Present:

Dave Morrissette (President)

John Noack (First Vice-President)

Ron Bell (Second Vice-President)
Jim Bates (Secretary)

Ed Kinney (Treasurer)
Jack Kennedy (Director of Local Chapters)

Glen Broman (Director, Foreign Liason)

David Von Almen (Journal Editor)

Mary Jane Kinney (Office Manager)
 

1.  President Dave Morrissette:

A. Modelers Achievement Program  Regional Coordinators checked out general interest levels. 15 to 20 are interested. We will try to renovate the program and if it doesn’t fly we will let it die.

2. Constitutional Amendments  Deadline for submissions is January 15, 2005.

3. Election for 2006 and 2007 terms. All submissions due by May 1, 2005

4. Adult Modelers Program  A few clubs have had luck with this in Texas. We want to take it nation. Basically classes for modelers. It will be more of a service than anything else. Some volunteers are out there. Hopefully we can get something from the manufactures.

5. Cheating at the National Convention. It has been dealt with strongly. We will send the offenders a letter and their $25 to bounce their membership. We will request the trophies back.

6. Revision of the IPMS/USA Handbook. We need to update the webmaster and DLC sections specifically.

Goal: Update your section by first quarter next year. March 2005 deadline.

A. Review Program is going well. Many new suppliers on-board. We will have to send out a call for new reviewers.

B. Dragon Joint Contest: We were approached by Dragon Models to host a joint contest. Dragon will take care of the figure side only and we will take care of the plastic side. Atlanta has agreed to give it a shot. Not 100% a sure thing, but the Atlanta guys want to give it a shot.

Goal: Get more reviews done, get more help for Jim Woody, and get more stuff on line quicker.

A. Three chapters are interesting in bidding for the 2007 National Convention so far: Las Vegas, Fresno and Orange County.

B. Interest as been expressed by Orland for the 2008 convention.

C. We are still waiting for the Phoenix report. They have till January.

D. Atlanta is going well so far.

A. Rechartering: 71 chapters in. 2 have problems.

B. Will have Chapter of the Year guidelines and Regional judging guidelines prepared. Should be up and running by the Nationals.

C. Three new chapters: United Plastic Modelers of Puerto Rico, Kings County Scale Modelers, and FAC Museum Modelers.

A. One new Special Interest Group - Firebombers

B. Sent a new column to David for the Journal.

A. Account status:

Regular checking account - $ 8,543.74
Convention Savings account - $ 14,105.62
Money Market Savings - $ 102,967.64
Regular Savings - $ 7,361.49
Make N Take Checking - $ 1,768.02

Down again…

B. $3,256.00 came from Phoenix on Saturday.

A. Assistant Editors: Tried to have a meeting of all who volunteered at the Nationals. Only one volunteer was present and we were unable to come up with a time to meet. Still trying to put something together. Dave suggested trying a conference call between the volunteers.

B. Not getting much response for the Member Mail Column.

C. Cost increases for postage and paper. Signed an agreement to lock in paper prices for a year. There is a rumor of an increase for bulk mail postage. Don’t know when it will take effect.

D. Have instituted Cost Savings measures that are working well.

A. The Kalmbach advert exchange back in place. With the change of advert folks at Kalmbach, the "institutional knowledge" of the exchange program was lost for a short while. However, with David’ help, the exchange program is back in place for the foreseeable future.

B. How do we attract more car modelers and/or how to we make IPMS/USA more attractive to car modelers. Some concerns with our contests and car modelers.

ACTION: Suggest that Mark speak with Aris about the car modeler categories.

A. New Members/renewals from the National Convention – We need a time line for submitting payment to National Office – we should set a time frame to get clubs to get the new member information and payment. We just received the payment this week. David suggested we get the money and information each day, or by the end of the Convention. That is the way it was done in the past

ACTION: Ron and MJ will work something up. Ron will e-mail Paul Cotcher about this issue.

B. Lapel pins with IPMS/USA logo - Looking at 92 cents each for 1000 pins. Do a small quantity and sell them only? See what happens?

ACTION: Jack motioned. Ed seconded. Look at price – order a minimum amount. See what price break is. Passed unanimously.

C. Make N Take contributions - type of chapter recognition? Put recognition in the Journal and on the web.

D. Fiscal or calendar year for society tax reporting. We currently are fiscal year and it is a pin. No reason not to change to a calendar year. We will need to file a form with the IRS and then either file a short year return or a long year return.

ACTION: Ed Motioned. John seconded. We will move to a colander year. Passed unanimously.

E. Liability insurance policy renewal: The premium will go up. It is based on the number of members. Premium was $11,000 last year. We looked last year and found no better deal. We will again shop options both on price and see if there is an alternative.