Call to Order: The Winter Meeting of the American Philatelic Society held at the Brown Convention Center, Houston, Texas was called to order by President John M. Hotchner at 9:05 a.m. President Hotchner introduced the APS Board of Directors and then introduced Executive Director Robert E. Lamb. Lamb introduced the staff who were present from Headquarters in State College, Pennsylvania.

President Hotchner thanked Ameristamp Expo show chair Denise Stotts and invited her to the podium to introduce her committee, who was given a well-deserved round of applause. Hotchner then introduced members of previous APS Boards of Directors who were present, recognized donors to the John K. Tiffany Endowment Fund, and Chairmen of APS Committees.

25 Year Members:President Hotchner, with the assistance of Executive Director Lamb, recognized those present who were celebrating their 25th year as members of the American Philatelic Society. Twenty-seven were present to receive their award pins and certificates.

President's Report: President Hotchner reported the Board completed a productive eight and a half hour meeting this week. The Board affirmed a phone vote on an exchange of letters with PACIFIC 97. PACIFIC 97 reported it is making significant progress towards settling its debts. All activity in this regard is expected to be completed by mid-year. In recognition of progress made and the fact that the money the APS spent on the youth area at PACIFIC 97 directly benefited the Society and the hobby, the Society has agreed to withdraw its billing for those expenses. In their letter the PACIFIC 97 committee thanked its patrons and those members of the bourse that made special contributions to assist in reducing the deficit. The American Philatelic Society was also recognized for the Society's long and continuing support given to the PACIFIC 97 committee in various ways ranging from monetary, to publicity, to APS staff assistance on the floor at the Moscone Center especially in the youth area. Following the advice of their attorney, PACIFIC 97 will continue their policy of not responding to queries from the public nor reports published in the philatelic press until the final debt matters are concluded. Upon closing the books PACIFIC 97 has committed to issuing a final report complete with detailed financial information and narrative. It will be made available to the APS, the philatelic press, and to other interested parties.

In a series of decisions that bear on the ever increasing presence in our lives of the World Wide Web, the Board approved a statement on applicability of the Society's Code of Ethics to the standard of behavior expected of APS members using the Internet. It approved the procedure covering the placing of APS material on the APS website, and appointed a committee composed of Randy Neil, Lois Evans de Violini, and Janet Klug to make recommendations about how the Society can best adapt its Internet presence to be of help to members and potential members.

The Board discussed the pros and cons of holding its annual convention earlier in August to promote attendance by youth and by adults who are otherwise tied down by school openings late in the month. We agreed this should be tried at the next opportunity and in the meantime we should ask the membership to let us know how they feel about this possibility.

The Board agreed to open the new member packet to advertising from the weekly philatelic press.

The Board passed a comprehensive set of ethics guidelines for Board members. This will be published in the American Philatelist. President Hotchner recognized Tom Alexander, chairman of the ethics committee, who worked hard to put this together.

The Board received a report on next year's APS Winter Show. It will be held next February as a mini-international called Americas 99 in Orlando, Florida. It will be a celebration of US, Latin American, and Canadian philately. The US Postal Service has agreed to participate in the show and we will be settling the details of that participation over the next couple of months.

The Board heard a report from Washington 2006 President Michael Dixon and General Chairman Steve Luster on progress made on this next "every-ten-years" international to be held in the United States. As the national federation that will co-sponsor the event, the APS is in the process of negotiating an agreement with Washington 2006 to help guarantee its success. The Board of Vice Presidents is conducting those negotiations on behalf of the Society and the Board will eventually be asked to approve that agreement.

There were several election-related issues discussed. The prior Board passed possible bylaws changes providing for term limits, a change in eligibility for running for President of the Society to require one prior term of service on the APS Board, and to shorten the election process. Some members of the current Board want to revisit the term limit provisions. We have asked the Society Attorney to rule on whether that is possible or whether the changes presented by the previous Board must be presented to the membership exactly as written.

In other related business, the Board declined to change the requirement that the three Vice Presidents who must meet frequently to handle disciplinary cases under the Society's Code of Ethics must live within 250 miles of each other. We considered the issue of trying to design a system of geographic representation for Directors, and agreed the difficulties of doing so are too pervasive at this time to move forward. We also considered the possibility of three year terms of office instead of the current practice of two year terms, and tabled that pending the outcome of the prior Board's bylaws recommendations.

The first stage of the strategic planning exercise was presented to the Board by Long Range Planning Committee Chairman Steve Luster. The aim is for the Board to determine what the Society's goals should be ten or more years into the future. Over the next several months, Board and Headquarters staff members will be engaging in a priority setting process that will help in developing that plan.

The Board through a committee chaired by Gordon Morison has looked at the effects of our life membership policies on Society income and on members who joined after 1974 who will not be given free life membership under 1974 changes in the bylaws. The Board has asked State College staff to look at ways in which we can recognize long term members for their faithfulness to the Society. Morison's committee is also considering a graduated life membership fee based on age and will be working with our Finance Committee, chaired by John Apfelbaum, to determine appropriate fee levels.

