Irish Cultural Society of San Antonio

Irish Cultural Society

of San Antonio Texas

MINUTES 18SEP05

IRISH CULTURAL SOCIETY MEETING - September 18, 2005

Today's meeting was opened by President Lou Kelley at 4:12 p.m., followed
immediately by the program chair, Gene Logan, who introduced the program
for today. We were entertained for almost an hour by Sally's Garden, who
play a range of traditional Irish, Scottish, Bluegrass, and American folk
tunes as well as their own original compositions. The trio includes John
Wiesen on guitar, Sally Wiesen on fiddle, and Sonya Graham on mandolin.
They all contribute to the vocals on their selections.
At 5:05 p.m. Tom Macken spoke about his intention to provide Gaelic lessons
soon in a sixteen week long session to those who are interested in learning
Irish themselves. He provided background information on his familiarity
with the language. Tom passed around a sign-up sheet for those who are
interested in the class.
At 5:35 Lou Kelley began the monthly business meeting stating that there was
no new correspondence for the ICS this past month.
Kay Delaney, the membership chair, let us know that we had 57 members and
21 guests in attendance at this meeting, including four new members: The
Patricks, Father White, and Donna Dickenson.
Gene Logan, program chair announced that Tom Macken would provide
a program next month about the Gaelic language.
The secretary read last month's minutes, which were approved as read.
The librarian, Susan Feeley, asked for a show of hands of those members who
own DVD players, which was a majority of the members present. DVD movies
will now be purchased for the ICS library. She also asked for a show of hands
for those members who would like to extend the library to include a music
collection, and for those members who would like the on-line library
non-fiction collection to be subdivided by genre, to include
history/genealogy, and autobiography/biography, besides the current
subdivisions for folklore and poetry. Members were in favor of both of
those ideas.
Bob gave the treasurer's report, pointing out some of the expenses that
the ICS has. Brendan H. raised questions about the annual budget re:
$500 in donations and the cost of printing. Bob provided explanations
for those items, at which point Tom Macken volunteered to print the
newsletter under his contract with a copy company to help reduce the costs
to ICS. That idea was approved by the ICS membership.
Nora, scholarship chair, reiterated that the scholarship committee had
been suspended for a year. Nora has been able to coordinate the use of
SAC's Fiesta Room next March 12th for our Irish Heritage Day for less
money than we are used to spending to rent a place for IHD.
Our new social director, Helen Logan, has arranged for our Christmas
Dinner to be held at the Old San Francisco Steak House, for only $18 a
plate, in their Crystal Room. The AOH and Harp & Shamrock members are
welcome to join us for this party.
A target of 700 tickets to be sold is the goal to break even for the St.
Patrick's Day Dance in 2006.
Winning tickets today were held by Garrison Neal, Celeste Barron, Elaine
Hyland, and Mrs. Patrick.

The meeting was adjourned at 6:20 p.m.

Respectfully submitted by

ICS secretary/librarian