Maca Board Meeting Minutes |
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07-17-02 |
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Kennedy Senior Center, Natick, Mass |
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Minutes Prepared
by Mark Kaprielian, Clerk |
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Scheduled: 7:30 PM |
Opened: 7:45 PM |
Closed: 10:00 PM |
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Board Members |
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Arrive |
Depart |
Guests Present |
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Pres |
Harvey Reed |
Present
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7:23 |
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V.P. |
Steve Frymer |
Present
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7:33 |
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Treas. |
Bob Messenger |
Present
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7:10 |
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Clerk |
Mark Kaprielian |
Present
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7:10 |
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Harvey Burger |
Absent
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Stephen Dann |
Present
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7:43 |
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Frank Del Bonis |
Present
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7:52 |
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Larry Eldridge |
Present
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7:43 |
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Tony Gavelis |
Present
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7:33 |
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Gus Gosselin |
Present
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9:00 |
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Bill Kelleher |
Absent
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Robert King |
Present
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8:03 |
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Peter Lee |
Present
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7:43 |
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Tim Oliveri |
Absent
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Maryann Reilly |
Present
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7:20 |
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Note: All vote tallies
are shown as For – Against –
Abstention, e.g. 5 – 2 – 1 |
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Duration: 2 minutes 7:46 – 7:48
The President spoke briefly about the agenda for the meeting.
Duration: 1 minutes 7:48 – 7:49
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Messenger, Gavelis 2nd To approve the Draft 2 minutes of 06-17-02 meeting as presented on the web. Passed: 8 – 0
– 0 |
Duration: 11 minutes 7:49 – 8:05
The Treasurer presented the standard monthly report to the board. A copy will be sent to the Web team for posting. Total fund balances after all income was reported as $58,895.64.
The loan from the Life Membership fund has been paid off.
The Coordinators proceeded to give an outline of their plans for the year.
Duration: 1hour 34 minutes 8:06 – 9:40
The Archivist reported that his plan it to diligently pursue obtaining electronic copies of reports and posting them to the web site, which serves as our institutional memory.
The Budget Coordinator reported that he awaiting draft budgets from all members of the board so that he may put forth a proposed budget.
The Club Coordinator reported that his plan it to seek out information about clubs and report to the CH Editor and Web Master.
The Database Coordinator reported that he plans to develop a new front end for the Maca database to speed up processing. Estimated time frame to begin this effort is October.
Reported the following:
A total of 26 memberships was received by me in the mail.
The breakdown is as follows:
Adult 19 Juniors 7 for a total of 26 memberships
Subscriptions 11
Renewals 22 New 4 for a total of 26
It should be noted that Subscriptions equal 42% of the people joining MACA.(a)
People taken multiple Subscriptions (More than one year.) equals 2.
(a) If we took a survey of the membership list I'm sure we will find we don't have enough MA members to support our Magazine. That is why it is important to promote the Magazine to out of State players instead of just dumping them.
My suggestion would be to solicit ideas from our current board members.
Form a committee or subcommittee to kick the ideas around.
Myself if need be would do the following:
1) Approach it slowly and gradually spend more money as memberships increase.
2) Put in a small display Ad in Chess Life and with bold lettering stating "Award Wining Magazine" After all how many players in the Nation know we have an "SUPER MAGAZINE" (We probably should use the Classified section first.)
3) Get the adult labels for NH, RI, VT. (CT is a swamp of labels, avoid them for now.) The set up charge for labels is $20 and labels cost . 05 each.
4) Next start advertising our Magazine in other state chess publication. The IIIinois Chess Bulletin would be a good starting point.
5) Put an ad in CH tell a FRIEND WHAT A GREAT MAGAZINE CHESS HORIZON IS.
6) I'm sure we can make use of the web. I don't mean our own web site. People go up on the Web looking for stuff. How can we link them to us?
I'm sure Mark K could do this or would know what to do. Just need to get listed in someway.
I think we have to be aggressive in promoting ourselves.
Mark D. could possibly feed us on what exchange chess publications he is getting and what ones look good enough for a test shot. Maybe we could give them a free ad if they give us a free ad.
Robert Messenger offered his opinion that there is a core group of players who will continue to play in Maca events. That the number of alternative events has probably reduced our membership by those who are marginally attending Maca events. This is because those events are not requiring membership.
