Minutes: Saturday, June 17th, 2023

The business meeting was held at Ivy & Oak, 1300 Johnson St, Elkhart Ind. The meeting started at 10 AM and the meeting was opened in due form by President K Holmes.

President K Holmes gave the opening (and closing) prayer.

President K Holmes declared the business session open. He also welcomed Casey Hendrix and David Robertson, as well as Chris Buoscio.

1. Roll call of Officers: Completed by Secretary Jeff Schrock.
2. Reading of Membership Applications: No Report(s)
3. Reading of the minutes: Secretary J Schrock read (emailed) the minutes from the last meeting, and asked if there were any corrections or amendments. BoD M Kauffman made a motion to accept the minutes as read. Treasurer A O’Toole seconded the motion and the motion passed.
4. Treasurers Report: Treasurer A O’Toole made a motion to suspend the reading of the Treasurer’s report. H/R Dir J Schrock seconded the motion, and the motion passed.  
5. Bills: Treasurer A O’Toole reported all the bills are currently paid. However, a motion was needed to pay said bills. H/R Dir J Schrock made a motion to pay the bills. E Dir S Holmes seconded the motion, and the motion passed.
6. IT: BoD A Buoscio reported there were some problems w/the FSO email. For example, when someone sends an email to the “Board”, it won’t go through and that email gets rejected. President K Holmes asked if non-BoD personnel could be added to the “Board” email list. IT A Buoscio said yes, he just needed a list of who and the spelling of their names. Casey Hendrix and David Robertson are going to be added to the “Board” email listing.

