Our June membership meeting is one week earlier than usual this year! Following the meeting we'll have a picnic and some fun. The meeting starts at noon as usual, and we anticipate the picnic starting about 1:30pm.
The festivities will take place at West Bush Lake Park in Shelter 1. The address is 9401 West Bush Lake Road in Bloomington. We'll be providing the sides, salads and desserts this year, so all you have to bring is any meat you'd like to grill and beverages of your choice. We'll also have some games to play and time for visiting and relaxing.
Please feel free to bring family and friends to this outing. Let us know how many will be attending be emailing or replying to the post on Facebook.
I have a friend Jennie, that is a volunteer at the Isanti County Jail. She works with the inmates (primarily women), in a library/reading program plus more. She has just started a reading tutoring program for males & females, & also helps provide the inmates children with books. She also collects used magazines & books for the libraries- there are 4. She is asking for donations of used (or new) books in all genres, for adults, but children’s books are also appreciated. I have been assisting her by asking friends if they have books they would like to get rid of/donate to a worthy cause.
I plan to be at the Nokomis Anniversary picnic & could collect them then. All genre are welcome-SciFi, Mystery, Romance, Historical, Etc. Men’s, Women’s, adult, youth, & children’s.
Thanks to Scott for envisioning a great outing for our group of 16 on May 5th. We started at Surly Brewery, moved on to Lake Monster, traveled to Urban Growler and ended up at BANG! We found good food, good beer, and good visiting and fun. Muy bueno!
We'll be in at the Eagan facility packing food for Feed My Starving Children on July 24th from 6pm to 7:30pm. You can go to www.fmsc.org to sign up for a space. As of this writing there are 13 spaces left. After the packing, which always ends too soon, we'll head to a nearby restaurant for dinner. Please join us - it feels great to help others!
This years marks the 20th anniversary of CONvergence and we'll be there once again. We'll be in our favorite room 107 and we look forward to seeing everyone there. We hear all year long about how con-goers look forward to our room and consider it the best, so we're really excited!
As always, we need a lot of hands to get the room set up in time. We'll meet at 9am on Thursday, July 5th at Mary and Jack's to load the truck, then head down to the Bloomington DoubleTree at noon. We are scheduled to open the doors at 8pm, so this will be a precision operation. We need YOU to assist!
If you are attending the convention we'd like to sign you up for time in the room. We're open from 8pm to midnight on Thursday and 7pm to midnight on Friday and Saturday nights. A few hours or a whole evening is fine, and we'd like to know up front so we can schedule breaks for those who work the entire time. Besides, what's more fun at con than being in the best room of all?
We also need help to tear the sets and load the truck at 9am on Sunday, July 8th. We'll bring everything back to the cargo bay, load it up, and head to lunch to reflect on the fun we had all weekend.
This is a big job and it needs coordination, so please drop Mary a line at as soon as you can to share the times you can be there! Thanks in advance for your help.
Now, on to the costume plans. Since the convention theme is Natural 20, we're all going to be Number 20. Remember Harry Mudd's android planet in the episode "I, Mudd"? Every series has a 20, and we'll find them all. No matter what you choose to wear, you'll be Number 20 in your series. We have a few designated characters already, and some that we still need, so let Mary know if you're thinking of something specific and she'll clue you in to what others are doing.
We're back for the 18th time, saving lives during the week of July 4th! For the last few years we have had to turn away blood donors due to a full schedule, so we're boldly going where no blood drive has gone before and running for 7 full hours on Saturday, July 7th. We'll be greeting donors in the lobby from 9:30am to 4:30pm and hope to end the day with 50 live-saving pints of blood!
You can sign up to donate at www.redcrossblood.org or call Jane at 651-283-6736. Please pass the word to your friends who'll be at the con so they can claim their appointment time right away!
We had a fun and eventful March, with MarsCon, the MarsCon Blood Drive, the St Patrick's Beer Tasting Party and the Annual Chuckwagon. I am glad that I got to see so many of you!
I keep thinking that winter is over, but then another snow comes. You'd think that it can't go on forever, but it's Minnesnowta! Soon we'll have warm weather and lots more fun at our events. Come to the General Membership Meeting in April and hear about fun upcoming times including our anniversary picnic and meeting, Drinko de Mayo (yes, you read that correctly), CONvergence, the lake outing, Feed My Starving Children (summer edition), and more!
This year is an even year, and that means an election. We are currently accepting nominations for all Governing Board positions. Nominations opened at the March General Membership Meeting and will continue until the vote is taken at the May General Membership Meeting. All positions are open to nomination. You can nomination another, or nominate yourself. Positions include:
Captain/President
First Officer/Vice President
Science Officer/Chief Financial Officer
Operations Officer/Secretary
Chief Medical Officer/Newsletter and Historian
Chief of Security/Membership
As of this writing, all incumbent officers have accepted a nomination to run for their office. Anyone can choose to run for an office, so step up if you have a desire to help guide your club.
Thanks to everyone that came to have fun with us on March 10th. We had a great time visiting, enjoying the wonderful food, and finding out what beer was the best. There were games, too, like a cutthroat session of "how many words can you make out of St Patrick's Day?"
This year we had 24 entries in the blind taste test. They ranged from non-alcoholic ginger beer to mead to every possible shade of ale, stout, porter and lager. There were some fun names, like Biscotti Cake Break and VooDoo Juicy, and beers from lots of places, from Grand Cayman and England to breweries across the United States.
The 15th annual winners of the USS Nokomis Bad Beer Board were Janalee and Charlie Wakefield for BMC Ale. The second best beer was Horny Goat Chocolate Peanut Butter Porter, brought by Phill Goldman. The top prize went to Emma Frazee for Chocolate Coconut Stout. The best beer winners each took home Best Buy gift card prizes, while the Bad Beer Board is its own prize!
Thanks to Emma and Joey for hosting the event in their fantastic party room. What a great place for a get-together like this!
March madness is upon us, and for the USS Nokomis that means a very busy month. First, we have MarsCon and the blood drive, plus the Twin Cities Regional Science Fair. This is followed by the General Membership Meeting and St Patrick's Day Beer Tasting Party on the second weekend. St Patrick's Day itself falls on the third weekend, for those of us who celebrate it. I have been participating in the Minneapolis parade as a Green Goddess for many, many years so that would be me, plus Emma these days. Finally, the very important Chuckwagon social and fundraiser falls on the last weekend of the month. I hope you're full of energy!!
All of these activities are very fun and important, but remember in particular that the Chuckwagon is our biggest fundraiser of the year. A lot of the other fun things we do hinge on this one day, so please come and bring friends and family. We put on a fun event and the cost is very reasonable. Plus, you can introduce unsuspecting others to your awesome Star Trek friends! Please make sure you remember about the 50-50 raffle, too. Even if you can't get people to come, a chance to win hundreds of dollars at very good odds, with proceeds going to charity, is a great way for people to help.
We have lots of fun coming up as the weather gets warmer (not yet warmer, I know). We'll start to emerge from our homes in to the wide world and enjoy a Drinko De Mayo, anniversary picnic, summer fun and CONvergence, and more.
Don't forget that this is an election year. If you are interested in running for a position on the Governing Board, nominations will be taken at the March, April and May meetings. Ask a board member if you want more information. The election will take place at the May General Membership meeting, so plan to attend.
GALA 2024 Westin Galleria 3201 Galleria, Edina, MN 55435 Join us for our annual Gala celebrating and supporting the mission and music of the National [...]
