15700 Santini Road, Burtonsville, Maryland 20730
As usual the Shenandoah Valley Steam and Gas Engine Association
held its annual banquet at Duff’s Rebel restaurant in
Winchester, Va. the first Saturday night of November. It was up to
its usual high quality with about 100 members and guests attending.
After the very good meal and some visiting amongst the guests, the
meeting was called to order by our president, Mr. Wayne Godlove.
The minutes of the previous meeting of September were read by our
secretary, Miss Giles, and approved as read. This was followed by
the treasurers report by our treasurer, Mrs. Ralph Lewin, which
proved to be a very encouraging report again for this year.
President Godlove was then thanked by our Vice-President, Mr. Paul
Giles, for an outstanding job well done. His fine efforts had
certainly made the job a lot lighter for us all this year.
At this time the meeting was turned over to Mr. Dennis Williams,
our nominating committee chairman. At our September meeting,
someone made the joking comment that ‘We can’t lose with a
winning team’. Apparently there were a lot of us that thought
the same way, and all of the 1974 officers were nominated for
another term in 1975, and were returned to office as mentioned in
preceding paragraph.
The members of the board of directors whose terms were up this
year were also returned to another three year term. Our board
consists of nine men, elected to three year terms, three every
three years. Of these, three are from outside of the state of
Virginia, and all of these are elected every three years, with the
other six elected three each during the elections the other two
years. Two new directors were elected, however, due to the
resignation of Mr. Lichliter and myself, both for family and health
reasons. The present board of directors consists of Mr. Robert
Debosky, Mr. Burchell Wiley, Mr. Ralph Lewin, Mr. James Lupton, Mr.
Ed Sines, Mr. Eddie Hornbaker, Mr. Earl Rohrer, (Md.), Mr. Elmer
Schaefer, (Pa.) and Mr. Oscar Chapman, (W. Va.).
We were then entertained by a very good slide show and lecture
on the history of the beautiful and old C&O canal, which is now
a historical landmark and scheduled for restoration and
preservation as a part of the federal parks system sometime in the
future. A section of it on the Washington, D.C. end has been
completed already. When completed it will run about 180 miles long,
with boating, fishing, camping and picnic areas.
The make up of the officers and board has been pretty well
covered under the elections sections so I will not go into that
part of the club organization. I always like to stress one point of
our club make up, and that leaves some of the old time members of
some clubs dumbfounded. That is that any dues paying member may
hold office and serve in an elected or appointed capacity at the
age of 12 or older. We have found we have teenagers with the
knowledge, judgment and ability to keep some of our older,
experienced men and women on their toes. It was a change in our
by-laws we have not regretted after several years experience.
We normally hold our regular monthly meetings at the Memorial
Park Building in Winchester, Va. on the third Friday of every
month,. 7:00 beginning time, February through September. Normal
exceptions are July, at the show grounds the Sunday before the show
in the afternoon. Work Detail!, picnic style. There is usually no
October meeting, with the annual Banquet and elections taking its
place, the first Saturday night in November. The meetings are joint
board and membership meetings, unless a special meeting is called
by the President or Vice-President. All interested parties are
welcome at any meeting, member or not, and we hope to see you at
the show in 1975, if not before.
