From the desk of the President…..

Welcome everyone to the busy Fall season. The club’s Fossil Fair will be here soon, along with the Daytona Museum’s Natural History Day, and the National Fossil Day celebration at FLMNH. Yes, we are looking for volunteers to help out at the events. Check out the details inside this newsletter. If you want to sign up or have questions, email bonnierussell62
@gmail.com or call 352-429-1058.

At last month’s meeting, we went over the suggestions from the Board meeting. The proposals for having 6 meetings per year (instead of 10) plus various events and having items at each meeting to “buy” with your Fossil Bucks were voted on and passed. These will go into effect in January 2019. If any other changes come up, we’ll keep you informed.

Had a large collection of agatized coral brought in so everyone at the meeting got to take home at least one. Talked about Yankeetown and the Crinoid Kid. No, I haven’t found one yet….. still looking. Also talked about donating items to the Florida Museum. Steve Sharpe & I had gone up to Gainesville to meet with Roger Portell (Invertebrate Curator). While Roger was checking out the Peace River sand dollars Steve had brought him, Steve noticed a few (oh-so-common) calcified sea urchin spines. Steve asked about them and Roger said that’s all he had. Steve told him that he had a mayo jar full and Roger was welcome to them. I bring this up because we always assume that the Museum would only be interested in big dramatic specimens. Sometimes the common fossils we collect are needed for scientific study. Donating to the Museum is a great way to participate in Citizen Science.

I unveiled the design for this year’s t-shirt at the meeting. Fossil Fair Shirt orders are already coming in so be sure to reserve yours.

We’ll have a speaker from the University of Florida at the September meeting. See the details on page 6.

Come on out and join us at the shows and events.

Be seeing you soon.
Russell Brown, President