Universal Ship Cancellation Society, Inc.
Dedicated to the Collection & Study of Naval and Maritime History
Minutes of the 2007 Board of Directors Meeting
May 18, 2007
Meeting called to order 7:00 PM in Aurora, Colorado by President Paul Helman. Present: Vice President Steve Henderson, Treasurer Bob Rawlins, Secretary Steve Shay, Directors: Dick Morain, Richard Jones, Stewart Milstein, Dave Kent, John Young, Ned Harris, Chuck French, Karl Zurn, Mike Vining
• President Helman made opening remarks and acknowledged the efforts from everyone and noted the strength of the society. 7 USCS members were in the audience. President Helman announced the time for the USCS auction and USCS General Membership meeting to be held May 19.
• The minutes of the 2006 BOD meeting were approved as distributed.
• Secretary Shay summarized the membership statistics for the society: membership continuing on a slight downward trend, recruiting and information requests down for 2007. The active membership stands at 1242 members, 1029 regular and 70 sustaining members, 95 life members, 37 family members, 4 honorary members and 2 youth members. There are 104 members in 17 international countries as well as in all 50 states. The lowest active membership number is #175 (Herb Rommel) and the highest #11985 (Richard Ellis.)
• Treasurer Rawlins presented the Treasurer's Report. Bob reported that the society is very stable with a solid operating fund of $146,000. 2006 ended in the black, with income greater than expenses totaling $16,800.
• Stewart Milstein reported that the Sales Circuit was able to provide $3,400 to the society during the past fiscal year. He notes that approximately 50% of the circuit material sells with a total of 123 circuits in the last year. Stewart noted the recent donation of the Edwin Lyons estate will be publicized in the Log and that Log auctions and the Sales Circuit will be used to sell the material. Dave Kent noted that a professional appraiser must appraise the donation for Mrs. Lyons; Bob Rawlins will send a list of member-dealers to Stewart.
• Dick Morain reported on the Chapter Reports he received as the new Chapter Coordinator. 17 chapters report holding meetings in 2006, the San Diego Chapter notes that they have disbanded and the Taze Nicholson Chapters notes meetings were suspended. 3 chapters did not report and Secretary Shay will provide Dick with Chapter President contact points for a final followup. A motion to declare the San Diego Chapter inactive, to grant a waiver to the following chapters for failing to hold 6 meetings in 2006: Stephen Decatur, Admiral Moffett, FADM Nimitz, Graf Von Spee, USS Sacramento, USS Los Angeles, USS Nevada and Taze Nicholson and a motion to consider declaring the following chapters inactive if there is no report received: USS Puget Sound, USS Indianapolis and Old Ironsides Chapters. These motions were approved.
• Publications update: Bob Rawlins reports that the Crews and Chapters section of the Cachet Makers Catalog are complete and that he will discuss layout and PDF conversion with Paul Bunter, expected to go to print late 2007/early 2008. After this, the alphabetical sections will be updated. Dave Kent showed a copy of the Receiving Ship Catalog, approximately 35 pages in length and distributed copies on CD to the BOD. Karl Zurn offered to print these at approximately 10 cents per pages plus supplies versus commercial pricing of 50 cents per page for colored printing. USCS should be in a position to take pre orders later in 2007 with printed copies or a CD available in late 2007. Dave will provide an update on the 6 th Edition of the Naval Postmarks Catalog at the next BOD meeting. Richard Jones has completed a reprint of the George Saqqal articles on the ships with 1908 cancels and has sold 12 copies since January.
• Web Site report: President Helman thanked Karl Zurn for hosting the USCS web site. Karl noted that the site now resides on his own server.
• Post Card Sales: Karl reports that he has taken over Post Card sales from Chuck Sass. Karl will provide Secretary Shay with an updated list of the available post cards for inclusion in the new member packages. President Helman recognized Chuck's efforts over the years handling post card sales. Bob Rawlins asked for quarterly submissions of post card sales if possible.
• Membership recruiting: Vice President Steve Henderson submitted a report about membership recruiting, covering current programs, ongoing activities and ideas. Steve will prepare a local chapter recruiting guideline. Dave Kent was asked to get information on the APS membership list exchange so that another mailing to APS members could be done.
• Future Conventions:
• 2008 Convention: A commitment has been made to attend the North Carolina Philatelic Society in Charlotte, NC on July 25-27. The convention will be held in the Doubletree Hotel near the Billy Graham Parkway. There will be 26 dealers, 125 exhibit frames. Bill Mitchell will provide President Helman with a list of dealers.
• 2009 Convention: TEXPEX has been cancelled due to a show conflict in Dallas. The BOD directed Bob Rawlins to contact SESCAL, held October 10-12, 2009 regarding hosting USCS.
• 2010 Convention: Because of concerns expressed by the Board, Bob Rawlins has been directed to look for other possible show sites as options for PNSE.
• Action Items from the 2006 BOD Meeting:
• Dick Morain published a policy for how to be listed on the USCS Web Site dealer page. This was voted on and approved by the Board. The policy will be:
• To be listed on the Dealer Page, the Dealer must be a member of USCS.
• Listings will be limited to those dealers who specifically offer Naval Covers/Ship Covers.
• Dealers must agree to be listed.
• Those dealers already listed will be grandfathered into new listings.
