The annual meeting of the HMGS National Coordination Council was held on July 20 at the Lancaster Host Hotel. The meeting was hosted by Michael Cosentino, HMGS Midwest Vice President, and began at 8 am. Since the dissolution of the old HMGS National Board, the society has not really had a working group tasked with the interaction between the various Chapters for cooperation, coordinating and information sharing. This meeting was an attempt to resurrect a National group without the problems associated with the old Board.

Funding Issues

Since the main problem with the old Board was funding related, funding overshadowed everything else at this meeting. Some chapters, notably East, are reluctant to give any funding at all due to past problems, while others, including the Great Lakes representative, stated that without any funding at all nothing could be accomplished. No agreement was reached between the chapters on this issue, but it would be discussed further once the mission and objectives of the National Organization were finalized.

Discussion then turned to what-this group should and could do to help all the Chapters of HMGS. One proposal that seemed to have the support of everyone was a group insurance policy that would cover every convention put on by any HMGS Chapter -- the idea being a larger group would pay lesser premiums.

Michael Cosentino said he would pursue this and report back to the group. Other ideas discussed were: A "National Membership," at $50 a year. The member chooses five chapter's newsletters to receive and those Chapters are reimbursed for the cost of the newsletters and postage. Since The Herald is the best HMGS newsletter, everyone would obviously choose it, and the Great Lakes representative was not about to commit to this without much discussion with the Board and Editor, the issue was tabled.

Wealth of Ideas

Other issues discussed were: National ID cards to all HMGS members; Have every chapter's newsletter run a full page ad for any other chapter's convention sometime in the six months before the convention date; A National HMGS discount/game store database/direct mailings list, posted on every HMGS web site and e-mail list; Direct mailings of convention flyers sent to every store/dealer on the list; A calendar with all of the year's convention dates marked on it and an appropriate martial theme;

Also proposed were a formal organization of officers and duties for the Council; Chapter criteria for new and existing Chapters; Sharing of membership lists between chapters for convention mailings, although there was some concern about privacy issues; System to give every HMGS member a national member number unique to them that also specifies what specific Chapter they belong to, so that all chapters would have the same numbering system. The possibility was also discussed of engaging some non-gaming companies to take a look at our hobby (Lego, for example) to bring new members or products to our Society.

No action was taken on any of these topics, but at least some of these ideas have merit, and a National Council seems to be a place that ideas on the future of wargaming should be discussed and planned for. The representatives exchanged contact information with each other for future discussions, especially via the internet, and Michael Cosentino pledged that he would continue to be in contact with all of the representatives. The Council then did actually make a unanimous decision, that being we were at Historicon, there were games to be played! The meeting adjourned at approximately 9:30 am.