Old Business

• Make and take developments (discussed in DLC's section below).

New Business

• Dick Christ: We need to start working on next year's budget. We need projected costs
  from everyone. We need to start the process and I would like to have it completed when the new administration starts on November 1.

Officer/Staff Reports

Dick Christ, President

• No new items to report.

David Morrissette, 1st VP

• Late reviews as 60 and declining. This is normal for the summer months.
• The Manufacturers' Dinner was held during Convention week and went well with Eduard, Revell, Werner Wings, Academy, Yellow Wings, Detail and Scale, Kittyhawk and Aires representatives in attendance

Ron Bell, 2nd Vice President

• The Columbus Convention is over. They are closing out the books, but it looks like they made money. The convention was a success.
• Columbia, SC has already filled the room block in their primary hotel. However, there's plenty of room in the other hotels.
• I'll be putting the bid solicitation letter for '18 in the mail to all chapters in early September. It tells them to contact Mike VanSchoonhoven after Nov. 1.
• I've already started putting together a "transition packet" for Mike VanSchoonhoven of all the forms I use and a page of "hints and tips".
• The idea of putting the national convention on a three year bidding cycle instead of the current two year one was discussed. No decision was reached, but these pros and cons were listed:
• Pros:
  • Convention is set an additional year out, so we are ensured three instead of just two.
  • It has been suggested that being able to bid three years out might increase the ability to get lower prices. This has low probability.
  • It might open up some busy venues to us that have openings more than two years out.
  • Groups would be able to start working on sponsorships earlier.
• Cons:
  • You have to hold together a bidding team for four years. A half/full year to prepare the bid, two years in limbo then one busy year of prep. That's a tall order, especially for smaller clubs or clubs with more mobile members.
  • Any fund raising operation will tell you that you do not run multiple fund drives at the same time for the same thing as they will detract from each other, so the argument that sponsorships will be able to be sought earlier probably won't work.
  • Convention teams may have to work spanning possibly three different 2nd VPs, one the year they bid, then he might cycle out and a new one come in for two years and cycle out and then a new one the year of the show. We have communication problems as is, imagine this wrinkle.
  • The first year we do it, we need to make sure everyone knows what's going on as we will be bidding out possibly two conventions at once.
• Due to the proximity to this year's bidding season starting and a new 2nd VP coming on board, the last minus point listed led us to decide to table this issue until the new E-board is in office. If we do this, there will be many details to work out as to how any transition year would work and we need to "get the word out" long in advance to the entire society to maximize the possible benefits.
• It was also mentioned that other hobby organizations have standing committees that oversee their conventions. The NMRRA was one cited. Their central committee oversees the convention, but a willing local chapter still has to exist in the host city to provide the on site labor. A lot of work is centralized and taken off their shoulders, but a local group is still used. When the new E-board is in office, the new 2nd VP will be asked to look into how other groups handle this.

John Shimek, Treasurer

• Work begins on putting together a detailed budget for 2016.

Dennis Tennant, Secretary

• Nassim Faso in Beirut, Lebanon has been in touch with me and he would like some publicity on our web site and social media for their upcoming model show, Beirut 2015 (October 24 & 25). I told him to send me the URL for his show's web page and the email address of the contact person and I'd see that it gets posted. He also wanted to know how they could become an official IPMS group and I referred him to the overseas liaison guy with IPMS/UK. For those keeping score, we received our charter from the UK group over 50 years ago.

Larry Randel, DLC

Charter Renewal

• Still working on charter renewal preparation. I will need to train the incoming DLC on the process so he can finish off the process.

