The club will not meet this Sunday due to Mother's Day, but will instead hold our May meeting next Sunday, May 15th, at Betty's shore house.  You should have received the address in a previous newsletter.  Wishing every Mom and Step-Mom a truly special Mother's Day!

The South Jersey Metal Detecting Club held their fun hunt on April 29th at Atsion Lake Park, and a fun hunt it was!  The main organizers, Marc Spivey and Rich Sammartino, once again did an excellent job of running all six hunts with the help of a handful of dedicated members.  I know from experience these hunts sure don't put themselves on!

I always think of South Jersey as a sister club to the Mid Jersey since a lot of us belong to both clubs.  This club definitely puts the fun in "fun hunt."  There were two general hunts, a "poker game hunt," a gold hunt, a token hunt and a "spoon hunt."  Hunters are paired off in twos  for the spoon hunt.  One swings a detector and directs their team member where to dig using only a plastic spoon!  Half dollars are planted for this hunt and the winning team found 16 halves.  I was paired up with Bob Petrilli and we racked up a respectable 10 halves.  Ha!

Earlier this year, the club learned that Dick and Fay Stout had lost their home to a tornado in Texas.  Dick was a founding member not only of the Mid-Jersey Club but also the Federation.  To say he’s dedicated to the hobby would be an understatement.  Dick is an honorary member of our club and is on the club’s email forwarding list.  Dick wrote me after my email pointed him to our website.  He gave me permission to re-print his letter in this blog.  There’s a link in Dick’s letter to his blog and his recounting of the harrowing experience of living through a Category 4 tornado and dealing with the aftermath.  Here’s Dick’s letter:

I didn’t get an exact count, but we had very good attendance at the meeting Sunday night as well as some exciting finds!  Teresa announced the results of the Pulltab contest and the winner was Donna Winzinger.  There were something like 3333 pulltabs in the jar.  Congratulations, Donna, and thanks, "T", for running the contest!

Next month we will have our club hunt at Betty’s shore house on May 15th at 11 o’clock.  
Bring lunch or there’s a WaWa right up the street.  We’ll hunt first, then have lunch and hold our May meeting that day instead of May 8th, which is Mother’s Day.  Feel free to hang around and hunt the beach afterwards. 
We’ll cancel if it rains but be sure to call Keith or I to confirm that.  We’ll see you in LBI next month.  It’s always a good time!  -  Amy

Welcome to the blog!  How was your winter?  Betty and I had a decent winter silver-wise, but only one small piece of gold each.  Where has all the gold jewelry gone?  I think it went into the melting pots when gold skyrocketed in 2008 and stayed there for a couple years.  So many people sold their gold to refineries, but to whom did the refineries sell their gold?  I hope most of it stayed in this country and didn’t go to China.

So let’s see and hear what you found.  Did you take a trip somewhere with your metal detector?  What about you land hunters?  I’m pretty sure the ground remained unfrozen much of the winter.  I know Al found not one but two very rare 1793 half cents about 6 years  apart!  Awesome!  Please leave a comment telling us how your winter was, and if you have pictures please share them with us!  -  Amy