Unfinished Business: 1) President K Holmes brought up the Fundraising Dinner. Treasurer A O’Toole was asked to write a check to H/R Dir J Schrock, to reimburse him for the weapons for the dinner. A O’Toole made said as a motion. BoD M Kauffman seconded the motion, and the motion passed. 2) President K Holmes then opened the floor asking for input on how the fundraising dinner went, thoughts of how it went and how to improve it. Under “Planning” several Board members thought the planning process seemed to drag along. Everything fell together, seemingly last minute; but everything did gel. More should have been done sooner, like locking in the advertising. Date, location, speaker(s), MC, sponsor’s, etc. More advertising could have and should have been done (as well as sooner). We should have an earlier meeting to focus on this to lock things down, we could also raise more money if started earlier. Donations and sponsorships seemed “last minute”. This was due to not having the above locked down early. For in-person donation/sponsorship requests, we should have a well prepared “speech”. Great prep on the swag bags, special thanks to those who prepped them. Someone should focus specifically on donations. Someone should focus specifically on sponsorships. Instead of sending letters for the above, we should call, personally talk to someone, get their email and then follow that up with a personal meeting. We need to set deadlines for Action Items. At each meeting, each Action Item should be addressed, even if it’s still in the works. Do we need paper tickets? Countless people wanted paper tickets, not to buy tickets on-line. It was thought we could still have a payable website, but follow that up with them printing a paper copy/ticket. Internal communication fell short of what we needed. We need to streamline our email’s. Two factor authentication and too many hoops we need to jump through just to get to our email. Tony asked any problems to be reported to him so he can fix them. Teams was discussed at length. 11 x 17 posters were not done as sponsorship’s were late getting in, even though we had a deadline. Some businesses specifically asked about the larger posters. All we printed were the 8 x 10 and 4 x 6 flyers. How to get the best return on the radio. Event information should have gotten out quicker for radio advertising. Lippert table signs were brought up. LCI sponsored two (2) tables, but did so after the deadline for printed sponsorships. An LCI person brought it to our attention that there were no LCI table signs. This was apparently contingent on sponsorship. A sign had to be made and printed up, literally during the dinner. This needs to be added to the Action Items Listing. Deadlines and secondary confirmation were also suggested for this very reason. Can we use MS 365 for task’s? It is not clear. An Action Item listing was done, but needed to be accomplished faster and then reported at the next meeting(s). Follow through was not good, we need to fix this. The quilt did not sell as fast, nor for as much this year. Sarah will probably do one next year, but may not be as detailed. Ordering and buying food from Fresh Time (Brooke), went great. We got it markedly less expensive than in years previous. Tony will still cook it for future events, everybody thought the food was great. We need to try and get Brooke on the BoD too. Volunteers were great, we had five (5) from Fresh Time and four (4) from LCI. One (1) LCI didn’t make it to the event. We should try again for ten (10) total next year. Mark added that he can most likely get additional volunteers from his company too. The Challenge Coin key-ring holders were great, huge thanks to Adam for this. He added he would do more next year, they were a list minute thought this year. We need to design a challenge coin for next year, they are dated (by year). We ordered 100 of them, but still have a lot left over. Maybe we should only order 50 next year. A lengthy discussion ensued. We also need to design a new bike shirt for next year, to keep the apparel “fresh”. This includes t-shirts or polo’s too. The glassware went great, but we got them back days before the event. We can’t wait until days before next year, we need them at least a month in advance. Playing sponsorships on the TV on the back wall went great. Everybody loved seeing their company’s advertisement on it. The video on the projector on the front wall also went great, both were on a loop and repeated playing during the pre-dinner time. Sam Brown did a great job DJ’ing, people didn’t want to leave. Having the pastor give the prayer before dinner went great. Several people commented on loving the idea. Not having a BoD table reserved, or us eating at it went better. BoD personnel were able to mingle and sit at other tables and engage with people. It also gave up a table we could sell. When the BoD eat, we rotated them in and out so we all didn’t eat at the same time. Adam was thanked for attending and being heavily involved, as his grandfather had just passed. We lost control of the 50/50 drawings and need to keep to the timeline. It was also mentioned that they didn’t sell much 50/50, as most people spent their money on the gun raffles. The gun raffles went great, and we made money on the ticket sales. A lengthy discussion ensued as to sell more (weapons) next year, or sell tickets for more than $2 each. This will be decided at another meeting in the future. The ammo jar was not a huge success as we thought it would be. Ironically, Cheryl guessed within three (3) on her first try. And, yes, she won the ammo jar. But we only made $38 +/- on it. Under the heading of “Next Year”, it was suggested that we hire motivational speaker Captain Chad Flemming. He was injured as a Special Operator and was the first amputee to return to combat. He is now a motivational speaker and does a great job, but he does come with a fee/cost. We need to do a new video for next year, we’ve used this one several times now. We also need to print more programs, as we ran out this year. We also need to get and refine a speech for the MC. It was mentioned that we should have had more items for the Live Auction. Everybody enjoyed outbidding their friends. Possibly auctioning off the guns next year was discussed. If we auction guns off, do we need a licensed auctioneer? Nobody knew, but it can be looked into prior to the end of the calendar year. We need a new venue, as we filled the hall this year. Juday Creek in Mishawaka was suggested. It is out of Elkhart County, which is something we’d like to stay in. It’s not far out, and the BoD thought they could live with that. It would add addition cost(s) though. We currently get the VFW hall donated for free. The date for next year was discussed at length. It was finally decided on Saturday, 18 May 2024. Prom’s will be going on in the weeks prior and graduation parties will be in full force shortly afterwards. Some thoughts of the theme were: 11 May for Okinawa; 18 May for Market Time in Viet Nam; and 14 May for Hamburger Hill. We will keep the theme of “Remember” and add a specific event to that. 3) H/R Dir J Schrock added that if anybody wanted/needed information on previous FSO Events, he put folders with his notes on the I-Drive, under the General Category. 4) President K Holmes wanted to move the BBQ/cook-out from next Saturday to another date. We don’t have enough time to get everything in place. It was decided to move it until Saturday, 22 July after the bike ride that day. Same place, same time(s). Adam will cancel the current reservation and set up the new one. Should we put a QR code on the flyers that President K Holmes made up? Thoughts were no, it’s not needed. 5) E Dir S Holmes asked about buying a tent or canopy for the event(s). H/R Dir J Schrock added he has a 10 x 10 FSO can use. 6) BoD M Kauffman brought up the Harris All-Star Little League. It was suggested that FSO donate $1,000 to increase our community presence. Additionally, a traveling banner would be posted/flown at each ball game. He made the above as a motion. Treasurer A O’Toole seconded the motion, and the motion passed. A check will be written after the meeting. 7) President K Holmes said we need to move forward collectively, as a single unit. We also need to resume the podcast(s). This was put on a back burner as the fundraising dinner approached. 8) David Robertson suggested we improve our community outreach as companies third and fourth quarters are coming up. They can either pay taxes on the money, or donate it to charities. Why not get our name out there more? The program is known as “Giving Tuesday’s”. He offered to assist with link(s) and graphic’s in support of this program.

New Business: No Report(s)

Good of the Order: No Report(s)

Next Meeting: Saturday, July 8^th, at 11AM, at Bonneville Mills (main parking lot). This will be right after the bike ride that day, which starts at 9 AM.

President K Holmes asked if there was any further business. Seeing none, H/R Dir J Schrock made a motion to adjourn the meeting and M Kauffman seconded the motion. The motion passed.

President K Holmes gave the closing prayer and the meeting was adjourned.

J Schrock

Secretary