Old Business

• None.

New Business

• Election results. Ron Bell has been elected president effective Nov. 1, 2015. Other officers will include 1VP David Morrissette, 2VP Mike VanSchoonhoven, Secretary Dennis Tennant and Historian/Director of Publications Jim Pearsall.
• Let's look into the advertising rates in the Journal. We have never increased our ad rates and, in light of the rates charged by competitors, it might be time to increase ours. Jim Pearsall will look into this and research the ad rates of comparable publications and report back to the board.
• We continue to look for less expensive alternatives to our current Make N Take supplier (Revell). Jim Brooks is looking into several possibilities. Shipping costs are becoming an issue.

Officer/Staff Reports

Dick Christ, President

• No new items to report.

David Morrissette, 1st VP

• We have 53 late reviews. Working on lowering it but about normal.
• Posted reviews are about 40 behind last year. Not so much the reviewers as slower kit releases and having to do more work getting kits (plus kit prices are way more expensive).

Ron Bell, 2nd Vice President

• Convention bid solicitation letters have been sent out.
  We've switched to a three year bidding cycle instead of a two year cycle. Next year (2016) we will entertain bids for both 2018 and 2019 conventions.
• I contacted the three groups that have expressed interest in bidding for 2018 and told them of the change to a three year cycle and that they can bid for either or both years.
• Putting together a transition package for the new 2nd VP, Mike Van Schoonhoven.
• Still closing out the books on the Columbus convention. Things were delayed a bit due to the backlog after the convention, but I'm catching up now.
• I'm going to do a study of the master model entry forms to determine how many actual entrants there were to the contest in Columbus and the average number of models per entrant. Then I can get the ratio between convention registrants and contest registrants, something we have never tracked before.

John Shimek, Treasurer

• Still working on proposed budget numbers for 2016 and current income numbers thus far in 2015. Note that the 2015 Convention numbers have not been finalized and there has been a sizable increase on Make N Take budget numbers.

Dennis Tennant, Secretary

• The election results are in. With just around 400 members voting, the results have been posted on our website and on the forum.

Larry Randel, DLC

Charter Renewal

• Still working on charter renewal preparation. Transition to John Noack moving forward.

Make N Take Changes

• I (DLC Randel) have invited CAC Jim Brooks to call in for an updated report because the situation is so fluid. We can add his insights to the 2016 budget preparations in light of cost increases and supply challenges.

Jim Pearsal, Historian/Publication Dir.

• I have a person who may be a viable candidate for ad manager. We had two candidates but one dropped out.

Bruce Briggs, Membership Secretary

• Nothing to report.

MJ Kinney, National Office Manager

• New memberships through the convention and August have been processed. I am presently working on September renewals that have come in from the Journal. These should be completed by the time of the Board meeting. To date we have 249 new members - 40 of these joined at the convention. There have been many "rejoins", but I cannot tell if these are because of the convention. (these are members that have been expired longer than 1 year).

Eric Aitala, Webmaster

• I am in the final testing phases for the new, improved website shopping cart. Should be ready to "go live" by the end of the year.

Mark Persichetti, Chief Judge, National Contest Committee

• Final edits to the contest rules and categories for 2016 should be completed and ready for publishing by the first of December.
• Jack Kennedy would like to step down as head figures judge. I am in the process of looking for a replacement and will submit that name to the board for ratification soon.

Submitted by Dennis Tennant, Secretary