Make N Take Changes

• First, Revell put out their official fact sheet on the way the Make N Take program is changing this week. To sum things up, Revell is no longer going to be sending models directly to consumers upon request and are passing the distribution part of the program to Great Plains (their main wholesaler) and Great Plains will send the models to what they determine is the closest hobby shop. In the words of the release "We will be sending customers to you" referring to sending customers to hobby shops. Jim Brooks was told this change would not affect IPMS as we should be considered a distributor. Jim tried to submit an order to Great Plains this week and was told since he was not a hobby shop that they could not send him models. They wanted him to pick a local hobby shop to send the order to and he could pick it up there. That is not acceptable (double shipping costs and delays). He called his contact at Revell, and apparently orders for us can still be ordered through Revell as normal.
• In addition, he is talking with the Revell Marketing director and the probable fix is going to be that Revell will grandfather us in and continue providing models to IPMS as we have been doing for the past few years and not need to go through Great Plains.
• One thing that seems non-negotiable is the changes in packaging from 25 models per case to 15 models per case-even though they are keeping the price per case the same at $79.95 for currently available models. They will be re-releasing a Level 1 very easy model for $69.95 (a model they term as a "Build and Play Snap-tite Model"). All models are still automotive subjects and aircraft options are not expected until October or November.
• So what will this price increase do to our costs? The common denominator point for the two different packaging numbers is 75 models. Under the old packaging 75 models were 3 cases of 25 for $239.85. Under the new packaging 75 models is 5 cases for 399.75. Prior price was $3.20 per model and current price is $5.33 roughly a 66% price increase. It is even worse than that for our net cost since right now we only charge $1.50 per model for a mandatory donation. Here is how that works out on our net cost for 75 models:
• To equal the same percent clubs paid previously we would have to increase the donation to $2.50:
• However even at the same 47% percent of the cost covered, the net cost for that 75 models increases by $84.90.
• To reach the same net cost of $127.35, we would have to increase the fee to $3.63 per model
• Clearly we cannot raise the price to that level which would be the only way to make this price increase revenue neutral to the IPMS budget.
• I recommend we increase the fee to $2.50 to reduce the impact of the price increase. Note: This recommendation was rejected by the board and fees for models to IPMS clubs/members remains at $1.50 per model.
• Ultimately this 66% price increase from Revell will affect the IPMS budget for Make N Take for 2015 and will need some rethinking of the $10,000 limit for the 2016 budget. Of course as the price goes up, demand should go down according to my high school economics class. The MNT program only works if Revell allows us to continue the present drop shipment ordering system through them. If we have to work through Great Planes under their current hobby shop only policy, our current program is over and new suppliers would have to be found.
• This increase also means that other options that were once considered cost prohibitive compared to Revell become competitive to what Revell is charging us. Jim is exploring Zvezda and Pegasus models to see if they have models we could buy in comparable numbers and comparable prices.
• Make and Take Numbers for July and August 2015 (includes Nationals and Jim Brooks stock buys when Revell was saying their supply was very limited in the beginning of July):
  • Events: 11
  • Models: 620 (Aircraft 15, Auto 605)
  • Model Costs: $1918.80
  • Shipping Costs: $393.48
  • Shipping/Program Fees Paid: $335.00
  • Net Cost: $1977.28
• Annual Total for all of 2015 (includes future events already requested or mailed out)
  • Events: 42
  • Models: 2655 (Aircraft 500, Auto 2125)
  • Model Costs: $8254.65
  • Shipping Costs: $1259.86
  • Shipping/Program Fees Paid: $2675.00
  • Net Cost: $6839.10

Jim Pearsal, Historian/Publication Dir.

• We are still looking for an Advertising Manager to replace Jim Woody.

• Chris Bucholz and John Heck are doing a great job on the Journal. The only complaints I've received are for late or missing issues. These were mostly the USPS's problem and MJ handles these with grace and style.

Bruce Briggs, Membership Secretary

• Nothing to report.

MJ Kinney, National Office Manager

• V27J4 of the Journal went in the mail Tuesday, August 11, 2015. We mailed to 3972 with 193 new members and 220 non-renewing. These numbers will change once I get caught up on the post-convention processing. There are over 20 contests in September and insurance has been requested for all.

Submitted by Dennis Tennant, Secretary