Germania Park October Membership Meeting Minutes, 10/11/24  The meeting was called to order by President Karl Schaefer @ 8:04 pm, with the Pledge of Allegiance. President-Karl Schaefer opened the meeting by inviting Jim up to the front to make an announcement. Jim, first, thanked everyone for their help in the food booth during the Oktoberfest. He then asked for some folks to volunteer as Guest Chefs in his absence in the kitchen as he, Sue and several others are going down to Florida to help some friends rebuild their homes that were lost in the hurricane. Karl introduced 8 new members;  Robert Baun, Peter Ceru, Marie Emihl, William Ferguson, Stephen Herbes, Barbara and William Shugrue and Dominik Zwakowski. The new members were then welcomed into the dining room and introduced themselves to the members. To the new members, welcome to Germania Park! Armin and Ken, motioned to accept the new members. Karl announced the retirement of Rich Brown, Treasurer. Thank you, RIch, for all of you have done for the club during your term. We look forward to seeing you around the club. Carl Nestman will continue as Assistant Treasurer and will also take on the role of Interim Treasurer until elections in December. Save-the date-November 1st membership meeting instead of the second Friday in the month, due to Liederabend conflict and new date change December 6th membership meeting instead of the 13th, which is the night before the Christmas party. Motion to accept the minutes as published by Armin and Adolf.  We had a Paranormal investigation team come in to Germania Park to take a look around to determine whether or not we have paranormal activity. After several hours it was determined that we do indeed have paranormal activity.  We can also consider holding tours to make $ for the club. The encounter is available to watch on Youtube. Hailey Schafer came along as a German translator to the ghosts. Congratulations to our members of the month, Roberto and Fernanda Reisinger! Thank you for all of your service at the club, especially in the kitchen! Anyone who would like to nominate a member for next month, please let the Board know. Vice President-Bob Galdon-Guten abend and congratulations to the new members. Some numbers from Oktoberfest include; 81 kegs of beer, which is the equivalent to over 1,000 gallons of beer. Alcohol (bottles) is always for sale at the bar, buy early for Christmas. Thank you for everyone’s help at Oktoberfest.Treasurer (Interim)-Carl Nestman-Financial Report-as read on September 13th, the September financial details of dates and separate payments are made available to the auditing committee for examination of info details. Asst. Treasurer-Carl Nestman announced that we are still collecting member dues for 2024, dues are $60 for 2024 and new membership cards, calendars and by-laws are available. New members should come see him after the meeting to pay dues/registration fees for the remainder of the year. All members make sure to sign in for the meeting.  First Trustee-Ursula Becker-Hello from Germany, thank you for coming out tonight. As you know by now, we had a very successful Oktoberfest. I want to say a very big thank you to all the members that helped out. I’m not naming all the names it would take too long to mention everyone. I do want to thank everyone that came to help before and after the Oktoberfest. I do hope that, despite the work, you still had fun and maybe you got to know a member you didn’t know before. I hope you will enjoy the Schlachtfest and I will see you in November.   Second Trustee-Bob Crocetti-absentSecretary-Susan McCarthy-If any members are having any issues receiving their communications please come see her after the meeting. Third Trustee-Darlene Miller-There were multiple improvements to the property made in August and September including a fresh coat of 30 year waterproofing white paint on the outside kitchen building; installation of the wood surrounding the swing set, and the addition of wood chips. Special thanks to Ed Becker, Thom Begoss, Patrik Wolf, Randy Miller, Diane and Ted and everyone else that help with outdoor needs in the last 3 months. On the maintenance side, Oktoberfest was challenging due to the volume of people. The thankless job of waste management and before hours of clean-up was done by a few individuals. Many thanks to a weekend of effort from Thom Begoss, John Kurtyaka and Patrik Wolf. Additionally, thank you to each and every member that stayed on Saturday night to help with garbage and clean-up, everyone’s help was appreciated. Looking into the future, we obtained bids from local paving companies to remove and replace both the parking lot  and the roadway.  Bids inclusive of both items ranged from $75,000 to $115,500. The project would require the club to be closed to personnel for 7-9 days, weather depending.Entertainment Chair-Susan Herleth-Our meeting next month is the first Friday, November 1st. We also had a motion to change the December meeting from the 13th (night before the Member Christmas party) to the 6th, where we will vote for the upcoming elections. Motion by Roberto and Kurt. For Schlachtfest we have 120 people so far, full house. Joe Kroboth is the entertainment. For Liederabend we could use more reservations, only 22 so far, call Susan. The menu is choice of Rouladen or Chicken Marsala. Please let Susan know if you will be attending the Members’ Christmas party and New Year’s Eve. We will again have a block of hotel rooms, we need people to attend. The board has discussed cancelling this event due to low attendance. We need at least 75-80 people. Doors open at 3:30 pm, 4-8 pm event. At 6 pm, we toast for midnight in Germany. No meeting in January. Take-out Rouladen on 1/25and we have 3 more rentals coming up yet this year. We are working on a design for Germania Park’s 130 year t-shirts. They should be here by the Christmas party, maybe $25-$28 per shirt. Elections are in December. Alfons and Steve are the elections committee. The positions that are up for election are as follows; Vice President-2 year term, Treasurer-2 year term, Third Trustee (outside)-3 year term, Entertainment-3 year term, Auditor-3 year term. We need names by the November meeting if you plan on running. Old business- none New business-Fernanda reminded members to use the Germania Park webpage, Facebook and the Members Only Facebook pages for communications. Paving was discussed. Many questions, we are only in the very beginning stages of getting quotes. It is an expensive job and we will discuss its feasibility. We will review safety at the club, etc. It was also brought up that we should raise the prices on beer, they are too low compared to other venues.    Karl closed the meeting at 8:55 pm with a motion by Armin Wagner and Erich Frie. Raffle tickets were sold and items raffled off. Upcoming events 10/19           Schlachtfest 11/1              November Membership Meeting 11/9              Liederabend 12/6              December Membership Meeting 12/14            Members’ Christmas Party 12/31            New Year’s Eve Party  Respectfully submitted, Susan McCarthy