USS ROBERT A. OWENS SHIPMATES ASSOCIATION
BUSINESS MEETING MINUTES OF
OCTOBER 7, 2021
In accordance with the
organization’s By-Laws, Article I, Section 2, a business meeting was held with
all members at the reunion present.
1. Minutes from the business meeting of 9/3/2019
were read and approved.
2. An election of officers was held with the
following results:
President Larry
McCoskey
Vice President John
Wanko
Treasurer Gary
Parks
Secretary Vacant
Ship’s Store Bill
Miller
Chaplain Keith
Totsch
Historian Bill
Miller – acting
Membership Comm. Vacant
Reunion Comm. Ron
Genevese and Bill Miller co-chairs
Audit Comm. Bill
Miller, Ron Pervere, Vacant
Ping/Web Editor Jerry
Jackson
3. A budget report was given by Treasurer Gary
Parks. All final reunion expenses have
not been cleared as of this date, and a present balance of $10,589.15 was in
our account. Gary expects that there
will be approximately $4000 for reunion expenses yet to be paid. This
should be net increase of about $1900 since our last reunion in 2019.
4. Keith Totsch gave a Ship’s Store report and
overview. Only 4-5 orders were received
in the past year, but more should be expected.
Much discussion on store pricing was heard with Keith explaining that
some prices were not producing any income due to increased shipping cost. At the close of this reunion Bill Miller will
assume the duties of Ship’s Store Manager.
He requested permission to hold a Christmas Sale this year with reduced
prices to lower the inventory and permission was granted with a vote of the
members present.
5. Donations were requested and approved for the
following:
Navy League, Pittsburgh Council (our speaker’s
organization) $250
Tin Can Sailors, Inc. $100
Disabled American Veterans $250
All donations have been sent
to the respective organizations.
6. The Jim Holden Award was presented to Keith
Totsch at the reunion banquet.
7. The next reunion will be held in Cleveland,
OH, with Ron Genovese and Bill Miller hosting.
8. Discussions were held on the following
subjects:
A. Naming a new
ship after Robert A. Owens. President
McCoskey said he had been trying to contact persons – Congress, Senate,
Secretary of the Navy – with no success.
It was suggested that all members of the organization write their
respective representatives with this request as well as any other person(s) who
could help in this endeavor. McCoskey
will draft and submit to the Ping a form letter to be used as a template for
all members to utilize.
B. A discussion
was held regarding Associate Membership to the organization. This is addressed in our By-laws under
Article 2, (Membership), Section 2 (Classification of Member), sub-section C,
(Associate). Since the present form we use
for membership did not include any of the choices other than a regular active
member, we agreed to ask Jerry Jackson to revise the form to include Associate
Membership. Jerry did this immediately
by inserting 3 selection boxes on the original application.
C. All members are
requested to send Jerry Jackson pictures of this year’s reunion. In addition, any pictures of interest that
people have and/or any interesting stories of your stay on the OWENS would be
welcomed by Jerry to include in subsequent issues of the Ping.
D. Historic
Memorabilia that has been accumulated over the years by the Historian has
become increasing difficult to store for any one individual. As much of the memorabilia originally
belonged to the ship, we asked Jim Owens (RAO’s nephew and oldest survivor of
RAO) to go through all the items and take what he wanted so that it may be
passed down to his heirs. With our
organization beginning to diminish and so many items in storage from unknown
individuals we felt it prudent that these items be transferred to the Owens
family. All items, including every issue
of the Ping, that were in the custody of the Historian have been electronically
documented, photographed and placed on multiple thumb drives that each officer
of the organization has. If you have an
item(s) that you donated to the organization that you would like to have
returned, please contact Bill Miller or Jim Owens and they will make every
effort to see it is returned to you.
E. During the
Treasurer’s Report, it was discussed that the biggest expense we have each year
is printing and mailing the 3 issues of the Ping. Our dues is $10 per year, but it costs about
$16+ to print and mail Pings 3 times a year to those who do not want to receive
it electronically. We understand that not
everyone has email and have requested those receiving the Ping by USPS to find
someone who will get it electronically and print it for them. We still are mailing about 30-40 Pings each
issue. Therefore, it was suggested,
moved and seconded that anyone wishing to receive the Ping via USPS and not
email have a surcharge on their dues of $5 to cover the cost of mailing.
