International Plastic Modelers' Society / USA

International Plastic Modelers' Society / USA

IPMS/USA

IPMS/USA

Officers Present
  • Ron Bell (President)
  • David Morrissette (1st VP)
  • Mike Van Schoonhoven (2nd VP)
  • Dennis Tennant (Secretary)
  • Mike Oberholtzer (Treasurer)
  • John Noack (DLC)
  • Jim Pearsall (Historian/Publication Director)
  • Marie Van Schoonhoven (Office Manager) *
  • Don Schmitz (Marketing) *

* = Non-voting staff or Guest

Minutes

Action Items

  • Marketing team head Don Schmitz explained his team's new membership survey and what's planned for the data. The survey will attempt to get a better picture of our membership. Schmitz said Bruce Newsome is working on the survey and has tried to keep the survey short and useful. They hope to have an online version of the survey ready in the next month or so. They will send President Ron Bell a copy of the final survey questions for board input and the board will put it on the website or distribute it directly to the membership via Survey Monkey or Google forms. The next step will be for the committee to polish the survey and give Ron B. a copy for mass distribution.
  • Discussion continued on the possibility of including IPMS/USA membership info in packages/mailings from a major online model vendor. First VP Dave Morrissette will find out from the vendor how long it would take for him to go through 1000 informational inserts.
  • Secretary Dennis Tennant asked if it would be possible for IPMS/USA to provide a bulk discount for clubs ordering Official IPMS/USA name badges from the National office. Dave M. said it amounted to free advertising for the IPMS/USA and a benefit for our chapters and that we should do it. After a short discussion weighing the cost of the badges and other details, a motion was made by Dave M. (seconded by John Noack, DLC) to charge $7.50 for each personalized IPMS/USA name badge plus shipping. To get this discount, clubs will need to have a minimum order of FIVE badges and all of the badges must be shipped to the the same address. The motion passed unanimously. John N. will get the word out to the national chapters and through Webmaster Eric Aitala.
  • Treasurer Mike Oberholtzer had previously sent board members information about moving Society funds to a bigger bank that can better serve our larger, more diverse operation. We have officers scattered all across the country and Chase's nationwide presence would allow us to do business at a lower cost than with our current bank. Chase also offers all the same technologies that we currently use to our advantage with our current bank. Mike O. made a motion to change banks, Dave Morrissette seconded the motion. The Board voted unanimously to change from Huntington Bank to Chase.
  • Mike O. also pointed out that, for the purposes of opening this new account with Chase, it would be more expedient if he was temporarily made acting secretary of the IPMS/USA for the purposes of initiating a new banking relationship with Chase. Doing this will eliminate the need for Dennis T. to make the 200-mile drive to his nearest Chase branch to fill out the paperwork needed to open the new account. Following a short discussion, Dave M. made the motion that Mike Oberholtzer serve as acting secretary for the purposes of opening a bank account with Chase. Dennis T. seconded the motion and the board voted unanimously to approve making Mike O. acting secretary for this purpose.
  • Second VP Mike VanSchoonhoven suggested we retain Morgan, our CMS consultant, for another convention year. He made changes/improvements to the CMS and it worked well in Columbia. Mike V. suggested we hire him for an additional 20 hours to continue the work on the CMS and include some additional enhancements and provide support as needed for the 2017 convention. Mike O. made the motion to pay Morgan a base fee of $1000 to cover up to 20 hours of work on the CMS with the understanding that any work over 20 hours would be paid to him at a rate of $45/hour. Dennis T. seconds motion. Unanimous vote. Mike will write up a new contract with the details agreed to by the board and present it to Morgan for his signature.

Old Action Items

  • Membership recognition pins: Ron B. says he's still waiting for the pin design to be finished. He is also looking for a vendor to supply the pins.
  • The Constitutional Review Board is finalizing their report on the proposed amendment to the constitution.
  • The Election petition has been updated and is now available on the website or from the Office Manager for anyone interested in running for office next year.
  • Ron B. is working with Journal editor to get the amendment info into the Journal to present the proposed constitution changes to the membership.

Officer/Staff Reports

Ron Bell, President

  • Discussion continues on the concepts of multi-year chapter re-chartering.
  • Membership recognition pins are being designed. The first round of pins will be awards in the later winter/early spring as we need to close out 2016 to get any last-minute members.
  • Constitution Review Board (CRB) is up and working. One member has already given his report.
  • The new officer's petition is now available via the Office Manager or on the website.The member survey will be a topic on the Nov. Eboard conference call and Don Schmitz, the Marketing Committee representative, will attend as they originated the idea.
  • Having a standard national web site is still in the discussion stage. Seems it's not as easy as first thought what with the potential of four hosts needing sites at once. (immediate past convention, next convention, possible two future conventions.)

