Head Kahuna Korner
------------------

Mike Hall

At our last meeting we finally achieved our goal of electing officers. We had
two people vying for each position except for Editor, which Sandy graciously
agreed to reprise for another year. After the smoke cleared, there were six
different people wearing hats for the Atom Mashers, a feat that some of us had
feared would be difficult to accomplish. I think we've got a good slate of
people to steer the club on towards the Nirvana of good beer.

As you might have guessed by now, I was elected President. And so it falls to
me to pen an article from time to time (I'm not promising monthly) to
pontificate on the state of beer in Los Alamos and the world. Maybe I should
start by explaining the moniker at the top of this column. During our meetings
to develop a set of bylaws, we kept stumbling on the term "Executive
Committee", because it sounded much too pretentiousness for the laid-back image
that we wanted to project. Nothing better really came to mind, so we (Ray?)
started calling the group of officers the "Kahunas". It didn't make it into
the bylaws, but it does have a nice ring to it, so we'll keep it unofficially.

There were several people who were interested in getting involved in the club's
leadership but for one reason or another didn't end up on the list of Kahunas.
I want to encourage these people, and everyone else, to help the club out by
volunteering for committee and "drinking groups" whenever the need arises. (I
was very impressed with the jobs that were done by the picnic committee, the
bylaws committee and the campout drinking group this past summer.) Also, the
Kahuna email list and meetings are going to be open, as long as they are not
disrupted by the extra voices. If anyone in the club is interested in being
added to the am_officers email list, send a request to
<am_request@galt.c3.lanl.gov>, and if anyone would like to come to a Kahuna
meeting, talk with me to find out times and places.

Believe it or not, the Kahunas have already met to help shape the future of the
Atom Mashers. What do we have in store? Some things that are in the planning
stages include: a free-for-all Atom Masher Only Competition in January, getting
your newsletter electronically, a ski afternoon at Pajarito before a meeting,
the new and improved membership/waiver form, a homepage on the World Wide Web,
and impromptu digital pictures for the newsletter (hey, not too impromptu!). Of
course, we're also going to try some good beer...