By Steve Manganelli
I’m Back! I have been your president for several terms in the past, including the first term back in 1993 when we formed the Club. Although our bylaws nominally prevent more than a few consecutive terms, I haven’t been there in a while, therefore, I’m good and am privileged to serve again! I’d also like to congratulate new Member at Large, Mr. Larry Kosta whom has joined the BOD this year and thank our returning veterans Jovi Murek, Quan Nguyen, Steve Neu, Steve Belknap, Carl Cox, Jeff Struthers, Ken Dresser. You guys continue to do a great job and we can’t run the club without you. These folks have their titles engraved on their badges; when you see them at the field, seek them out and thank them for their service! Were also indebted to Eric Shapiro for his service ending in 2021.
The first thing I’ve noticed during the transition is the valuable and low key leadership of our former Chairman of the Board, Mr. Brad Bender. With poor Brad in the hospital recovering from major surgery, I read over December 2021’s “Bradless” newsletter and realized just how many important things that were left out without Brad’s usual input. Brad, thanks so much for your steady and real leadership. The BOD and myself will try to carry on without you and allow you to devote your time to your recovery and your non-administrative R/C modeling endeavors. By the way, in case anyone whom hasn’t been to Brad’s house and thinks they are a competitor for “he who has the most R/C (or other) toys wins”, let me assure you, there is no contest, you may go ahead and give up now: you can’t win over Brad!
The 2nd thing I need to mention is Leadership. Although our bylaws have a magnanimous definition of term limits and what have you, the reality of running SEFSD is it takes some work and some of this work needs to be spread around to more members. To preserve the operation of SEFSD, we need a new Treasurer as soon as possible and longer term, a new Membership Chairman. Quan Nguyen has done a fabulous job of keeping us in the black while George Sullivan has been selflessly printing and handing out badges for several years. The current office holders have honed these jobs to the minimum efforts required and will train you. Which one of you doesn’t mind paying bills with someone else’s money and printing/mailing badges? Remember folks, they/we are all selfless volunteers; once your AMA and Club dues are paid, the signal is sent to print your new badge and get it to you in a reasonably timely manner. Please, give it a least a week or two before you think your renewal fell through the cracks. We have 197 members as of last Sunday: thank you all for renewing promptly and continuing to recognize SEFSD as the best value in San Diego area R/C modeling. One more thing: in order to renew or obtain SEFSD membership for 2022, your AMA insurance has to be paid through the end of 2022. The AMA prorates dues, but we don’t: it is simply too much trouble to have to inspect people’s badges to see when they expire. If you bought a new twelve month AMA membership let’s say in October of 2021, it will expire in November of 2022. When you go on the SEFSD Website to purchase your 2022 membership, it won’t take because you aren’t a paid up AMA member through the end of 2022, make sense? You need to get with AMA to ensure your AMA membership lines up with SEFSD membership.
I’d like to call your attention to Minutes of our first BOD meeting for the year which should be elsewhere in the issue. I ginned up what I consider a “standard” format and intend to use it for year, hopefully our Secretary can champion it as well. The purpose of it is not only to focus the BOD meetings, but to provide a concise description of the topics that are on the BODs’ agenda and what decisions we made about them. One key decision we made is to postpone the banquet anticipating a safer Covid situation and more ticket sales. Further down, you see just what a valuable member benefit this is. We essentially had 2 years worth of banquet funds to allocate and for more or less historical reasons, chose a pretty fancy venue. I can assure you that 2023’s banquet will be 1) a more austere venue, 2) lower value prizes and 3) cost more per member out of pocket and likely more yet for spouses/guests. Therefore if you need any more impetus to get in on the 2022 Banquet, this is it! Hopefully I’ll see you there; I know a good deal when I see it and bought my tickets as soon as they were available.
