General Activity

• Discussion regarding the 990 IRS requirements for IPMS were conducted and are continuing.

Dick Christ, President

• Adjustments in Auto Categories will be rolled out at the Loveland Convention. Rules and Categories will be provided to Loveland within two weeks.
• The search process for a Chief Judge is ongoing and the new Chief Judge will be announced within two weeks.

Steve Collins, 1st Vice President

• Not Present
• A copy of the old IPMS/USA membership flyer that was included in model kits will be updated and sent to the manufacturers who have agreed to include it in their kits.

Mike Ronnau, 2nd Vice President

• Not Present
• After Disney reviewed the financials from the recent convention, Mike Van Schoonhoven reported that IPMS should have received a $7000 check from Disney. No check has yet arrived and Mike will follow up on this issue. Also, additional discussions with the 2012 convention host on the subject of trophies will continue. There was not a $7000 check from Disney. Because of the credits due to number of room nights sold, Disney reduced the final bill by $7000. Contacted Mike Von S about the 2012 final report and he indicated that things are going well.
• The 2013 convention plans are proceeding along an appropriate time line. The convention hosts will soon receive the official categories and rules to be used in Loveland.
• The 2014 convention plans are proceeding as planned. Convention and hotel contracts have been signed. The Convention Director and Committee have been asked to provide a "back-up" list of personnel, in case some unfortunate circumstance will cause a current member of that committee to become unavailable for continued service. Line of succession has been received by the 2nd VP.
• Several clubs have already requested information on bidding procedures for 2015, even before the annual invitation to all chapters has been sent to the Chapter Contacts. Only one group (Berkeley, CA area) is currently contemplating submitting a bid. They are having a difficult time locating hotel and convention facilities that are affordable. The Ohio group I had spoken to after the 2012 convention are going to hold off until 2016 to submit a bid.
• Sent out bid letters to the chapter contacts located in the 50 states. So far, six letters have been returned as undeliverable. I will be sending those names to Larry so that he can follow up and get good contact information on those chapters. At this time, the bid solicitation letters have generated no inquiries.
• A note to all convention hosts, present and future, that there is a required form that must be completed and submitted to the Treasurer for reimbursement. This is an IRS requirement for Non-Profit organizations.
• The most recent financial report from Omaha was found to be incomplete and/or inaccurate, and additional information is required. The Financial report and written report contain discrepancies. A follow-up conversation is planned to resolve these discrepancies. Email was sent to Scott Hackney regarding the final report on 1/18/13. At the time of this update, there has been no reply.

Dick Montgomery, Secretary

• No items to report

Ed Kinney, Treasurer

• There is a need to finalize the documents required by the IRS – Conflict of Interest Policy, Whistleblower Protection Policy and the Document Retention Policy, known as 990 Documentation

Larry Randel, DLC

• Annual charter renewal period ended December 31. At the moment we have 220 complete with 20 clubs who have not completed renewal. Most of this is just clubs not paying the $20 fee or having officers that will not renew their memberships. For some clubs there is just no response from the Chapter Contact or anyone else in the club. Every club not renewed has been notified and removed from the IPMS webpage. If a non-renewed club requests an event it will not be posted and they are ineligible for insurance (which usually gets their attention when they want to have a show). I expect 10 or 15 of the non-renewed clubs to eventually pay or meet the requirements within the next month. I will keep you posted next month.
• MakeNTake requests have picked up after the holidays. This is just the events so far for January but we have 13 total events for 2013 requested so far.
• Make and Take Numbers for Jan. 2013 (so far)
  • Events: 3
  • Models: 165
  • Model Costs: $ 539.70
  • Shipping Costs: $ 74.10
  • Shipping/Program Fees Paid: $ 125.00 Kudos to MJ for a very fast response providing insurance for an event requested on Jan 11 for an event on Jan 18. This was especially tough because it was during the insurance renewal period but she got the event insurance certificate to them in time—Thank You MJ.
• Next item coming up for DLC is the annual award nominations for the chapters. RCs should be soliciting info for chapter of the year nominations in their region.
• The current process for selecting the Newsletter of the Year and Website/Webmaster of the Year were discussed. The process was discussed and reaffirmed.

