ICG State of the Corporation 2006

Presidency:

On March 24, 2006, Carl Mami resigned from the position of ICG President & I assumed the position of Acting President. The last 2 months have been educational. Being thrown in to this job with no warning is something I wouldn't wish on anyone. I received a lot of help from the Board of Directors & the ICG membership at large; some people helped by genuinely kicking in and providing information, support & assistance, others served to illustrate how difficult this job can be.

Chapters:

In 2005 we deactivated 2 Chapters due to inactivity; the Greater Sacramento Costumers Guild & the Millenium Costumers Guild.

In early 2006 one chapter seceded – the Greater Bay Area Costumers Guild of California. Some have asked if there was anything that could have been done to keep them as a chapter, what offers or compromises had been made to dissuade them. I have asked these questions of their representative & am reassured that the decision to leave was final by the time it ever reached us. I’d like to thank Kendra van Cleave; with her help we’ve managed to keep the lines of communication open with this former chapter. The majority of their members who voted on the issue wanted to disassociate from the ICG, & those who wanted to remain with the ICG have been offered “homes” for the duration of their ICG membership by the SiW, NY/NJ, Northern Lights & SLCG chapters. There remains a large number of ICG “orphans” in the GBACG; later on in this meeting I’ll be calling for a new committee to be formed to develop a consistent & friendly way to include them in our community. We need to establish a policy for this type of problem – hopefully we won’t need it but I feel it needs to be in place. Better to have & not use it than not have a policy at all.

To offset those losses, in the last 2 months I have been in contact with several groups who wanted to form new chapters. We have __ new chapters today & __ more waiting in the wings. Which technically adds up to net growth.

Things that were decided this year at the online Board meetings:

To open the online Board meetings to interested members. This took way too long to get through & managed to occupy the Board almost the entire year; not an optimal or desirable use of the Board’s time, in my opinion.

The issue of the ICG’s 501(c)3 status is still not resolved. The Board was sidetracked for much of the year by the Open Board question but some action has been taken & this will probably be the biggest issue the Board will seek to resolve in the upcoming year.

President’s Awards:

There are no President’s Awards this year. But I have a lot of thank you’s

I want to publicly thank a number of people for their support during the last 2 months, I’ll probably forget a few names, not to mention the list is really too long & I’m not accepting an Oscar; but I wanted to mention: Byron Connell, Darla Kruger, Judy Mitchell, Pierre & Sandy Pettinger, Andy Trembley, Kevin Roche, Ricky & Karen Dick, Denisen Hartlove, Karen Heim, Diane Harris, Jan Price, Jeff Morris, Elaine Mami, Steve Swope, John O’Halloran, Carole Parker & the entire SLCG.

And finally Bruce Mai – ‘cause he got to listen to me rant & fume, lucky guy.