The Board approved nominations from the APS Hall of Fame Committee to induct several people who are recently deceased: Leo August, Bert Christian, and Robson Lowe.

The Board approved nominations for the Luff Award, the Society's highest award. They will be announced at a later date.

The Board voted unanimously to put forward the candidacies of F. Burton Sellers, who is running for President, and Charles Peterson, who is running for a Director's slot on the Board of the International Federation of Philately (FIP). We support both very strongly.

Finally, the Board considered six appeals from disciplinary system actions taken by the Board of Vice Presidents.

Report of Board of Vice Presidents

Dr. Peter McCann: Besides being Board members of the APS, the three Vice Presidents serve on a mini-Board called the Board of Vice Presidents. We handle disciplinary actions of the Society that come in through the Complaint Department in State College. Ninety percent of these complaints are capably handled by Helen Bruno in State College. A few of them do trickle through to us. We meet about once every two months to consider these cases and to recommend how to act in terms of both the bylaws if there have been violations, or in infractions of the APS Code of Ethics. Although we can't talk about the details, you can see the results of what we have done published in American Philatelist in the membership pages. We do play an important function. The APS has published a new brochure on the complaints process and what you have to do if you need to file a complaint against another member. You can write and get a copy of it directly from Headquarters in State College.

Secretary's Report

Janet Klug: The Secretary has attested to and signed all official documents of the American Philatelic Society and taken minutes at Board meetings and General meetings according to the Society's bylaws.

Treasurer's Report

Given by Hotchner for John Apfelbaum: The Society's finances are strong. We have had a positive budget due to our fine investment performance and increased revenue to our Society from our insurance plan. There are no dues increases planned.

Executive Director's Report

Bob Lamb: The last three years have been good years for the Society. We have shown an increase in membership each of those years but we have worked very, very hard to show that increase. We have tried to reach out beyond the more mature collectors who have joined our Society over the years, to offer increased services and to making the Society more attractive to all collectors including beginning collectors.

This year we have lived within our budget. We shall be publishing summary budget figures in an upcoming issue of The American Philatelist. If anyone wants more detailed information about Society finances, please feel free to write us. We shall be happy to provide as much information as you would like.

Executive Director Lamb thanked those who have sent donations to the Society. The money from these contributions don't usually go into current operations, although some do donate for specific programs that may be considered current operations. Generally, donated funds go to the long-term good of the Society such as the Building Fund or the John K. Tiffany Endowment Fund. This has been valuable to all of us in putting the Society on long-term solid footing. We are also getting an increase in "in kind" donations. For example, we have received over $300,000 worth of stamps, philatelic materials, and books over the past year.

We have begun to bring the automated membership files in-house which should make our membership processing more efficient. This automation should be substantially complete by our next meeting in Santa Clara.

Tom Horn is looking into some innovations to improve service to the members. Postage stamps are getting bigger and we need bigger sales books. You can’t for example offer the Bugs Bunny sheet in our current sales books because it won’t fit. But we cannot make changes like this overnight. We have over $12 million in inventory in the Sales Division and continue to receive sales books which were sent out a decade ago. We are looking at how we solve this dilemma.

Tom recently introduced a change which will help us further guarantee any stamp which a member buys from the Sales Divison. If the Society’s Expertizing Service says that any stamp you bought from the Sales Division is either a fake or altered, we’ll not only make good on the stamp, now we’ll provide the expertizing free. The stamp must be submitted within 90 days of purchase.

The change in the insurance plan is going well, although there have been problems. The conversions are now going quickly and the projected earnings to the Society looks excellent. That is one of the reasons we won't have to look at a dues increase any time soon. Hugh Wood and his staff are at the APS booth if anyone has any questions they may talk with Wood directly.

There is a committee looking into the space requirements for Headquarters facilities. We are a long way from deciding whether an expansion is needed. The committee will be looking into the space requirements for both the Library and the Society services next weekend to determine the needs over the next decade. The chairman of that committee is John Foxworth, a former President of the Society who has done much for philately. Lamb was saddened to report Foxworth has had a stroke and is in intensive care.

A Danish mail order house has been sending direct mail to many of our members. We put a notice in The American Philatelist cautioning our members to call Headquarters before doing business with that firm. When they call, we tell them the owner of the firm has been expelled from the APS and if the member decides to buy from that firm there is no recourse to the APS for assistance. The APS continues to receive complaints and has engaged in a lengthy correspondence with the firm The APS is pressing the firm to make prompt refunds if so requested.

The reason the Society is growing, the reason it is healthy financially, the reason why we are receiving increased contributions is because we have a wonderful membership who does a lot to support us. We are grateful to all of you for that support.

Open Discussion

President Hotchner opened the meeting to any questions from the floor. There were none.

Adjournment

President Hotchner asked for the person with the lowest membership number to recommend adjournment for the meeting.

Motion: F. Burton Sellers (member number 23867) moved to adjourn the meeting. Seconded by William Bauer. Passed unanimously.

Respectfully submitted by: Attest:

Janet Klug, Secretary
John M. Hotchner, President