Jim Pearsal, Historian/Publication Dir.

• No items to report.

John Ratzenberger, Dir. Foreign Liaison

• South Atlantic SIG folded due to declining membership; thanks to Adam Coleman for holding it together for many years.
• Have had several inquiries about starting SIGs, but no follow through.
• Pointed interested parties wishing to start an Argentinian chapter to IPMS Argentina.
• Discussed draft IRS 990 policies; President requested all input to me by end of week so they can be finalized.
• Still working 50th, international contests.
• I believe the Journal needs to contain a one page summary of how to contact the E-board & staff and our services such as the website, the forum, and some of our programs, such as MnT, STT, etc.  If it's a question of space, then we could easily give up the SIG page which happens to be of interest to a very minor part of the society (if that much) and is readily available on the website.

Bruce Briggs, Membership Secretary

• No items to report.

Staff in Attendance or via submission of report

MJ Kinney, National Office Manager

• V25J1 of the journal will be mailed to 4357 – last issue was mailed to 4450.
• There were 518 new members in 2012 – 32 new members to date in 2013
• There are 282 members that have not renewed from the mailing of V24J6 – this number will change, but the number is higher than usual.
• We have had a higher than usual number of returns from the post office that they could not deliver the Journal – the post office does not return the journal, just the label and charges us $ .50 for each one.
• Postage for letters/membership renewal envelopes will be going up to $ .46 the end of January
• Event insurance requests are in "full swing" – and of course chapter contacts do not advise of changes in Venue or email addresses. We also need to address the event submission form where almost all of the submissions say "no" for insurance and they do not advise of additional insureds.
• Because I have done these in the past, I know the venue requires insurance – it would be nice to have confirmation on the form.
• D&O insurance is due – cost $ 902.00 (Directors and Officers)
• We have not received any amendment petitions – have had 1 request for an officer petition.

Forum Admin - Dennis Tennant

• January 2013
  • The total membership in our discussion forum as of January 1, 2013 is 1570. Of that number, 1250 are IPMS/USA members and 320 are non-members.
  • Last year, we added a total of 168 new members to the forums. One hundred five were IPMS/USA members in good standing and 63 were non-members. 
  • This equals a 12% increase in membership from the previous year. 
• During calendar year 2012:
  • 2084 new topics were started
  • 7649 new posts were created
  • The discussion forum had 135,058 total topic views
  • For 2012, the ten most-viewed topics were:
    • Aircraft - 21,149
    • General Modeling - 14,244
    • Forum FAQ - 12,845
    • About the IPMS/USA National Convention - 9,190
    • Contests and Judging - 7,329
    • IPMS/USA Topics - 6,925
    • Armor - 6,551
    • News and Reviews - 5,174
    • Figures - 4,568
    • On the bench - 4,299
  • The ten most active forum members to date are: 
    1. Mark Aldrich
    2. ghodges
    3. IPMS Reviews
    4. Dick Montgomery
    5. Mark Deliduka
    6. David M. Knights
    7. TimHortman
    8. ewahl
    9. jcorley
    10. Weedeater
• There have been no reported forum infractions in the last three months. There has been increased spambot activity but no spam accounts have been established due to our policy of approving new accounts manually after cross-checking with our member database. 
• All is quiet and civil. The moderation staff (Me, Mark Deliduka and Rusty White) continue to enforce forum rules, as needed. 

Webmaster - Eric Aitala

• A phone meeting with the 2013 Convention hosts was held. Online registration set up and on-line store set up are entering their final phases and will soon be ready to open on the website.

50th Anniversary Committee Chairman – Aris Pappis

• Various awards to be provided to other branches of IPMS and to USA Regional ConventionHosts will take the form of a plaque, celebrating IPMS/USA's 50th anniversary.

Submitted by Dick Montgomery, Secretary

Last Updated:Tuesday, 23-Feb-2021 22:36:42 EST