Celebrating SKCGS Volunteers

Volunteering Hands, Royalty-free image courtesy of PickPik

This is Volunteer Appreciation Month, and we have much to appreciate and celebrate!

Officers

These are the folks who have stepped up and taken responsibility to support our mission in a multitude of ways. Many of us are part of more than one team, some take on lots of tiny jobs which few notice, unless they don't get done. President, Vice President, Secretary, Treasurer; all are critical to the health of South King County Genealogical Society. 

• Out-going President Valorie Zimmerman
• Vice President Alexis Hacker Booker
• Secretary Melanie Hinds
• Treasurer Michele Mattoon

Board

The Board is made up of the officers and the team leaders who choose to take on more responsibility. In particular, MaryLynn Strickland is the voice for the Membership on the Board, along with her work in the Education team. Thanks to all of you!

Education

Our pre-eminent duty as a society is education, both of our members and the general public. The education team plans out the year, then contacts and hires the speakers whose lectures draw the biggest attendance. The quality of speakers, both professional and volunteer, has been outstanding through the years, and each program this 2024-25 season has given us new and valuable information. Barbara Mattoon has been leading the Education team for four years; thank you Barbara! 

Our small meetings, which meet monthly, provide support and information at the practical, step-by-step level, with lots of screen-sharing demonstrations, links to helpful articles and videos. Come visit FamilyTreeMaker, Tech User Group or the Genetic Genealogy/DNA Interest Group and super-charge your research! We also have study groups, and beginning genealogy classes through the KCLS Libraries. Winona Laird has been an outstanding volunteer in many of these efforts for many years. This blog is a weekly product of the Education team as well; we welcome posts, whether family stories or a genealogy topic by one and all. Send to m.strickland@skcgs.org. Thank you to all who volunteer in this fundamental way.

Publicity

Publicity is communication. Our events thrive and reach new audiences because our publicity team has been so effective. Kudos to the entire team, especially Tina Lawson, our faithful leader. Because she also runs our website, she has been a very helpful tech support to the rest of the volunteers. Accurate, timely and attractive, publicity is critical to our continued success. 

Resources

SKCGS owns some things, mostly books, but also equipment and materials to keep us running. We have two book collections; the larger housed at the Auburn Branch of the King County Library System, and a smaller one in the Kent FamilySearch Center. Search our collections on our website. David Spangler has recently volunteered to lead this team; thank you David!

Outreach

Outreach has a twin mission. We have volunteers in some of the KCLS Libraries each month to help one and all with genealogy and family history research.  Early on, members volunteered to help people with our book collection at Auburn KCLS.  One who volunteered the longest was Janet Emerson who thought, "well, how will people know how to use the collection if nobody is there to help them?"  So she began showing up. She said that one time, she arrived to find a huge line up, all waiting for her! She asked that they make an orderly line, and began answering questions. Soon she noticed that those in line were helping one another too!  We had to stop offering this service in 2020, but as soon as it was possible, some of the libraries asked for us to return. Now we serve Auburn, Federal Way Main and Renton Highlands monthly. If we had more volunteers we could cover even more libraries. 

The other mission is teaming up with other organizations which support genealogy, heritage, culture, and history. Our long-time leader Cheri Sayer did a wonderful job with this for many years, and Valorie has said that she would like to do the same after May 2025. Thank you to all our wonderful Outreach volunteers through the years. Newest volunteers: Brenda Phillips, Rowan Leinart, David Spangler and Bonnie Anderson. 

Members

Beginning with our Founders, Members are the people who have pitched in and done the work, whether that was indexing records, cleaning up neglected cemeteries, visiting local museums and special archives, and then often writing about it for our newsletter years ago, and our blog now. We appreciate this work, and mourn those members who have now gone on to meet their ancestors. The dues and donations given and the tireless work carting books and equipment, greeting visitors, setting up meetings, creating and running the website, running our mail lists and other tech, hosting celebrations and picnics, field trips, financial reviews, planning the budget, adjusting bylaws—the list could go on endlessly. All useful and often thankless work. Our Articles of Incorporation state our purpose: devoted exclusively to furthering genealogical research and interest in family and local history. Our Members continue this work which we began together in 1984. We hope to continue serving the community for many years into the future. 

Volunteering Hands Cupping Seedling, Royalty-free image courtesy of PickPik

Through the years your Board has nominated individuals and teams whose work stood out that year to be honored by the Washington State Genealogical Society. See the list here: https://wasgs.org/upload/files/Awards/Past_Honorees.pdf. It will soon be time to nominate our Member or Team for 2025; write to Board@skcgs.org to add names for consideration. 

Valorie Zimmerman

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Send your stories to m.strickland@skcgs.org

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