Universal Ship Cancellation Society, Inc.
Dedicated to the Collection & Study of Naval and Maritime History
Minutes of the 2008 Board of Directors Meeting
July 25, 2008

Meeting called to order 7:00 PM in Charlotte, North Carolina 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 of Bill Mitchell in arranging and coordinating the convention with CHARPEX and the hotel.
• The minutes of the 2007 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 2008. The active membership stands at 1191 members, 1012 regular and 76 sustaining members, 95 life members, 4 family members, 3 honorary members and 1 youth member. There are 98 members in 17 international countries as well as in all 50 states. The lowest active membership number is #186 (Howard Nobbs) and the highest #12064 (Michael Conner.)
• Treasurer Rawlins presented the Treasurer’s Report. Bob reported that the society is very stable with a solid operating fund of $163,347. 2007 ended in the black, with income greater than expenses.
• Stewart Milstein reported that the Sales Circuit was able to provide $11,800 to the society during the past fiscal year. He notes that approximately 50% of the circuit material sells with a total of 198 members on the sales circuit. Stewart described the recent purchase at auction of material from Rainey Day Covers, noting that 22,000 covers were purchased. These covers will be sold via the sales circuit and Log auctions and any left over material will be consigned to Dutch Auctions.
• Dick Morain reported on the Chapter Reports he received as the new Chapter Coordinator. 17 chapters report holding meetings in 2007. The charters for the USS Indianapolis and USS Puget Sound Chapter have been revoked under the USCS By-Laws Article 7g and USCS Constitution Article 17a. A waiver of inactive status for holding less than six meetings during the year was granted to the Admiral Moffett Chapter, Graf von Spee Chapter, FADM Nimitz Chapter and Taze Nicholson Chapter under the provisions of Article 7f of the USCS By Laws. The USS Los Angeles Chapter was declared inactive at their request. President Helman will send a letter to the Old Ironsides Chapter giving them 90 days to respond with a Chapter report or the chapter charter will be revoked.
• Publications update:
• Dave Kent reports that the Receiving Ship section of the Postmark Catalog will be completed by year end. This catalog will be printed in color by Karl Zurn (with costs passed along to the USCS.) Dave reports that additional corrections and new material continues to be provided for the Postmark Catalog with no estimate for the date of a revision or addendum. Dave also noted that assigning type classifications to new cancels would be reviewed during the convention by the Cancel Classification Committee.
• Bob Rawlins reports that the ANCS Crews and Chapters and USCS Chapters sections of the Cachet Makers Catalog are nearly complete and will to go to print by the end of 2008. A plan needs to be developed for printing and availability on CD.
• Web Site report: Zurn reports that the server hosting the web site is stable and secure.
• Post Card Sales: Karl reports that approximately 2,300 post cards were sold during 2007 via the USCS web site. He notes that the Log ad is a good source for sales. Income is being sent to the Treasure quarterly. New shelves and boxes were purchased for storage of the collection and over 300 hours were spent organizing the collection and posting images of available material on the USCS web site. A proposal was made, seconded and approved to raise the cost of cards to $.50 for members and $.60 for non members effective October 1, 2008 in order to make the collection sales self sustaining. Stewart Milstein will send post cards from the Rainey Day material to Karl for sales and for scanning of pre-1924 copyrighted cards for conversion to card reprints.
• Membership recruiting: Vice President Steve Henderson submitted a report about membership recruiting. Steve expressed the concern that local chapters need to become more active at recruiting, that good articles about the hobby in targeted publications should be published and that perhaps interest could be generated in elementary and middle schools.
• Future Conventions:
• 2009 Convention: This convention will be held in conjunction with SESCAL in Los Angeles October 9-11 at a hotel located near the LAX airport.
• 2010 Convention: The convention will be held at NOJESX in Secaucus, New Jersey May 21-23.
• 2011 Convention: a proposal to hold the convention at TEXPEX in Dallas, Texas April 15-17 was made and approved.
• 2012 Convention: a proposal to hold the convention at WESPTEX in San Francisco, California (approximately April 27-29) was made and approved. The MPHS is also scheduled to convene at this show.
• 2013 Convention: a proposal to hold the convention at BALPEX in Baltimore, Maryland on Labor Day weekend was made and approved. The MPHS is also scheduled to convene at this show.
• Action Items from the 2007 BOD Meeting:
• President Helman deferred conversation on digitizing the complete run of USCS Logs until the 2008 Agenda item would come up during this meeting.
• Treasurer Rawlins deferred conversation on authorizing the use of credit cards for payment to USCS until the 2008 Agenda item would come up during this meeting.
• Karl Zurn dropped the motion for spending $500 of the recruiting budget on Google ads.
• President Helman thanked Al Eckert for his efforts managing the USCS Data Sheets and noted the updating of existing sheets is proceeding slowly.
• President Helman noted that he had communicated to the membership the official policy that the Chat Page not be used for personal financial gain.
• New Financial Business for the 2008 BOD Meeting:
• A recommendation that the Treasurer deposit amounts in excess of $100,000 in a second federally insured bank so that the total in any one bank is fully insured by the FDIC was discussed. Dave Kent made a motion that section 10.b of the Constitution be modified so that the second sentence read: “Funds shall be deposited, as received, in a bank insured by an agency of the federal government, or in government-issued or insured financial instruments. If necessary, the treasurer shall maintain accounts in two or more banks so that the balance in any one bank does not exceed the insurance limit. All disbursements shall be made by the check signed by the treasurer.” A motion was made, voted on and approved by the Board and this recommendation will be placed before the membership for approval. Bob Rawlins made a motion to eliminate the wording in section 10.b of the Constitution reading: “He shall expend no funds except on order or voucher signed by the President” and replace it with “He (the Treasurer) shall expend no funds except as authorized by the annual budget approved by a majority of the Board of Directors.” The motion was seconded, voted on and approved and this recommendation will be placed before the membership for approval.
• Treasurer Rawlins reported that considerable processing fees are required to enable use of credit cards for members paying dues and making USCS purchases. He recommended that this option be abandoned for the present time. A motion was made, voted on and approved.
• Treasurer Rawlins detailed the postal increases for mailing catalogs to overseas members and proposed that the prices for USCS publications sold to international members be modified to cover costs with some nominal but small cost. A motion was made, voted on and approved.
• A proposal was made to adopt the policy for purchase of large naval cover lots with the following provisions:
• The lot must be of sufficient size to preclude bidding by individual USCS members.
• The covers must be of general interest to the bulk of USCS members.
• The USCS will not knowingly compete against USCS member or USCS member-dealers
• The total purchase price shall be capped at no more than 20% of the expected retail value as determined by the auction house.
• The lot must be inspected, in whole or in part, by an experienced USCS member to verify the expected retail value of the lot
• The majority of the USCS Board of Directors shall approve the purchase.
• The covers shall be sold in appropriate USCS sponsored services.
• Sales of the covers shall be tracked separately so that, when all are sold of disposed of, the net profit can be determined and reported to the Board.

