Minutes of the NCPHS Board of Directors Meeting: July 25, 2015 at CHARPEX 2015
ATTENDING: Jim Baird, Frank Hall, Harvey Tilles, and Dick Winter. A quorum of the Board was present.
After the call to order, President Winter asked that the minutes of the last meeting be approved. The minutes were accepted as written.
In early July 2015, Board member Harry Albert submitted his resignation from the Board, unable to complete the final year of his term as a Board member. The By-Laws permit the president to appoint a replacement to complete the remainder of his term with the approval of the Board. Scott Steward of Accoteek, Maryland, was selected to complete Albert’s term on the Board. Scott accepted the assignment, which the Board members had approved.
At the General Meeting held before the Board meeting, Alan Vestal was elected for another three-year term as a Board member and Jim Baird elected as a new Board member to replace Harvey Tilles, who was a charter-member and has had a long presence on the Board.
In the absence of Secretary-Treasurer Bill DiPaolo, President Winter presented the Secretary-Treasurer’s Report. The current membership is 115, an increase of six members since the previous year’s report. The Secretary-Treasurer anticipates that two members will be lost for unpaid dues. The Society continues in sound financial condition thanks once again to our sustaining members, who contribute additional funds to support the society above their regular annual dues. Sustaining members are about 47% of the membership. President Winter also presented to the Board the Secretary-Treasurer’s budget for 2016 showing an anticipated surplus of $925. The Board had no questions or objections to it. The cash balance as of July 23, 2015, was $14,255.88.
The Board considered a recommendation of President Winter that the society make a $1,000 donation to the upcoming NY2016 International Stamp Show, which will open in New York City in late May 2016. This would indicate the support of our society of this important international show, held once ever ten years in the United States, a show that will attract many visitors from around the world. After a discussion of this proposal the majority of the Board members in attendance agreed that we had sufficient funds to make such a donation and approved the idea.
The Board members considered the recommendations for a new slate of officers as follows: President – Frank Hall; Vice-President – Gene Lightfoot; and Secretary-Treasurer – Bill DiPaolo. The new officers were approved unanimously by the attending Board members and by those members not in attendance who had given their proxy vote to President Winter. The new officers will serve for the next two years.
No changes are planned for the North Carolina Postal Historian. President Winter reported a good backlog of articles. Printing of the publication continues very satisfactorily at the Rocky Mountain Philatelic Library, which has printed our journal for the past two years. President Winter announced that the recipient of the Literature Award, voted by the Board of Directors for the best article from the 2014 (Volume 33) issues of the North Carolina Postal Historian, was Stefan T. Jaronski for his article, “Military Mail from Roanoke Island, Revisited” (Spring 2014).
Last year the Board discussed the possibility of having a digital copy of the journal available to members desiring it. A decision to follow through with this suggestion was delayed until we ask our members for their interest in this idea, which was done with the 2015 dues notice in the fall of 2014. While about 70 percent of the members who responded didn’t want a digital version of the journal, the Board today decided that it would be very little work for us to provide by email a digital version to those members who did wish one. On the next dues notice we will ask members to indicate that they want a digital version of the journal and provide an email address. If they want, in addition, a print version of the journals, they will be asked to indicate that also.
Recent improvements to our web site have resulted in PDF copies of all our past newsletters and journals, except for the most recent year’s journals. At the end of each year, we will add one new year’s journals. Each PDF is searchable and can be downloaded. Access to the PDFs is available through a link on the ‘North Carolina Postal Historian” page of our web site, at the bottom of the page titled, “Free Library.” This link takes you to a new page, “Free Library of NCPHS Journals,” which allows you to select the issue you wish to see. As a next step, we are looking for a way to word-search across all the newsletters and journals, which will make the access to our library even more useful.
The North Carolina Postmark Catalog Update continues. This project, which began in October 2005, soon to complete its tenth year. This digital catalog, available on-line, now contains in downloadable files 80 of the 100 counties and four separate cities (Asheville, Charlotte, Greensboro and Wilmington). The catalog update contains 4,645 pages with 17,567 new markings that were not previously cataloged. The large number of new postmarks is due mostly to the addition of many late-19th century, and all of the 20th and 21st century postal markings. An interesting result of this work is the discovery that the number of post offices with known postmarks across the entire state is under 60 percent (actually 57.6 percent). Also, because a significant amount of new information has become available since the earlier counties were updated a few years ago, there are numerous changes still to be made to them as well as the creation of the remaining 20 counties and one more major city in the catalog. These changes will be accomplished as time is available.
With the election of new officers by the Board, President Winter’s terms as president has come to an end after 16 years. He has been very pleased to provide the leadership that has helped the society grow and to follow its mission to educate the public about North Carolina postal history. He will continue as an elected Board member for the next two years as well as one of the editors of the North Carolina Postal Historian.
The next meeting will be in Charlotte during CHARPEX in late July 2016.
(Prepared by R.F. Winter for the Secretary-Treasurer)