Missoula Iris Society

Members:
Here is the January newsletter. It's sooo hard to believe that another year has come and gone so quickly. As we get older, the years just seem to fly by without any warning. Hope this newsletter finds all of you in the best of health and wishing all of you a very Happy New Year and a wonderful Christmas season. The attitudes and demeanor of everyone this time of year should be kept all year long and not just reserved for the holidays. Glad it’s all over, though, and ready to get back to normal again. This is a short newsletter as we didn’t have a meeting in December and there is nothing to report as new business yet. Again, Happy New Year and best wishes to all. Now we all will have to make 1,000 errors and get used to putting 2007 on all our checks.
Pete Addeo,
Webmaster
Missoula Iris Society
http://www.missoulairis.com

DATE & TIME: Sat, Jan 6th at 5:30 p.m.
PLACE: Host Jim and Linda Sadler at their church, First Christian Church, 2701 So. Russell St (across from the fairgrounds)
AGENDA: Installation of New 2007 Officers Elinor Utech – President; Fred Frey – Vice President; Zona Lindemann – Secretary and Pete Addeo – Treasurer; passing of the budget.
"FYI" NEWS:

Dues of $9.00 per person are due now for 2007. The new treasurer is Pete Addeo. You can pay at the meeting, or mail your check payable to Missoula Iris Society to Pete at 5805 Helena Dr, Missoula, MT 59803.

It's Their Birthday!!....Let's Give 'Em a Cheer!!!
Happy day to Claudia Brown, January 21st; Carol Addeo, January 2nd; Pat Redler, January 29th; Ann Violette, January 1st; & Zona Lindemann, January 28^th. Have a happy birthday all!

The New 2007 Calendars are here. Payment of $6 is due and you can pick-up at the January meeting from Elinor Utech.

The following meeting locations are in process. We need some volunteers to host a meeting as shown. Call Carol Addeo at 251-5833 if you would like to host a meeting at your home or be a host for a meeting at another member’s home: February - Needed March - Cindy Davis hosting at Gary's Clark's. April - Needed May - Needed June – Bob & Alverta Symes July - Alayne Hildritch September, October & November –Needed

The Audit Committee, Bob Symes, Alverta Symes and Honk Meyer met on December 14^th and the books have been audited and no changes were made. They are ready to be transferred to Pete Addeo at the January meeting.
The balances of all the accounts have been transferred by the Bank to Pete Addeo as Treasurer. Pete has verified the balance in each account with the bank against the accounting books held by our outgoing Treasurer, Swede Gustafson.
Treasurer's Report from Swede Gustafson: This is the same report as in December. The books were officially closed on December 1^st and no checks have been written since. One check was written for the Calendars and will be entered as a 2007 expense on the opening books.

SAVINGS ACCOUNT: Club Operations Account Balance September 30                  $2615.78 October deposits                                 9.00 Total                    2624.78 October expenses                            600.00 October 31 Balance         $2024.78 Expenses: Transfer to checking -                   $300.00 Transfer to Building Fund -                $300.00
                to pay off the loan in 2005 for the sprinkler system upgrade

                        Account Summary:
                               Club Operations            $2024.78
                               Judges Fund                     375.43
                               Memorial Fund                  301.92
                               Building Fund                    865.47
                               2006 Rhizome Sale          3001.00
                               2006 Interest Income         11.70
                                  Total balance              $6580.30

CHECKING ACCOUNT:
         September 30 Balance                          $ 471.05
                     October deposits                         715.00
                                           Total                 1186.05
                     October expenses                       499.44
                     October 31 Balance                 $ 686.61

MISSOULA IRIS SOCIETY TENTATIVE BUDGET FOR 2007

PUBLIC ACTIVITIES
   Median show                             $300
   Iris Show                                  $400
   Special Guest Judge                   $725
   Tour 2008                                   $100
   Rhizome Sale                             $600

Fort Gardens
   Maintenance                              $850
   Renovations/repairs                  $1,100
   Shed building fund                      $857
   EDUCATION
   Newsletter                                 $400
   Programs                                      50

CLUB OPERATIONS
   Sunshine                                   $200
   Filing Fee                                      15
   Friends of Fort                             100
   Presidential Rhizomes                  300
   Region RVP Donation                    50
   Membership information            $100
   Miscellaneous                               8
   Card File Maintenance                   50
   Historian/photographer                 100
       Tentative Budget              $6,305

