Item

1.1

Old Business

It was noted that we still haven't paid the CapCon organizers for our sponsorships at their show in Sept 2003.

Action by:

John MacDonald

2.1

National Director

Nothing to report this month.

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3.8

RT Editor

By the end of January, the draft copy of RT 28/5 should be passed to Jean Gratton for finalizing prior to printing.  We are aiming at the end of February to mail out the issue.

RT 28/6 will have a large article on the Hawker Hurricane; this will be the first article that will be linked to the website to bring our cyber-savvy members some additional material.

It was suggested that our surplus and/or out-of-date product reviews get published on a new section of the website Reference Info area.  The Editorial team will forward their stuff to the Webmaster as needed.

Some minor quality control issues with RT 28/4 have been observed and will be taken up with the printer. 

The Guest Editorial in RT 28/4 should have been attributed to Randy Lutz.

The cost of printing RT was clarified.  It was also decided to reduce the print run from 700 to 650 to reduce overstock of back issues.

The Webmaster was offered some regular space in RT to discuss web activities, but this was graciously declined.  However, a small advert will be provided to the Editors for inclusion in the masthead area, directing members to the discussion group.

The Editor was asked to add our URL to the cover of RT for Vol 29.

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Sid Arnold

Jean Gratton
Steve Sauvé

Jean Gratton


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Sid Arnold


Steve Sauvé




Sid Arnold

4.1

4.2

Treasurer

Money in the bank and all the bills are paid; we're 'comfortable'.

John submitted a bill for Deb Lutz 'new' Circulation computer, along with two bottles of Febreze to help get the cat urine out of the system.  We hopefully assume that's technical jargon for something geek-ish.

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5.4

5.5

Membership/Circulation

Absent this evening, but a phone-in report from Deb indicated that for the RT 28/3 mailing we got back 67 renewals out of 80 sent out, plus 10 new members.

For the RT 28/4 mailing , 78 renewals were sent out, but we have no returns yet

Postage has gone up substantially, with large jumps in US and foreign mailing costs.  John will review our RT costing model to see if an increase in membership dues is needed.  His findings will be circulated by e-mail to the Executive for further discussion at the next meeting.

For the next RT mailing we need more envelopes and returnalopes printed.

A few members have asked about issuing dated annual membership cards for IPMS Canada.  Some retailers offer IPMS Canada and Chapter discounts and have questioned why there's no expiry date on our cards.  Because we are tied to a publishing schedule not a calendar year, it is difficult to project when a one-year IPMS Canada membership will actually expire.  History has shown that it's certainly longer than a year.  John indicated that it's technically possible to trigger the database to generate a list of renewed members, and it would require a follow-on sorting (like what we do for generating renewal messages) for an RT mailing and insertion of a new card in a member's latest RT.  John will investigate and report on if this is feasible or feaseless.

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John MacDonald




Bob Migliardi

John MacDonald

6.1






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6.4




6.5

Marketing

Jamie volunteered to prepare a letter to retailers asking them to carry our retail decal sheets.  This will help clear out excess remaining stocks of current decals and make way for new projects to be considered.  For the future we are going to look at flogging off our surplus stock to retailers, after allowing a decent sales period to pass and ensure that all IPMS Canada members have had a chance to buy the products at our standard discount price.

It was discussed and decided that the resin louvres will not be sold separately from the new 442 Sqn Mustang IV sheet.

Since we have no real business plan in place, we may be having of problem of generating too much revenue on our special products' line.  We discussed financing more freebie products to our members, but there is no 'trigger point' to let us know when we should start looking hard at the next product. The Treasurer will investigate this matter further.

Several members have written in asking for more non-1/48th products.  It was noted that our freebie items have all been at least dual-scale (whether armour and/or aircraft), but the market research shows that 1/48th is the best selling scale for us to recoup our investment in a reasonable period of time.

To help with our marketing, in a global sense, it was discussed that we add a new position to the Executive who will focus on renewal and growth of the organization, looking inwards as opposed to exploring retail opportunities.

Jamie Leggo






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John MacDonald





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7.1

Archivist

Absent.

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8.4




8.5

Chapter Liaison

The newly forming IPMS Canada group in the UK is on the verge of achieving Charter Chapter status.  Jean sent them some material to help get them going a while back and our emissary Mike Belcher met up with these fine folks at the IPMS UK Nationals in Telford. It was proposed that a few more issues of RT and such should be sent over to the UK to help spread the word to their membership about IPMS Canada.  Our master plan for world domination is coming together nicely...

Member Derek Pennington is working at consolidating the members to apply for Charter Chapter status at DeHavilland Canada.  This will produce a third chapter in the Toronto area, but with the size of this metropolis this is probably not going to be a problem.

As a follow-up to last month's audit of Chapter Presidents and Contacts, it turns out that quite a few more groups do not have an IPMS Canada member in the President's position.  Jean will be contacting all the groups concerned to remember the situation.  This will be done before we send out the newest Charters to these Chapters.

We informally discussed the possibility of establishing and recognizing the most valuable resources in the organization: our individual members and our Charter Chapters.  Ideas and criteria for selecting our Most Valuable Member and Most Valuable Chapter will be circulated and discussed further before implementation.

We informally discussed the possibility of running (or that should read the encouraging the running of) another IPMS Canada National Convention.  For those young'uns reading this, the last convention was held in Ottawa in 1992.  Fourteen years later, the memories and nightmares have faded and this now seems like a good idea again.  Discussions to be continued.

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Jean Gratton






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Jean Gratton





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9.1

Webmaster

Nothing to report this month.

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10.1 

Secretary

Nothing to report this month.

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11.1 

Back Issues

Absent.

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12.1

12.2

12.3

Special Projects

Absent, but the word is that decal sales are moving steady but at low volume.

Topics discussed in absentia -

Several members have written in asking for more non-1/48th products.  It was noted that our freebie items have all been at least dual-scale (whether armour and/or aircraft), but the market research shows that 1/48th is the best selling scale for us to recoup our investment in a reasonable period of time.

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