From the new President Tim Daun: HMGS PSW's bi-annual meeting was held during the last convention. At this meeting the results of the elections were announced. This was the first contested election to be held since the founding of PS W, and it was gratifying to note that there was enough interest in the elections to elicit a variety of nominees for each office. The races were close, but the outcome was unambiguous. The results of the elections were as follows: President: Tim Daun First VP: Chris Armstrong Second VP: Jose Mendiola Secretary: Roger Treat Treasurer: Amy Britt The newsletter will continue in the capable hands of Stephen Phenow, and our convention manager will be the redoubtable Grace Arwick. Speaking for the new officers I would like to say to the membership: Thank you for the honor of letting us serve you for the next two years. We are anxious to continue the fine leadership of the past administration. Now our primary goal is to find a permanent home for our conventions. It is our belief that a permanent home in the center of the mass of the membership, will allow people easy access to the convention site and to anticipate the event without the hassle of trying to find out where it is, what size is the hall.. and how much the admission will be. Ideally the new location also will be inexpensive without sacrificing too much. I have lamented the exclusion of some larger events that enlivened our past meetings. I realize that space restrictions have hampered our recent our recent gatherings, but it is important that large scale events such as Rich de Rosa's WWI recreations are also indulged. It is events such as these that help maintain the integrity of our conventions and we cannot afford to alienate dynamic individuals who are willing to host events. So, besides the attributes listed above our new home also should have adequate space for all participants to host games as desired. There are other ideas being presented about that would enhance our campaign and we also would like to solicit ideas from you as well. We need ideas on how to improve our conventions. {Great idea. Anybody with any ideas, write me and about them and I will set up a special forum for convention ideas. fly address is on the masthead Pg Ed.) Another of our goals is to increase the number of Gamedays to no less than six up to twelve times a year. The idea would be to rotate the Gamedays to as many hobby stores that would accommodate us. That way the membership can become familiar with the various merchants and vendors who support us, potential members can be made aware of our existence and hopefully join us and current members will be able to spend more time together. More regular Gamedays should improve the solidarity of our club. The ultimate goal of this administration is to raise the membership level of our chapter. What is needed is simple: to draw back lapsed members and lure new ones into joining the chapter. The way to do this is outlined above. Also besides the increase of Gamedays and the improved conventions I think we may have hit upon another clever way to increase our membership and enhance the convention experience. Our last con occurred with a Magic-The Card Game convention. This would have been beneficial to us except that our cons were not on the same floor. Yet perhaps in the future we could plan cons with other groups in mind in order to expose ourselves to new members. Finally while the desire for increasing the membership is laudable, I do not feel it is critical for our own survival as a chapter. We already possess a vibrant membership that has been able to sustain HMGS/PSW through the last few years despite our dwindling numbers. I believe that if we set up consistent. selfsustaining mechanisms for giving conventions and Gamedays, we then refocus our attention on improving and expanding the services our chapter was chartered to supply, (see HMGS bylaws on function of the chapter.) The next two years will be challenging for myself and my fellow officers, but we are looking forward to the opportunity to help the club improve and expand. Again thank you to all for giving us the opportunity to do our duty; and serve the membership. We hope to meet with as many of you as possible in the months to come. Back to Table of Contents The Messenger February 1996 Back to The Messenger List of Issues Back to MagWeb Magazine List © Copyright 1996 by HMGS/PSW. This article appears in MagWeb.com (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other articles from military history and related magazines are available at http://www.magweb.com