Action Items

• The board reviewed the National Contest Committee's proposed rules changes for the 2017 contest and gave feedback to Chief Judge Mark Persichetti.
• Membership pins have been ordered for 25 and 50 year members.
• Conversion to PayPal for credit card processing is complete.

Officer/Staff Reports

Ron Bell, President

• Membership recognition pins have been ordered.
• Upon suggestion from member, approved a program for sale of discounted memberships at local model shows.
• Progress is being made on the survey planned by the Marketing Committee. A revised draft was shown to the Eboard for comment and the committee is going to further refine the questions and get back to us.

David Morrissette, 1st VP

• Late reviews down to 44. Only one major late remains (due to major surgery) and should be resolved soon.
• New supplier in AMK models out for review.
• New kit releases are pretty slow at this time.
• Artwork for the Sprue Bros flyer will be done within the week.
• Rewriting 1st VP instructions / directions for officer handbook to bring current with duties.

Mike Van Schoonhoven, 2nd Vice President

• Columbia is in final stages of closing out their show. They just need to reconcile their numbers and ours.
• Omaha just about ready to start registration.

Mike Oberholtzer, Treasurer

• January was our first month using PayPal for credit card processing and for accepting PayPal payments. Because we had charges from both Huntington Merchant Services and PayPal during the month, I will wait until we complete February to provide a cost comparison to show what our monthly savings are estimated to be on credit cards. At the same time I will be able to show the savings we will get from using Chase Bank instead of Huntington Bank. We did process 36 payments from PayPal users in the 20 days we used PayPal, which indicates there was some demand out there for the service. Hopefully the increased ease of use will translate into more membership renewals.
• I will complete the 2016 year end reporting when we have full details on the 2016 convention.

Dennis Tennant, Secretary

• I received a draft copy of the proposed changes to the NCC contest rules from Chief Judge Mark Persichetti recently and distributed them to the board for review and comment. Other than some small wording changes, the board approved the NCC changes which will be in effect for the 2017 convention in Omaha.

John Noack, DLC

• Chapter rechartering sits at around 77%. We are working hard to get the stragglers and am enlisting the RC's to help in the process. It's been a challenge and though we've picked up several new Chapters this year, I'm concerned that we won't see all of our 2016 Chapters return.
• We will be replacing the Region V Coordinator. Kelly Quirk is stepping down after years of dedicated service. I have several interested and qualified candidates and am conducting interviews now.
• Our 2017 liability insurance policy is in place and, after some initial confusion, we have verified that the policy also will continue to apply to Chapter meetings in addition to events.

Jim Pearsal, Historian/Publication Dir.

• Pretty much everything’s fine with the Journal.
• Looks like we might get the overdue ad money from one of our advertisers after all - Doug Reed’s working that.

Marie Van Schoonhoven, National Office Manager

• 48 New Members for Jan 2017
• Address has been changed for the Periodical Mailing
• V29J1 - Jan/Feb 2017 Journal is being mailed out now
• Getting a few remarks in the online orders as to how difficult it is to find the renewals and get around on the website.
• Corporate renewal through State of GA has been completed.

Submitted by Dennis Tennant, Secretary