Last years expenses:           $5,788.67

THE YEAR IN REVIEW – FROM YOUR PRESIDENT, PETE ADDEO

It has been a very rewarding experience for me to serve as President of the Missoula Iris Society. I have learned so much from the endeavor and have grown a new outlook about the club and it’s purpose in our culture. I tried to be as helpful as I could and strived to make the meeting more fun and interesting so we could keep new members coming to the meetings and wanting to become involved in our activities.
I want to personally thank all our wonderful officers that served with me for their support and guidance during my term. My biggest gratitude goes to, of course, my wife Carolyn, who helped me thru the newsletter’s information and making sure I conducted the meetings in the proper order of events. I always got confused about those things. Never could remember what would come next on the agenda of things. Anyway, I somehow got thru it all with a few giggles and couldn’t have done it without her. Now for the next 2 years, I get to do the fun stuff as well, keeping all the money for the club………oh yeah! Don’t worry, I won’t let it go to my head.
2006 was a good year for the club. We did very well increasing our membership. Our contest for a membership drive was a lot of fun and Gary Clark was the top winner. Billie Gray was a close second and Ann Violette did as well. We also lost a few of our existing members as well. All in all, we came out ahead and we will always remember our old friends that we lost and loved so much. A set of memorial benches at our gardens will always be a fitting reminder of their loyalty and hard work over so many years. The benches were donated to us by Friends of the Fort
We also have struggled thru many sicknesses and will always have our prayers ready for any of our members that have to deal with adversities and sickness. I will always wish God’s Speed to our members who have to go thru any type of sickness and carry them in my heart and say a prayer for them each day.
Last year was also our clubs 50^th Anniversary year and a gala dinner party was planned and was a great success. We had a lot of wonderful activities during the year as well. We had our usual events, the Iris Rhizome Sale, The Gardens Tour and the Iris Show at the Mall. Our garden tour was changed last year to include more gardens, not just those of our members with only Iris. We made it a point to get a variety of garden exposure for the public to see and it was successful for our first endeavor of that kind. Our next one will be even better. We introduced a Median Iris Show, thanks to Gary Clark, which will now become a regular annual event to be added to our agenda.
Our Fort Gardens saw a tremendous amount of change. Thanks to Billie Gray, we had a total renovation of the gardens and all the beds cleaned and redone. New edging was added, new sizes and entire new beds created all in the span of just one summer. What a job and what an accomplishment. Good work to all who helped. We received lots of pea gravel donated by JTL, lots of mulch and tons of hard work from members. The crowning touch to our gardens were the 4 beautiful arbors that were erected last summer as a welcome portal to our gardens. We received the grant for them from the city of Missoula Neighborhood Project Fund. Great job as well to all those who put them together and got them standing straight up and down as well.
Our club published our first booklet celebrating our 25^th anniversary of our display gardens. It is called “Fifty years of Iris Growing, Twenty-Five years of Iris Showing.” It will be considered an historical record of our club. We received a grant for the booklets from the Historical Museum. Copies were placed in the Historical Museum, the Mansfield Library, the Historical Museum in Helena and the Missoula County Library. Thanks to Carol Addeo for the tons of hard work and endless hours of reading our clubs history. It is a becoming tribute to the years of experience our club has to offer. I hope that everyone has a copy and reads it often. It is full of so much trivia and is a lot of fun to browse through.
Our club also had a contest to finally name our monthly newsletter. The official name of “Falls & Standards” won the contest and was provided by Fred Frey. We had fun at that meeting choosing and voting on so many names.
In closing, this President has had a wonderful 2 years as your chief. I have laughed and cried with all of you, worked beside some of the hardest working old goats I’ve ever encountered, and celebrated our club’s victories with all of you as well. My life will be changed by these years. I have seen some better times but will never be able to experience anything that will influence my life as the bunch of wonderful people that I have been graced to work with. Their never ending loyalty and pride in our club will be marked by me indelibly in my heart and my mind. I have become a very rich man as a result of my association with all of you.
I just hope that all our new members will strive to become an eventual replacement for some of our members whose old bones may not last too much longer. We need to keep our club moving ahead and increasing in members that will become an integral part of this club’s history. I hope that I will be able to contribute something in the years ahead and wish that I will become a part of our club that will be remembered as so many of you already are.
Thank you for the wonderful time. Now I get to keep all your money. It has been an ideal pleasure to serve as your President and wish Elinor the very best in her venture as your new President. I will also continue to be your newsletter editor and your website host as well. Let’s keep the website interesting and hope to hear from you with some interesting and fun things for the website as well. God’s speed and hope that 2007 finds you all healthy, wealthy and wise!!

Your President,

Pete Addeo