This month we had a relatively low-key meeting compared to many past ones. With no speaker scheduled, it was a chance to see just what kind of draw regular club business had, and I’m proud to say we outdrew the Democrats by a 2 to 1 margin. (Or should I say Democratics? Maybe Democritics would be more apt?)
Anyway, after the regular club business of doing the Pledge of Allegiance, short prayer, approving the minutes, the treasurer’s report, and pretty good news on the voter registration front from Woody Willing, we set to revising our by-laws with some minor changes in format and fixing up misspellings from the old typed version. Also, a change was made allowing our Secretary to concurrently serve on the County Central Committee. Dave Parker requested the change in order to fulfill both tasks – more on that shortly. We also discussed a couple other possible by-law changes but tabled those until the new officers got started, they weren’t of an emergency nature.
Chris von Buskirk filled us in more about the upcoming changes to the Wicomico GOP’s website, which should make it more user-friendly (including a page for the revised by-laws.)
Dustin Mills spoke up about an effort by the SU College Republicans to put together a GOPAC Candidate School later this spring for those interested. He’s also on a parallel track with me as far as getting the Lower Shore YR’s started up again, but I can work with him on that.
We elected our new officers by acclamation. Starting next month the slate will be:
President: George Ossman
First Vice President: Marc Kilmer
Second Vice President: Michael Swartz
Third Vice President: Brad Bellacicco
Fourth Vice President: Helen Shockley
Treasurer: Tom Hughes
Secretary: Dave Parker
Retaining Parker as Secretary was the purpose of passing the by-law change. But we have an interesting mix of people coming in and I look forward to working with them. By the way, part of my duties include the club newsletter and press relations. (That task starts at 7:40 a.m. tomorrow.) They actually asked me to do this a year ago, but I deferred until I felt a little more settled in – now I do.
We heard briefly from our County Councilpersons in attendance, Joe Holloway and Gail Bartkovich. While the honeymoon may be over, they are still working diligently on the county budget, particularly on capital improvements. Louise Smith, candidate for Salisbury City Council, also was there and spoke briefly. We also found out from Brad Bellacicco that another Council candidate forum for the six survivors of tomorrow’s primary will occur March 8th at Salisbury University (PACE is a co-sponsor.)
County Chair Dr. John Bartkovich closed out the proceedings by announcing the Tri-County Lincoln Day dinner date was set for April 29th at the Carousel in Ocean City.
So it was a pretty quiet proceeding tonight, without a lot of fireworks. But things will begin to hum again soon enough with the early Maryland primary barely over a year away. Now’s the best time to lay the foundation for success in the next two election cycles.