• Categories to be included: Naval Cover dealers, Naval Cover cachet makers
• A listing in only one category per individual dealer will be permitted.
• Within categories defined above, additional specialties can be listed, i.e., Classics, Nautical Frst Day Covers, Mail Auctions, Cover Supplies/Albums.
• Dealers may list mailing address, e mail address and telephone number.
• If the dealer maintains a web site, a reciprocal link to the USCS web site is required
• John Young reported that he had sent pamphlets on naval cover collecting and covers to new ships. The results of this effort are not known.
• New business:
• A proposal was made to utilize an even year December Log cover ballot in all future elections. A motion was made, seconded and approved, adopting this proposal. (Final approval must be made by the membership.)
• A proposal was made to change Article 4 of the Constitution and Article 1 of the By Laws in regards to membership categories by eliminating the family member category. A motion was made, seconded and approved, 8-5, adopting this proposal.
• A proposal was made to change Article 12b of the By Laws to meet IRS requirements for donations. A motion was made, seconded and approved to adopt the following:
• Artilce 12b to be modified to read, (changes are underlined) The Society gladly accepts donations of philatelic and directly related material for its program, the value of which is deductible by the donor subject to Internal Revenue Service rules. Under federal law, the Society is prohibited from evaluating such donations. Donors of material valued in excess of $500 in a calendar year must file IRS form 8283 (Non-Cash Charitable Contributions) with their tax returns. For donations exceeding $5,000 in fair market value during a calendar year, the donor must obtain a qualified written appraisal for the donation to support the estimate, which estimate cannot be provided by the USCS. Because of tax reporting requirements, donations of property valued in excess of $500 must be approved by the Board of Directors in advance. Those who wish to make large donations of philatelic property for the Veteran's Hospital program will be given the address of a hospital so that a direct donation may be made.
• A motion was made to authorize USCS Service Managers to purchase a 1 year supply of the Forever stamps once the next postal rate (above the 41 cent rate) is announced. This was seconded and approved. This strategy will yield a postage cost savings.
• A proposal to post all USCS Data Sheets and other information in entirety on the USCS web site was discussed and tabled with no motion made to adopt this proposal.
• A motion was made to direct the President or designee to actively recruit a USCS Web Site Service Manager. Two volunteers have stepped forward, Greg Ciesielski and Don Tjossem.
• A proposal to search out commercial providers who have the ability to digitize the complete run of the USCS Log and accept bids with the proviso that it be incorporated into a searchable program was discussed, with an initial cap cost of $15,000. This was also modified to find a professional indexer to index the complete run of the Log as well as to digitize with a searchable program. A motion was made, seconded and approved to begin these activities.
• A proposal was made to bring the USCS Exhibit award categories in line with the APS exhibit classes. The proposal was made to eliminate all named awards except for the Andy Fernandez award (best naval in show), Locy award (best postmark), Jesse Burgess Thomas award (best naval historical) and Novice award (best USCS first time exhibitor.) In addition awards would be created for: One Frame (best naval), Best Naval Postcard, Best Illustrated Mail, Best Display Class. A motion was made, seconded and approved.
• A proposal was made to authorize the use of credit cards for payments to the USCS. A motion was made, seconded and approved to authorize the Treasurer to select a company to handle the payments and then implement the policy.
• A motion authorizing spending up to $500 of the recruiting budget to be spent on Google ads managed by Karl Zurn was seconded and approved with the proviso that the President will select a committee of 2 to work with Karl on this project. In addition, Karl was directed to submit an invoice for $500 for the cost of Google ads in 2006.
• Paul Bunter reported that the latest fleet postmark survey was completed in September 2006 with about a 50% return rate. This survey sends SASE's to all ships in the fleet with a post office asking for a cancel to learn what cancels are in use by each ship. Paul will write an article for the Log asking members to contribute cancels to supplement the current survey.
• New business with Discussion:
• A discussion was made concerning the updating of existing data sheets and whether author permission is needed. It was determined that pervious author should be contacted when a data sheet is ready to be updated however if the author is no longer a member of USCS, the permission to update the sheet is automatically granted to the USCS. Authors are to be encouraged to put their names on data sheets.
• A discussion was made concerning the issue of whether Chapter members must be USCS Members. The USCS bylaws state that Chapter members do not have to be USCS members. After discussion, it was determined that no changes are necessary.
• A motion was made to pay the Rocky Mountain Stamp Show for a portion of the hospitality room. This room was paid for by RMSS and shared by the convening societies. The motion was seconded and approved to pay RMSS $200 and to reimburse the American Society of Polar Philatelists $100 which they had previously paid to USCS when the plan was for USCS to rent a separate hospitality room. (Completed 5/20/07.)
• Bob Rawlins volunteered to be the auctioneer in the convention auction.
• Dave Kent discussed the postal rate changes and how periodical rates will be changed in July.
• Use of the Chat Page on the USCS web site for personal financial was discussed. A motion was made, seconded and approved to state that the official policy will be that the Chat Page is not to be used for personal, implicit or explicit, financial gain. President Helman will communicate this to the membership.
• The meeting was adjourned at 10:35 PM. A copy of this report as well as the original agenda and supporting documents are filed in the Secretary's file.
Submitted,
Steve Shay, Secretary
5/24/2007