Our Club and Its Relationship to Other Rock and Mineral Clubs

The Flatirons Mineral Club is not a lonely little club out there on the plains! We are part of a couple of bigger organizations.

One is the Denver Gem and Mineral Council. It is made up of 8 clubs in our region. This is the organization that puts on the Denver Gem & Mineral Show in September in which we participate.

The bigger organization of which we are members is the Rocky Mountain Federation. It was described by Richard Jaeger, a Past President of the RMFMS in the following statement:

“The Rocky Mountain Federation is one of seven Regional Federations which make up the American Federation of Mineralogical Societies. The AFMS has a President, President Elect, and 5 Regional Vice Presidents. These positions are rotated among the seven Regional Federations. These people, in addition to an elected Treasurer, Secretary, and the Presidents and Vice Presidents of the Regional Federation make up the Executive Committee of the AFMS. They meet once a year at the AFMS Convention & Show whose location rotates among the cities of the region.

The RMFMS’ designated area covers the entire states of Arizona, Utah, New Mexico, Colorado, Wyoming, Oklahoma, and Kansas. It also covers the western half of Nebraska, South Dakota, and North Dakota. In addition to that we do have one club each in Arkansas, Texas, and Nevada.

The Executive Committee of the RMFMS consists of a President, Vice President, Secretary, Treasurer, Historian, and the two immediate Past Presidents. It also includes nine State Directors, those being: Arizona/Nevada, Utah, New Mexico/Texas, Colorado, Wyoming, Oklahoma/Arkansas, Kansas, South Dakota/Nebraska, and North Dakota.

The State Directors serve to help tie their state clubs together with the RMFMS. The Executive Committee meets once per year at the RMFMS Convention and Show. If issues come up during the year, the Executive Committee can handle those by an e-mail and/or postal mail vote. At the RMFMS there is also a Delegates Meeting in which each club in the RMFMS can be represented by two Delegates or Proxies. Most of the business of the Federation has to be approved at the House of Delegates. This of course includes the election of officers, changes to Operating Procedures, sites of future RMFMS shows, and many other items. We are governed also by the Articles of Incorporation, By-Laws, and Operating Procedures. Each club is supposed to have a copy of each of those items, but I imagine that most clubs don’t any longer know where their copy is.

Of course, the backbone of the RMFMS is the local clubs such as yours. Communication is so important! We do have the Newsletter, Website, and Directory which provide information.
Please go to our website: www.rmfms.org. It has a wealth of information on what the RMFMS does and can offer for individual clubs. If you go to ‘Information’ and then click on ‘By-Laws’ you’ll see both the Articles of Incorporation and the By-Laws. The first paragraph of the Articles of Incorporation gives the original purpose for forming the Federation.