The Clallam County Gem & Mineral Society (CCGMS), is a not-for-profit community service organization (club), dedicated to education, personal enjoyment of the earth sciences and the outdoors through lapidary, fossil hunting, geology, archeology and paleontology.  The CCGMS was officially incorporated and recognized as a non-profit organization by a group of avid rockhounds way back in 1954.  According to one of our oldest members "Howard", the group of rockhounds actually started organizing and calling themselves a club as he best remembers in about 1936.  Our members currently range from 8 years old, to over 90 years of age.  Most of our members live in and around Clallam County, Washington.  We have always welcomed members of all ages, skill levels, and interests.

The CCGMS has one of the most diversely equipped lapidary shops, and lists of courses and classes offered on the West Coast.   We offer club members and guests the use of rock saws ranging from 4 inch to 24 inch, a 36 inch flat lap, shaping and finishing wheels from 24 grit to 800 grit, polishing wheels, silver and gold smiting and casting equipment, tumblers and wirewrapping tools.   We offer weekly classes 4 days a week in bead making, casting, cabochon forming, faceting, gold and silver smiting, lapidary, and wirewrapping.

We publish our monthly Ore-Bits Newsletter, available on this web site for download, plus we mail it to our club members and others who don't have Internet access.  Non-Members can also subscribe to our monthly newsletter by e-mailing our ore-bits editor.

The Club Website http://www.olympicrocks.com which you are currently viewing, is first designed to provide general information about our club.  Its second purpose is to provide information on finding lapidary clubs in other communities, offering lapidary how too instruction, directions and information on rock hounding locations in the US, Canada and Mexico.  This website also offers a classified section where individuals can offer their lapidary related items for sale, and a special section where new lapidary equipment, tools, and the like can be purchased in bulk at a discount to non-profit lapidary clubs and its members.

Our CCGMS business meetings are held at 7:00 pm on the third Tuesday each month, except July when we have a Summer Picnic and December when we have the Christmas Party.  Members and guests are encouraged to attend and participate.  A program usually follows each meeting with guest speakers or presentations.

During the first weekend in October every year, we hold our annual Gem & Mineral Show "Earth's Treasures",  featuring high-quality exhibitors, demonstrations, dealers, family activities, food and prizes.

Our sister club in beautiful Victoria, British Columbia, the Victoria Lapidary and Mineral Society has its annual show in early spring of each year. Many of our club members travel there as a group to enjoy the day.

We are very prod to be a member of the Northwest Federation of Mineralogical Societies(NFMS). The NFMS is a federation of member rock clubs located in Alaska, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, Utah, and Washington.  Within the federation there are currently 68 individual rock clubs with a combined membership of 5,175 members of all ages and backgrounds.