Base meeting was held at the Sioux Falls DAV starting at 12 noon with lunch of chicken and spaghetti
served by Gwen. Thanks again Gwen for an outstanding meal!
Members attending:Kent Winter, Gerold Davey, Nathan Kull, Brian Schnurr, Jim Farquar, Lawrence DeJong, Dan Anderson
and Al Small.
Mike Neuroth aka Capt Neutron is still in the Dell Rapids Nursing Home.
If you can, and we can, please don't forget him in your thoughts and prayers and visit him if you can!
Brian is going to collect some dates that we can setup to visit mike as a group
The address is 1400 Thresher Dr, Dell Rapids, SD 57022
The meeting started at 1300 with the reading of the creed and pledge of allegiance. Kent Winter led the meeting, feeling much better,
Invocation was given.
Brian and Kent did Tolling of the Bell for February/March submarine losses. Brian dove the boat with the diving alarm.

Secretary/Treasurers reports: Nathan Kull as Base Treasurer.
The Base account sitting at $5,871.75 with SSN 790 donation at $250
(we were going to purchase the Sr Chief PO donation level at $500 but didn't want to use Base funds, only personal donations)
and Torpedo account at $3,050 leaving $3,571.75 for the general fund.
Nathan reminds everyone to pay their upcoming 2018 National ($20) and Local ($10) dues!

Committee reports:

Eagle Scout program: Scheduled to meet with Watertown troop at the Luthern Church of Our Redeemer for an Eagle Scout ceremony
on April, 14 2018 @ 2pm. Currently Kent, Gerold, Brian and Dan are attending

Kaps4Kids program: Push this year, reach out to Sanford and Avera, also look at reaching out to the hospitals

in the smaller communities. Maybe look into behavioral health hospital and McCrossen Boys Ranch.

Yankton Memorial Planning committee: Jim has ensured access to the memorial and contacted the parks department in Yankton.
He has ensured that the parking lot will be available for our use. We need to contact the VFW. We discussed having the VFW honor
guard, we would be honored to have them at the memorial service. Speaker will be Larry Zimmerman
We continue to look for ways to get the City of Yankton more involved. Brian will make contact with the local media for coverage
of the ceremony.

Storekeeper: If interested contact Jerry for all the items we need for vests, caps, pins & patches through the National site.

Old/Unfinished business:

MK-14 Torpedo: Brian had made contact with the base in NJ, the Navy has taken some of the torpedos back from that memorial.
The Navy Historical group is looking at getting us a torpedo. The torpedo would remain property of the Navy and we would be
responsible for maintenance and transportation. We have not heard back. Brian is going to reach out to them again.
We will also reach out to Capt. Deb who had also mentioned she might be able to help us look into it with her demolition contacts

USS South Dakota SSN-790: To review, upcoming visit dates, fundraising, media plans, firearm design (pistol & shotgun),
website, check out the Website and FaceBook sites for info and photos.

Parades: River Boat Days and Turkey Day. We have the registration paperwork for the River Boat Days to submit.
Dan discussed possibly going to River Days in Windom and Buffalo Days in Leverne. Trailer is going to get new wheels and
wheels will be moved more towards center, but mostly ready.

New Business:

Base elections : All officer spots are open. Elections are held in July. We will setup a method of collecting nominations and votes
via the website

Booths at Fairs : Do we want to make a presence with booths at the fairs, could we join up with South Dakota?
Some thought that maybe the South Dakota would not let us have our stuff?

$41 received from SD Commissioning Committee from the shotgun ticket sales which was 10% of the proceeds from tickets we sold.

Covered brief update that was received from Jeff Alvey about the SD - Sounds like commissioning date will not be nailed down
for a few more months

We were first base to get end of year data in in district

Briefly talked about recent USSVI website updates. Brian will update our base information on the USSVI site

Deadline to submit Kaps 4 Kids stories is April 15th. If you have a story get it in please. Contact Al if you need details on
how to submit your story.

Navy Exchange is now open to all veterans online and store visits.

This was the second meeting held on the third Saturday. Attendance was better. Most did not mind the date shift
Next meeting is Saturday, May 19th, 2018 at the SF DAV.

The 50/50 drawing was held