A motion was made, voted on and approved to adopt this policy.

• Treasurer Rawlins made a proposal to discount two year dues payments an additional $2 giving a total of $34 instead of $36. A motion to adopt this was made, voted on and approved.
• New Service discussions for the 2008 BOD Meeting:
• A proposal that color illustrations on two selected pages of the Log on one or two issues per year with spot color on remaining issues was made. A motion authorizing the Log Editor to use adopt this proposal was made, voted on and approved.
• To move forward with the project to digitize and index the Log, a motion was made to direct the President to assign a manager for the Log Digitizing and Indexing project. This was seconded, voted on and approved. The President will ask for volunteers in a Log message.
• Discussion was made regarding the cost of Log printing and distribution and with subscription to the eLog (electronic delivery of the Log). A motion to create a new membership category titled “Log by electronic means” and setting the worldwide membership fee at $12 was made, seconded, voted on and approved, commencing with the 2008-2009 renewal year.
• Discussion on Fake, Forged and Fraudulent covers was made regarding the need to archive known samples. Greg Ciesielski volunteered to manage a project to post scans of known samples on the www.navalcovermuseum.org web site. Greg will publish an article in the Log detailing the project. A motion made, seconded, voted on and approved.
• A proposal to publish the Fake, Forgeries and Frauds articles in a bound form was discussed. There was a motion to authorize the printing of 50 spiral bound copies of the Fakes, Forgeries and Frauds article series, as well as the production of PDF versions of these articles on CD was made. This was seconded, voted on and approved.
• A recommendation was made to declare issues #72 and #153 of the USCS Log as null and non-existent was made. This will allow collections of Logs to be described as complete when these are the only two missing issues. In fact, these issues were not printed or issued. A motion to accept this recommendation was made, seconded, voted on and approved.
• New Membership, Growth and Recruitment discussions for the 2008 BOD Meeting:
• A proposal was made that the Board decide which national shows should be staffed with society tables. A motion was made, seconded, voted on and approved to adopt this proposal and the Board decided to request society tables for the APS shows in Arlington, Texas and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in 2009.
• Discussion was made regarding authorizing an ad hoc committee to evaluate manpower requirements, Society services, projects and recommendations. A motion to adopt the creation of such a committee was withdrawn.
• Discussion was made of establishing a policy for recognition of the longest serving member, a proposal by member Steve Kovacs. This policy recommendation was withdrawn after discussion.
• New Business Discussions for the 2008 BOD Meeting:
• A discussion was made regarding establishing and maintaining an endowment fund. It was determined that an endowment fund is not necessary but that a policy for accepting targeted and directed donations for specific purposes may be in the best interest of the society. This will be reviewed at the 2009 BOD meeting.
• Discussion was made of routine requests sent to the USCS to donate funds to foundations and institutions. The idea of donating to targeted institutions related to naval postal history was discussed. President Helman will develop this topic for the 2009 BOD meeting.
• A proposal to donate $500 to the American Philatelic Research Library was discussed and voted on after a motion was made. The motion was not passed.
• Discussion of USCS Themes for upcoming years:
• 2009: The USCS Theme for 2009 is the Return of the Great White Fleet
• 2010: The Board was asked to think about and research possible themes
• The meeting was adjourned at 9:47 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

7/28/2008

Revised 8/17/2008

Revisoin #1 made 8/17/2008:

Item 13.a above is revised to add:

Return to home