David Morrissette, 1st VP

  • In regards to the previous offer from an online vendor, are we interested with putting IPMS Flyers/Applications in their shipments?
  • Reviews are picking up a bit, which is nice.
  • All else is quiet except for some really late reviews from a couple reviewers.

Mike Van Schoonhoven, 2nd Vice President

  • I want to formalize our agreement with our CMS contractor, Morgan, for another year.

Mike Oberholtzer, Treasurer

  • Financial reports YTD for 2016 have been sent to the e-board.

Dennis Tennant, Secretary

  • I would like to propose that we offer a discount to clubs that purchase IPMS/USA name badges in bulk. For clubs that make a bulk order of 20 or more, could we cut them a break and offer a discount over the $10/badge price we now charge? FYI, Marie says the cost to the society is around $5/badge. I think it'd be a good way to encourage national membership and encourage national members to remain members. It's a really nice badge, after all.
  • Disclaimer: I'm the president of IPMS Tidewater and we ordered 20 badges for our IPMS/USA members as a club recruiting/retention incentive. We can pay the full amount but would love to be able to get a discount…

John Noack, DLC

  • I'm deep in the midst of rechartering. We have about 10% of the chapters rechartered thus far. Most chapters are following renewal instructions and working with their Regional Coordinator for assistance with member renewal information.
  • We have revised the contest/event posting process to eliminate some confusion and provide early notification of when event insurance is required. The most recent submissions have been compliant but there's still progress to be made.

Jim Pearsal, Historian/Publication Dir.

  • The September/October Journal was later than usual. This was because this was the Convention issue, and the timing of the Convention was such that the Journal started a little late. Also, because the issue was VERY loaded with pictures, it took longer to produce.

Marie Van Schoonhoven, National Office Manager

  • New Membership numbers:
    • October so far: 29
  • Renewals from last journal mailing (V28J5) are coming in steady.
  • Some mail is still being sent back to sender when they are sending to the North Canton PO Box. I will look into sending another change of address to see if that helps.
  • New Membership Cards, window envelopes and business envelopes have been ordered with the new address through our previous supplier.

Mark Persichetti, Chief Judge

  • The NCC members are reviewing the following proposed changes to the Categories & Rules for 2017:
    1. Eileen has proposed trying to standardize how the categories are listed in each class, primarily by going from small-to-large scales consistently, and getting rid of a lot of the redundant "all types, all scales, all eras" language that repeats from line-to-line. Each Class Head Judge has been sent a draft of their section's categories with the proposed revisions.
    2. Several of the Class Head Judges have said they'd like to change the current listings of "pre-planned splits" within their categories, especially those that may show multiple possible splits under a single category. Nor do they like having some of those possible splits being pre-defined. An example is what happened with the Competition Autos category in 2016. It was pre-defined as being split into open- and closed-wheel categories, but on the table the number in each of those parts was quite unbalanced, and only 13 entries between the two parts of it. The Head Judges will let me know how many total splits they'd like to have available, and we'll add that number to the number of total specified categories. I expect that number to stay close to last year's total of 205 (for awards-package count). We may still have some kind of notations in the categories list about splits, but it may just be "possible split", and only listed once rather than as B, C, D, etc.
    3. The most significant change may be to the rules related to Dioramas/Vignettes. We had a proposal at last summer's NCC meeting in Columbia, to change the definition for Vignettes, from 'more than a single vehicle and/or more than 5 figures', to Vignettes as a 'moment in time' or 'snapshot' view, without any apparent storyline. Storyline would not be one of the criteria in their judging. Dioramas would remain the same, and storyline would be one of the criteria in their judging. Any single-vehicle displays that tell an obvious story would be placed in the appropriate Dioramas category. For judging, we may keep the Vignettes categories on the same tables with the rest of their standard-category entries, rather than moving them all over to the Dioramas area. And we can have teams from the standard categories judge them, instead of sending ever-more entries over to Phil Perry's area for Dioramas.
  • I've heard back from just over half the Head Judges so far. I'll need to send some follow-up emails and make some phone calls to the rest. I'll prepare a final overall draft copy to send back to them, and to Mike Van Schoonhoven, for one last check, and then we can send it to the Omaha crew. I expect to have that all done by mid-December.

Submitted by Dennis Tennant, Secretary