Veteran's Club Meeting Minutes from February 13th, 2014
Meeting opened at 1600 with 55 members in attendance. Total club membership is now 150 members.
An informal "Meet and Greet" with refreshments was held from 1600 to 1610.
Formal business meeting commenced at 1610 with the Pledge of Allegiance.
The Secretary's Report was presented and the minutes of our last meeting were voted on and accepted as written by the membership.
The Treasurer's Report was presented.
The President's Report was presented. It was noted that last month our Board of Directors met and discussed several different programs that we felt would be beneficial to our Veteran's community and to our club, including:
A Canned Food and Dry Goods drive will be conducted by our general members. This activity will occur on March 20th and donated food and dry goods will be given to our returning veterans in need. If you would like to get involved please send Jules an E-Mail.
We will be sharing the hosting of the Memorial Day Party at the clubhouse with our new HOA.
For our "summer residents" an August dance and dessert night is being planned at our clubhouse by Goody Morrison.
Mike Silverman is heading up a committee to look into the VA Cemetary located on route 441 in Lake Worth. His group will explore how it could be beneficial to our veteran's group.
The Board discussed our veterans club members talking about their military experiences. We all agreed that the veteran who gives the talk should be the person to decide whether "outside people" should be allowed to attend. The feeling was that this is a veteran's club and we want to keep these presentations limited to our membersihip in most cases. An exception to this norm would be that the speaker would have the option to invite non-member guests that they wanted to hear their presentation.
The Veteran's Day Party will be held again in November of this year.
Our Treasurer Steve Rosenthal brought up the subject of how much money we want to keep on hand in our treasury. It was felt that just enough funds to cover upcoming events and known expenses should be kept on hand. We all agreed that all other money would be donated to the Wounded Warriors of South Florida or to some other Veteran's group.
A discussion was held regarding the possibility of having selected Veteran's Club members function as emergency back-ups to Lang Management staff to operate Wei Valves for lake drainage in the event of flooding conditions. It is under review by Lang Management at this time.
With regard to our website, President's messages will be updated every few weeks. Please review the "sickbay" section of the website often and give your fellow veteran a call if his name appears in this section. Currently David Umanoff is home after being in the hospital.
Program Chairman Roger Ruddick provided an update on the progress of the Car Show preparations. The date of the Car Show being planned jointly by the Veteran's Club and the Car Club had to be changed to April 6th to avoid a conflict with another car show in our local area scheduled for our original March date. Roger still needs people to volunteer to help with this event. Please send him an E-Mail if you would like to assist and see a good car show!
New Business: It was recently learned that the laptop computer donated to our club by our President is not compatable for use by our webmaster to maintain our website in good order as originally intended. Accordingly, the Board has approved the purchase of a new laptop to be used for this purpose.
The Board has also voted to approve the purchase of a flag complete with flagstaff and weighted bottom to be used at events that are held away from the clubhouse.
President Jules Harper made an informative and highly professional presentation sharing his experiences flying the A-4 Skyhawk jet attack bomber in Vietnam from the aircraft carrier USS Kitty Hawk. His talk, entitled "Bringing The War to the Enemy" featured a movie taken from his cockpit during an actual combat mission. Jules completed 200 combat missions over North Vietnam during two nine month deployments on board the Kitty Hawk. He also discussed deployments to the Mediterranian during the Cold War where the nuclear attack mission was paramount. His session was very well received and was followed by a question and answer session. Jules' presentation was the second of our ongoing series where our members discuss various aspects of their own military experiences. Other members are encouraged to talk about their own experiences at future meetings. In addition to "Full Length" presentations like the first two in our series shorter "Mini-Presentations" of five to ten minutes where members discuss one selected personal experience are also encouraged. Please contact Roger Ruddick if you would like to participate in this type of presentation.
Following is the schedule of Veteran's Club Meetings for 2014. All meetings will be held in the Social Hall. Please note that there are no meetings scheduled for July and August.
March 13: 4-6 PM
April 10: 4-6 PM
May 8: 4-6 PM
June 12: 4-6 PM
September 11: 4-6 PM
October 9: 4-6 PM
November 13: 4-6 PM
December 11: 4-6 PM
The President noted in his concluding remarks that our next meeting would be held on March 13th
in the Social Hall. Our speaker at this meeting will be Greta Hamilton, the Assistant Director of the National Cemetary in Lake Worth. Ms. Hamilton is a veteran of the Air Force and she will inform our membership regarding burial services for veterans and their families at the National Cemetary, one of three National Cemetaries in Florida.
The 50/50 drawing was held.
The meeting concluded at 1750.
Minutes Submitted by Tom Nowak, Club Secretary