The Web Master reported to propose changes to the Bylaws to separate out core bylaw statutes and policies and procedures into two separate documents.
Prison Coordinator’s Report – Steve Frymer
Continued prison chess events and fund raising to subsidize issues of Ch to prisoners.
The Publications Coordinator presented the following agenda.
TLA’s submitted to USCF so that those who do not attend all tournaments will have tournament info.
Tournament Tables with Flyers and Promotions poster at table to attract attention about future tournaments.
List Multiple dates on the flyers for people who might ot attend every tournament.
Maca shirts, hats, etc. Serves as free promotion and a money maker.
Pricing for Gilden T-Shirts
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Quantity Each |
12 |
48 |
96 |
144 |
576 |
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One Color |
11.20 |
6.70 |
5.25 |
4.75 |
4.00 |
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Two Color |
12.90 |
7.40 |
5.75 |
5.15 |
4.25 |
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Three Color |
14.75 |
8.20 |
6.20 |
5.50 |
4.50 |
Alert local Newspapers and TV stations about tournaments.
Email tournament announcements will help promote all these tournaments and make a huge difference.
Drop tournament flyers off at local chess clubs, schools, etc.
State Championship Tournaments: Demo board audiences. This would give a “big time” tournament feel to some of the larger Maca tournaments.
Change calendar format in CH to a more “reader friendly” calendar to promote tournaments.
The LMCF Coordinator submitted the following as his report:
Where is that bottom in fact where was the top. Only God knows and of course the investor is the last one to know. He should get use to the idea he is the last one to know, its away of life. If you get a report from a company just throw it away.
Maybe Bush can tell us who this evil Person is makes the reports.
A lot of companies cook the books sometimes without salt and pepper.
Lets face it if the broker (ours) had check the PE ratio he would not have bought Enron. I believe he bought it because of all the HYPE. Its earnings went up a little bit but its share price soared, should have realize that something was wrong.
WorldCom used creative accounting and again Anderson fail to do its job just accept what it was told. Hey Mr. Bush we have found evil again.
What do we buy now? Gold got away from us we needed to buy when the stock price begin to slip. Bonds are no good and the same for electric and energy companies.
The electric stocks are at an all time high and the yields are low like 3% to
5%. When stocks are low electric shares are high, not even good for a drip plan.
To take advantage of this Bear you should buy Closed End Funds and Open End Funds. The Closed End Funds are easier to research. The Open End Funds are difficult to research because you cannot just look at a Standard and Poor sheet. Have been studying them for a month and not ready to move in that direction. Its a problem getting past history and checking what it holding and what its turn over ratio, diversification, sales load and if the manger is being paid too much and more.
The Closed End Funds have the eggs in all kind of baskets from soup to nuts and if one of the eggs falls out of the basket its not earth shaken. Some times a Closed End Funds price is low and yield high just because of the weight of the Market pulls them down in price.
I also have been looking for a good Dividend Reinvestment Plan (DRIP). I just can't find one.
Well, having said all that, this is what I've purchase and again my basic goal is income with a little growth. With the hope of compounding all the income in a monthly plan. Which I don't have yet.
ALL THE BELOW ARE CLOSED END FUNDS.
200 SHARES OF NEW AMERICAN (HYB) AT A COST OF $440.00 INCLUDING COMMISSIONS. YIELD OF 13% (Price per Share $2.20)
200 SHARES OF PRUDENTIAL HIGH INCOME (HYI) AT A COST OF $947.50 INCLUDING COMMISIONS. YIELD OF 11% (Price per Share $4.45)
50 SHARES OF H & Q HEALTHCARE INVESTORS AT A COST OF $835.00 INCLUDING COMMISSIONS. YIELD OF 13% I think you should have a little more information on this one. Its home base is in Boston the slush fund capital of the US. Its a Healthcare and Biotech Stock and is managed by Hambrecht Quist Capital Management. It could be classified as a Small-Cap Fund. Dividends sometimes will be in the form of additional shares. Its price of shares over a six year period has been $13.75 to $41.00. The LMCF paid $15.55 per share.
If you get a 10% yield for your money you will double your money in about 8 years. Of course you have to compound.
For the MACA Regular account I would only recommend Prudential High Income Fund. This would be the second stock purchase above not the 1st or 3rd purchase. I think there are other Closed End Funds I would recommend for the regular MACA account.
