The Directorate Newsletter is once again running actively, allowing your Society's governing board to carry out its duty to run the organization. Budget questions are a major issue, as there are more things that people would like to do than there is income to pay for them. The SGS helps give the Gamer's Choice awards, which are somewhat expensive to run. Greg Schloesser has requested $250 to help subsidize their operation. Funding would go toward plaques, shipping costs, promotional letters, and other publicity. George Phillies has proposed in collaboration with Joe Minton of Game Table Online (www.gametableonline.com) creating a new category of membership: Electronic. Electronic members anywhere in the world would be sent -S- as an electronic file attachment, which they would be allowed to print themselves. Electronic memberships would cost only $6 per year for anywhere in the world. It is not clear if paper tip-ins to the electronic files could always be included. The Society's website is hosted by boardgamegeek.com. It is proposed to contribute $100 to the boardgamegeek site to help them upgrade their server, which is rather overloaded. There has been a disagreement as to the use of electronic mail for balloting and the conduct of Directorate business. At least some Directorate members choose not to use email.

The Society badly needs a member to volunteer to play the role of elections officer and collect ballots in elections. Also, the rules on elections were written in 1973, at which time a computer was an object the size of a suitcase that communicated with other computers via shipping of boxes of Hollerith cards or perhaps magnetic tapes. The possibility of performing voting via email is not clearly spelled out in the bylaws.

Treasury

The Treasury currently contains $3244. Expenses in the last month included $125 for printing copies of Strategist and $62 for postage. The postage costs are amplified by the cost of sending issues to Canada ($0.60) or air mailing issues to Europe ($1.60). It appears that we are going to have to raise Canadian and European dues again in order to cover postage costs. The proposed electronic dues should resolve the cost issues. With respect to back issues, I do not have any extra copies of back issues from last year.

Memberships in the last month include Stuy (renewal), Levine (renewal), and Adam Smiles.

Member J. D. Dawson of Cold Lake, Canada has dropped from sight. His mail is being returned. If any of you have a current address for him, please advise.

In the last issue, I noted that my political activities had been cutting into my gaming time. We had the biennial National convention. One of my opponents was elected and is now National Chair. I expect to have much more time to invest into SGS activities in the future. The next issue will include the Constitution and membership supplement. Hopefully we will together be able to make some progress in advancing the size and influence of the SGS on gaming. Also, by late this year Volume 5 of Pimper's All The World's Wargames would reasonably be expected to be completed.

Next year will be the 30th anniversary of the founding of the Society.

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