USS TOPEKA (CLG 8)Reunion Association, Inc.  GENERAL MEETING At Atlanta
OCTOBER 13,2001

1. John Reynolds called the meeting to order at 9:00 AM, October 13,2001.

2. Review of Minutes of last Business Meeting held in San Diego CA on August 19, 2000 were read and accepted as read. Jack Timmons noted that we had made a modest profit on the San Diego Reunion.

3. Membership Report: As of October 7, 2001:

4. Treasurer’s Report as of October 7,2001. We remain solvent.

Notes:

A. We have paid $400 for General Liability Insurance, including liquor law liability coverage for the entire year, which covers this Atlanta Reunion, the Denver Reunion, and all meetings including Laughlin and all Board Meetings. This at less cost than we had been paying for event insurance for just the reunion. The coverages are as good as or better than what we had in the past.

B. We have paid the printer for the costs of the August Newsletter and the mailing of that newsletter.

C. We have prepaid certain expenses or made deposits as shown:

It looks like we will lose some money on this reunion due to the small number of attendees, we only have 43 members here and we budgeted for many more.

5. Old Business:

A. Status of Baka Hachi revision. Postponed, covered in last newsletter. Perhaps the new Baka Hachi will be available by the Denver Reunion in 2002.

B. Status of USS Topeka CLG 8) Reunion Association, Inc. Tax Exempt Status. Federal Tax Exempt Status approvals are all done as shown in the Newsletter.

California State: The $25 registration for State Tax Exempt Status Fee, the check has been cashed, we expect approval soon.

C. The Proposed new bylaws have been approved. We mailed 362 ballots out to members who were paid up as of August 22, 2001. One of those is since deceased. So there was a total possible of 361 members who were asked to respond. We received 241 ballots in the mail. (This is 66.8% of the possible total.)

Total "yes" ballots was 230, voted "no" was 5, there were 3 ballots where were signed and dated and did not indicate their choice. At the reunion we reported there were 3 ballots received after the September 12, 2001 postmark date, 2 more have been received subsequently, all voted yes but could not be counted. The old bylaws required 2/3 of the ballots to allow revision or to repeal. That was handily passed to repeal the old bylaws and to accept the proposed new bylaws.

6. New Business:

A. John Reynolds advised the membership the next task is to elect a Board of Directors. The newly elected Board of Directors would hold a meeting immediately after the Business Meeting to Elect a Chairman of the Board of Directors, a President and a Secretary Treasure and other such business as needed to be accomplished.    

The proposed Slate of Officers is John Reynolds for President and Jack Timmons for Secretary/Treasurer.

The slate for Board of Directors presented to the membership for a vote includes:

Dudley Cass         Jack Connery    Jerry Judge Jerry Pennington    Ken Noble      Don Anderson

All the candidates except Jack Connery were present at the reunion.

The proposed Board of Directors was elected by acclamation.

7. Reunion Site for 2002 is Denver, Colorado. Ken Noble reiterated that the reunion starts on August 21, 2002. Ken says we are staying at the Denver Hilton. The super shuttle runs from Denver Airport to the hotel for $27 round trip. The hotel rates are good Sunday through Sunday. Ken Noble says there are lots of tours available, including the Denver Mint, Coors, Butterfly Pavilion, the mile high aquarium. There’s lots of scenery, including Pike’s Peak, Air Force Academy, and the Garden of the Gods.

8. Proposed Site for 2003. John Reynolds opened the discussion, saying that this will be a West Coast Reunion. The sites discussed at the last reunion in San Diego included Santa Barbara to be presented by Walter Crane, he is not present. John Keith who is here will present Portland, Oregon. John Keith says Portland is wonderful, he’s lived there many years. Portland has microbreweries, golf, the Columbia River Gorge. The membership voted for Portland for the 2003 reunion, with only John Keith voting against that site.

9. Proposed Site for 2004. John Reynolds opened the discussion, saying that this will be an East Coast Reunion. We had proposals in the past for Buffalo, New York and New York City. There does not appear to be a New York Contingent to present those possibilities. John Reynolds opened the floor to discussion for an East Coast site. After a considerable pause, Chuck Northrup said he would be interested in hosting a reunion in Tampa Florida in 2004.

10. Other Business. John Keith made a motion that we as an organization should make a donation to the victims of the September 11, 2001 terrorism. There was discussion as to what the amount should be. The motion was amended to state that the amount of $250 should be donated from our treasury to the Red Cross Disaster Fund. That motion was passed unanimously. Since that amount seems small in view of the scope of the tragedy, Ike Roberts volunteered to pass the hat at the banquet to raise additional cash to be given to the secretary/treasurer to be included in the contribution to the American Red Cross Disaster Fund.

(Note: an additional $405 was raised at the dinner. A check for $655 was mailed to the American Red Cross on October 18, 2001.)

11. John Reynolds closed the meeting at 9:35 AM.

Respectfully submitted:
 

Jack E. Timmons; Secretary/Treasurer

October 31, 2001