2021 South King County Annual Report

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 First, some naval gazing - a look at this blog, by the numbers:



Blogger also tells us where people are when they read:


This annual report is an abridged version of those reports submitted to the Board in advance of our planning meeting in August. The original reports are available to SKCGS Members on request.

Change

If we thought things would calm down after 2020, we were wrong. 2021 was another year of change. In May elections, we elected a new President, Valorie Zimmerman, which meant that our Vice-President Valorie Zimmerman needed to step down. Michele Mattoon was re-elected as Treasurer. At the next meeting of the Board, Alexis Hacker Scholz accepted the post of Vice-President. Barbara Mattoon, the former President chose not to take the post of Past President, so MaryLynn Strickland continues as Member At Large. Barbara accepted the position of Chair of the Education Committee, where she had been ably serving in an unofficial role for some weeks.

Work with KCLS and BDHS

Closure of King County Libraries ended our Genealogy Help Desks at the Auburn, Burien and Covington KCLS libraries; our online programs for the public have been paused through the summer. We have plans to resume online sessions in September featuring local museums and their collections. Volunteers are needed to visit local museums, photograph some of the collections, and interview staff. 

We will also need volunteers to serve in our Genealogy Help Desks if and when KCLS allows that, perhaps in 2022.


http://BlackDiamondMuseum.org

We’re looking ahead to working with the Black Diamond Historical Society who will have Janice Lovelace speak about Black Miners in the West on Sunday, 24 October, 11 am Pacific. We’ll handle the registrations and Zoom session; BDHS hope to have some people in person.

In addition to our outreach to museums and historical societies, we are members of the National Genealogical Society, Washington State Genealogical Society, and participate in the Washington Presidents Council. Also very productive are the meetings of SoCoCulture and Association of King County Historical Organizations (AKCHO).

Meetings

Throughout the pandemic, SKCGS has continued to meet almost weekly, with a slight pause in July and August. We held a wonderful (but under-attended) day-long Seminar with Judy Russell. Thank you to Winona and her committee for all their hard work, and to Judy Russell for being awesome!

Our DNA and user groups have continued to grow. Even while pausing during July and August, members are using the online groups. While the closure of Family History Centers suspended the monthly Research Group for over a year, we will begin to meet in the Kent FHC in September, for SKCGS Members only.

During July and August 2021, we held two Genealogy Chats each month which were well attended and always interesting and helpful. 


Study Group

Available from NGS, Amazon.com
Our first online study group of Genetic Genealogy in Practice finished; we plan to begin another study group using Tom Jones’ Mastering Genealogical Proof in late September. Join https://skcgs.groups.io/g/Study-Group if you want to participate. 





Communication

SKCGS uses Society@skcgs.groups.io as our main communication channel. This group has grown tremendously since January 2020. There are now over 200 members, and 700+ topics. Here is the growth over time, as of 29 August:

In addition to our main group, we have sub-groups for our user and special interest and study groups and projects, which get varying use. You can see a graph such as above on the homepage for each group.


Money

One important note from the Treasurer's annual report is this: in December 2020, the SKCGS Store was created in Square, enabling us to accept credit card payments for memberships, donations, and seminars. Work is ongoing to add our back catalog of publications, accept payment for comb-binding, Genealogist look-ups, and perhaps SKCGS merch in the future. 

The Board unanimously recommended the proposed budget to the membership, which will be up for a vote at our general meeting on September 18. In addition, we accepted the work of the Financial Review committee, which found no issues or errors in the previous fiscal year. 

Per the Outreach team's report, as of August 20, SKCGS has 91 memberships, including 87 individual, 4 family, and 3 active life members. The dues charge do not quite cover our budget, however the Board felt that between some generous contributions and our healthy savings, we do no need to raise dues or charge people to come to meetings. 

Questions?

Please comment here on the blog or write to President@skcgs.org with any questions or request for more information.


Valorie Zimmerman, SKCGS President


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