Missouri Association of Professional Soil Scientists

To Advance The Knowledge And Wise Use Of Our Soil Resources

Present: Leon Thompson, President; Dennis Meinert, Immediate Past President; Rod Taylor, 2nd year Member-At-Large; Dave Skaer, Past-President; Dick Henderson, President-elect; Keith Davis, 1st year Member-At-Large, and Bill Pauls, Secretary/Treasurer.

Leon Thompson, President called the meeting to order at 10:15am

MAPSS merchandise available and on display. Sold and given to Smithsonian Donators of $25 or more.so far Tom Dewitt and Dick Henderson. Keith Davis made a hat purchase.

Menfro cards were handed out to the group.

Treasurer Report: We have $6,748.56. MAPSSS purchased 6 Tshirts to donate to the SW MO envirothon at a cost of $31.50 and made a $25 cash donation for a purchase of a plaque to the winning soils team. We also purchased 6 jackets for the 2003 FFA Missouri state high school soil judging champions at a cost of $152.50 Income has included dues payments, MAPSS merchandise purchases, recertification fees, and CD account dividends and interest. MAPSS paid our first $500 installment of $2500 pledge to the Agronomic Science Foundation for our Sponsorship of the MISSOURI STATE SOIL (MENFRO OF COURSE!) (even if depleted in acreage by Winfield ) MONOLITH at the Smithsonian exhibit in Washington DC 2006. We will make quarterly $500 donations to fulfill our $2500 pledge over 3 years, perhaps somewhat sooner.

MAPSS Winter Meeting will be held in conjunction with the Natural Resources Conference and the NRCS 2004 workshop. Greg Caldwell is making a rod to raffle at MAPSS booth. MAPSS will purchase the `blank' for Greg to adorn from Tombstone tackle in Columbia, MO. I wrote a $75 check for the booth fee at the conference.

The Constitution and By-laws were handed out to the executive board. We reviewed those documents and assisted the President in selecting possible candidates to finish out the 2003 calendar year as well as the 2004 calendar year. We have been somewhat lax in the past few years about making these committee assignments and it was decided by the group that we should make every attempt to involve more members actively by appointing chairpersons and they in turn asking for committee members to fulfill the functions of the standing committees as per the By-laws. Standing committees are finance, constitution and by-laws, membership and public relations, nominations, education, and ethics and certification. The past president is automatically the chairperson of the nominations committee and will proceed to put together a slate of officers for consideration at our Annual Business Meeting in Jan/Feb 2004.

The board agreed to meet quarterly (JAN-MAR) (APR-JUN) (JUL-SEP) (OCT-DEC) with our next meeting to be held Thursday, December 11th, 2003. We agreed to invite the committee chairpersons to meetings biannually in the first and third quarters.

Dennis Meinert discussed the NRC/Winter MAPSS mtg. We agreed to have a booth again this year. We will pigtail our annual MAPSS business meeting onto the NRCS workshop held the 2 days prior to the NRC but probably not at Tan-Tara but somewhere in the vicinity. TBD We will expect a typical business meeting with committee reports, election of new officers (a president-elect, secretary-treasurer, and a member-at-large.

Meeting was adjourned, as has become custom, to Johnnys for lunch.

Respectfully submitted,
Bill Pauls
Sec/Treas.

State FFA Soil Judging Champions - The team of Missouri State Soil Judging Champions from Halfway High School were presented state champion jackets by Tom Dewitt, MAPSS executive board member. At their FFA banquet. The team wore their jackets to the National Soil Judging championships in Oklahoma the next week. We hope to have their picture up on the web site soon. The jackets had our MAPSS logo, the school name, and the students name on the front; and had the year, Missouri State Soil Judging Champions and the state of Missouri on the back.

Web Site - Check out the MAPSS website for all activities and information concerning MAPSS. Also for any and all questions email anyone of the members that have our email addresses listed on the web site.

State Soil Initiative was again unsuccessful during the past 2002 legislative session. We will continue to pursue the effort as it is a educational win-win for not only our organization but our basic reason for existing which is: "To advance the knowledge and wise use of our soil resources".

Mtg. adjourned.

Where: Scottsburg, Indiana Area

When : October 14th to 16th, 2003

Program: