Minutes of Meeting
Veterans Support Club
January 23rd 2019
Our first quarterly meeting of the year began with a social hour at 6pm.
From 6PM to 7PM members dined at tables enjoying various kinds of pizza and homemade deserts prepared by Alice Bray. Special thanks goes to Paul Beiger who arranged for the pizza and all those who helped prepare the room and did the set up. We had a good will offering to help offset the expense of the meal.
At 7pm our Business Meeting commenced.
Quest Speaker
After some brief comments from Roy Gogel outlining the boards decision to hold quarterly meetings in lieu of monthly ones. He then introduced our quest speaker for the evening, Karlie Upshaw who is our Charity’s 2019 Scholarship Recipient .
Karlie gave an overview of her military experience while outlining the many ways in which our scholarship is helping her young family that includes her young daughter who she brought with her. She joined the service when she was just 17 following in her father’s footsteps who was in the Air Force. She is pursuing a degree in nursing and expressed her sincere thanks for our help in doing so.
Business Meeting
Roy Gogel began the business meeting by asking for a motion to approve the October of 2018 minutes. A motion was made and accepted. Kim Koenig presented the treasurers report that showed a closing balance of $ 27462.89 as of the day of this meeting. A motion was made to accept the treasurer’s report and the motion was accepted.
Roy introduced Dave Binnix who spoke on behalf of the new Cresswind Car Club. Dave provided an overview of their club whose primary focus will be supporting veterans who are need of a car. He provided their thoughts on how our charity can partner with their club in fulfilling that mission. In conjunction with Jeff Kiel who is a Cresswind resident and restores cars, their club has just completed their first car that will be donated to a needy veteran in the the coming weeks. It is a 2015 Kia with a current value of $ 14,000. Jeff sent two of his mechanics who worked on this particular car to speak on the process of restoring these type cars that are totaled in accidents and or natural disasters. We are still discussing the various ways in which we may be able to partner with this new club and will keep the membership updated as our talks continue. Without question their mission is noteworthy and one that has our full support. It should be noted that Jeff donated this first car himself. A truly generous donation. Future cars will be paid for through various car related fundraisers sponsored by this new club.
Next Roy discussed the many activities our charity is involved in while thanking several of our members who take the lead with each activity. That would include Ken Frates with our food drives, Mario Russo with our bike program, Alan Frazer with hospice and several others. Ken mentioned that our food drives are held twice per year with our next one being held on April 8th & 10th. Since we now have nearly 900 homes, Ken asked for some volunteers to form a committee to help lesson the load of organizing these drives. Please contact Ken if you can help. Its only four days per year.
Alan Frazer discussed our involvement with hospice while letting everyone know that the next mandatory training is on January 29th. This will be a six hour session.
Our charity is in continuous need of opportunities to help others while keeping in mind our stated mission of “ touching one life at a time “ With that said, please bring any opportunities you feel are appropriate to the boards attention.
Rich Lynt provided some background on a possible new area of interest the board is considering. That would be “ Honor Flights “. Both Rich and myself recently attended a meeting in Atlanta with a chapter who has been involved with these flights the past several years to see if our charity could get involved and if so what the cost would be. For those who don’t know, this involves flying deserving veterans ( at this point primarily WW II vets ) along with a sponsor to Washington DC for a day of special recognition. They leave out of Atlanta early in the morning and returning late that same day. We will keep everyone updated as we obtain more information but at this point we are very excited about the prospects of getting involved.
Lastly, Roy made a motion seeking the charity’s approval to increase the number of people who can be on our board. The motion was for an increase from 5 to 8. The motion was passed at which point a motion was introduced to add to our board three individuals, Dick Osborne, Robin Dickson & Bud McGlon. Additionally, Pat Criste was re elected to a three year term. Congratulations to all and thanks for your willingness to serve.
Our next meeting will held on April 18th. We will have a special guest speaker who is an expert on veteran benefits. Her name is Cindy Hayes and you won’t want to miss her. If ever you had any questions, this is the person you want to ask. Please mark your calendars !!!
Meeting adjourned 8:10 PM
Pat Criste, Secretary