club may need to take apart the trap thrower that is not working correctly, and ship parts of it to the manufacturer to work on it.

Randy Anderson asked if someone had equipment to move snow at Spotted Eagle so the melt water doesn’t flood the trap houses again. Chris Schlepp volunteered to do it with his tractor and blade. Cheri Reed motioned, “We reimburse Chris Schlep for his fuel to plow snow on the trap range.” The motion was seconded and passed.

Old Business:
Randy Anderson motioned “We approve the change made by the Board to the Bylaws to amend the club’s Bylaws, Article 1, Section 1, Sub-Section B; to read, “B) A member’s spouse, and children (under 18 years of age) will have the use of the club as an associate member with all the privileges of the club, with the member present and responsible for them. They will not have a vote and cannot hold an office as an associate member. All associate members will be accompanied by the member.”” The motion was seconded and passed.

New Business:
– Certified Rifle Instructors
Debra Smith motioned, “The club pay for the books and fees to certify rifle instructors who agree to a 3 year commitment to teach the club’s .22 Youth Shoots.” The motion was seconded and passed.

– Club Contribution Incentive
Randy Anderson motioned, “The club initiate a volunteer incentive program where Board members and Committee chairs submit names, on a monthly basis, of members who have contributed to the club, to be put in a drawing to win a gun which will be purchased by the club and drawn for at each annual meeting.” The motion was seconded, and passed.

– HID card recovery
Randy Anderson reported he is unable to program the new batch of HID cards in the rifle range gate lock. He is worried the lock may not accept more cards, and we may need to recover the HID cards from delinquent members who have not returned their cards.

Randy Anderson motioned, “If necessary, or dictated by lock manufacturer that we need to recover HID cards, we proceed with Main Street Business collections to recover delinquent cards.” The motion was seconded, and passed.

Nomination and Election of Officers and Board of Directors:
Randy Anderson reported the following members have been nominated during the banquet, to fill the following 2 year positions:

Jerry Austill, and Jess Blankenship for Vice-President, currently held by Ty Rainey
Jesse Smith for Club Secretary, currently held by Jesse Smith
Shane Adams for the Board of Director position currently held by Shane Adams
Daniel DeLong for the Board of Director position currently held by Daniel DeLong)
J.D. Arneson for the Board of Director position currently held by Larry Hudson)
Chris Schlepp for the Board of Director position currently held by Chris Schlepp)

All nominees accepted the nominations except Jess Blankenship who declined. Randy then called for more nominations from the floor. There were no additional nominations made. Keith Hall motioned, “We elect all unopposed nominees unanimously.” The motion was seconded and passed.

Good and Welfare:
– VFW Flag Project donation request
Randy Anderson reported he received a request from the VFW for a $50 donation to their flag project that places American flags around town on holidays. Jim Bastian motioned, “We donate $50 to the VFW flag project.” The motion was seconded, and passed.

– Montana Wildlife Federation donation request
Randy Anderson reported the MWF sent a request for donations. He explained the Board does not sign on to political letters/petitions MWF sends to lawmakers because we have club members on both sides of most of the issues and we can’t speak for all club members.

Fred Tetschner motion, “We donate $200 to the MWF.” The motion was seconded, and passed.

– Door Prizes and Raffle Items
Cheri Reed drew the winners of the door prize and other raffle items.
John Reisler won the Door Prize which was a Henery .22 lever action rifle.
John Riesler won the Savage .17 HMR rifle.
Penny Hart won the Glock 19 9mm pistol.
Jim Keith won accommodations for 8 days & 7 nights in Cancun Mexico

Other raffle prize winners included:
Shane Adams, Randy Anderson, Chris Schlepp, Clinton Meidinger, Dave Nation, Brian Kinneman, & Teresa Scheid

Adjourn:
Randy Anderson motioned to adjourn. The motion was seconded, and passed at 9:09 PM.