I believe the balance left in the LMCF to be $1276.
To continue the legacy of producing a high quality chess publication. Currently there are more authors than before. Cost reduction of the production is being examined with alternate printers. Some other areas that may be researched are costs such as the mailing house, raising dues.
The Scholastic Coordinator reported that there are three central areas that the committee will seek to address. The following are the Program highlights for 2003 school year.
Championships:
1. Rules revisions, clarifications and updates for singles championship.
2. Define team rules (current rules are ambiguous).
3. Review sections.
4. Splitting the Championship and GGG between two locations (within walking distance or on same school campus) on same day.
Non-Championship tournaments:
1. More sections.
2. More trophies and awards.
3. Outsourcing entry-taking function (similar to current promotional mailings).
General:
1. No increase in entry fees this year.
2. Same number of tournaments planned as last year.
4. Locations
Existing venues:
Same Natick Schools as last year
St. John’s High, Shrewsbury ????? - (NO FOOD in Gym policy may exclude this)
Potential new venues:
Nevins Hall and/or Keefe Tech in Framingham
Andover High School
Potential lost venues:
Milton Academy ????? – (NO FOOD in Gym policy)
The Sage School ????? - (scheduling issues )
5. Possibility of replacing the St. John’s High singles tournament with a team event.
6. Additional tournaments to be added only if additional staffing can be secured.
7. New Rule – Anyone suggesting changes to the scholastic program requiring additional staff or resources, must also provide a resource and staffing plan with a ready list of available resources and personnel. In other words; want a new venue, secure it; want an additional tournament, staff it.
8. Still need volunteers to commit to specific tournaments and tasks.
7. Expect much smaller profit from scholastics this year due to added award, administration, outsourcing and rental costs.
Bob Messenger mentioned that two years ago made $500 but last year made $6,500.
Trophy cost will go up to about $350 per year.
Mark Kaprielian said that proposed dates could be posted up to the web site to see how they fit into the known list of events.
The TLA for the GBO on October 19 & 20 is ready. The TLA cost with the USCF is pretty small so we will run for two issues. This years event has only 4 instead of 5 sections and condenses the prizes some. Also various discounts are shown in the TLA. Last year we had about 60 players so we’re not concerned about overflow or too many discounts.
Ancient Order of Hiberians in Newton is a possible new site.
For planning purposes the same events as last year are being planned. One approach would be to use essentially the same format for each event.
Our current events are
The Mass Open (State Championship)
Mass Game 60 Championships
Greater Boston Open
Pillsbury Memorial
Focus will be on scholastics and the idea of a volunteer picnic is being considered.
The Web Master reported two major features are planned for the year. The first is the completion of the Future Events listings project to allow organizers to edit their own listings on the site. The second is the implementation of a storefront. This storefront would allow players to register for any Maca events. The ability to ensure Maca and USCF renewal as part of the process would be incorporated. Also available at that time will be the ability for Maca to provide a service to all those who list on the site to accept credit card registration for their events. This can be established as a revenue generating activity, as Maca would collect a small fee for each transaction. These fees may be able to offset any recurring expense that Maca incurs in providing over the web registration.
It was suggested that other value added possibilities are possible such as an agreement that an organizer will require Maca membership and will affiliate with Maca in return for credit card processing.
No Report
None
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Motion_2002-07-02 Lee, King 2nd To create a Publication committee to be chaired by Robert King. This committee will report back to the board with a proposed publication list, its content, format, paper, length, targeted audience, frequency, resources etc. for FY2003 and beyond. The purpose of this committee is to revisit the cost of publication and distribution of CH, and determine the need for a scholastic publication in conjunction with CH. This report will be completed by the September Board meeting, with an interim report in August. Harvey Reed, Stephen Dann, Maryann Reilly, Gus Gosselin, Mark Donlan are appointed to the committee. Passed: 11 –
0 – 1 |
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Motion_2002-07-03 Dann, Gosselin 2nd To account for individual contributors to the LMCF fund. Failed: 1 –
5 – 6 |
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Motion_2002-07-04 Reed, Lee 2nd To set the next meeting as Wednesday, August 14th starting at 7:30 PM Passed: 11 – 0
– 1 |
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Motion_2002-07-05 Messenger, Reilly 2nd Moved to Adjourn Passed: 12 – 0
- 0 |