Volume 18- 4, Winter 2005: President's Message

Designating 2005 as "The Year of Our Members" was a good move. All of us became more familiar with the other members of our society. I enjoyed meeting and learning more about each of you with whom I had the chance to talk. Thank you for your time. Please keep it up.

A new BGS member became an officer (Dorrie Dykstra was elected Vice President and Program Chairman succeeding Dolly Rosales). I don't know if this is a first, but people with fresh and new ideas are always welcome. Another new member, Readie Cooper, presented a fascinating program on heritage societies in November. We also have a new Publicity Chairman, Dee Swink, replacing Lucy Brown. Please take a moment to thank these three people for stepping up to these tasks.

Our society was featured in the January/February 2005 issue of Everton's Genealogical Helper magazine. Very few societies get such an opportunity. Many 1000's of readers learned about you and your activities. Everton was quite generous by sending us extra copies of this magazine which were handed out to members at our November meeting.

Our cemetery photographing projects were stymied by the 2004 hurricanes but they are returning to full strength this coming year.

Please volunteer to help us out in February.

We did something new and unusual this summer by putting on a Beginning Genealogy course (thank you Vera, Betty and everyone who helped). Would you believe we had many more students applying than we could take?

We also had good, strong, educational programs of interest for our general meetings. The two workshops in July and August which focused on
solving brick walls were well attended and received.

All in all, 2005 has been a good year for BGS. More is planned for 2006. I hope all of you find it stimulating and informative. Please step up and participate when you can. Don't be bashful.

Happy holidays everyone! Take care... Pete