For our first end of year dinner and Award ceremonies I had decided to rent out the upstairs to the Treasure Island Waterfront Grill off HWY 2 between Kingston & Gananoque Ontario.

This is the same marina that Erin and I keep our sailboat during the summer months. Their restaurant has some great food and friendly staff, plus they have a venue that I felt would be perfect for our club.

The club has 16 club members now and several people looking to join for the 2024 season as well, so this venue was able to host our party of 30 people. I had also invited a few people from outside our area that the club would like to try and organize a joint hunt with next season called the Digging Dudes. This group of 3 individuals have talked about the possibility of opening up a club in the Ottawa area, so I figured I would invite them to show them what our small group has been able to accomplish within our first year. Maybe they had some ideas for us or we had some things for them to think about when starting up a club in their area as well.

So as I mentioned, we had approximately 30 people show up to our end of year lunch and we started the afternoon off with a bit of an introduction for both members and non members so everyone had an idea of who one another was.

I quickly followed introductions up with the rules to the club while we all had a short 30 minute meeting. The rule essentially was that only members have a voice within the club so all other individuals were there to observe.

Topics of discussion were, moving forward into 2024,

– how many hunts do we want to see the club hold, & what types of hunts? 2 – fixing our website, 3 – who our advisory team is and how to ensure more club member involvement. 4- what we were able to accomplish as a club in the inaugural year. 5- moving forward into 2024, 6- gaining a VP for the club, 7- social media- what worked and what we should do moving forward? 8- what did not work for club members. 9- more community involvement or activities within the club? IE.. beach clean up days & historical society involvement within the communities we hunt in. Such as setting up hunts specifically designed to give some history back to the communities.

After our meeting was over which took longer than anticipated as usual, it was time for our lunch. For lunch we had, Chicken, scalloped potatoes, salad, and rice. This lunch was served in a buffet style setting and was absolutely delicious.

During our lunch I started the Award Ceremony. We had 5 categories

1st – ROOKI OF THE YEAR

the winner was hand picked by our advisory team and the winner was Gail B.

2nd up was, MOST IMPROVED DETECTORIST

The winner, & hand picked by or advisory team was, Marjorie Gallerneault.

3rd up was FIND OF THE YEAR.

This trophy was to be awarded to the person that found the most interesting item voted on by our team of hand picked judges (Jason Corbett, Dave Arnold, & Darcy Laframboise.) a panel of judges with in our members that have the most knowledge and experience. The winner was

4th trophy was for MASTER HOBBY DETECTORIST.

This award was given to the Detectorist that showed consistency of finds throughout the year, had decent finds and did not show only trash, posted lots to our social media pages, showed a variety of different locations detected. And lastly

And finally

We had a Trophy for

The CLUBMAN AWARD.

This award was didicated for the club member who went above and beyond., who helped others getting into the hobby or people who has been into the hobby for decades, was helpful and knowledgeable, had lots of interesting finds throughout the year, and contributed to the club. Posted consistently on our social media and always went above and beyond. This award was voted on by our advisory team members and myself as I knew more than anyone else who has been actively helping out with club tasks. This was a club recognition award and I was very happy to see Ryan Pugh was easily the one that deserved this award. He always goes above and beyond for the club and to help me personally when it came to organizing events. He was at events early and the last to leave once everything was all cleaned up. He hand made the trophies for the club, and he was the one to do all the club videos including our advertising videos which helped gain acknowledgment of our end of year fall hunt. For our fall hunt Ryan came to my house and helped load the truck and even went around doing some of the groceries for the event and came with me to pick up a BBQ which was needed for the event. The. Offered to come with me to unload the truck and deliver borrowed items. He always goes above and beyond for myself and the club. Ryan, you deserved this award.