Meeting Minutes,  May 21, 2019

Present: Donald Christ, Willard Dellicker, Eugene Handwerk, Harold Handwerk, David Keller

Donald Christ called the meeting to order at the Lynn Township Office and presided over discussion of the following topics:

1. MINUTES: The January 8, 2019 Minutes were accepted as written.
2. TREASURER’S REPORT: Eugene Handwerk furnished bank statements for the Memorial account at New Tripoli National Bank for January, February, March and April. The current balance is $8,119.29, YTD interest earned is $13.30.

Motion to accept the Treasurer’s report by Eugene Handwerk, seconded by Dave Keller, approved by all.

4. EMAIL address for the committee is OPVetMC@gmail.com. The address is NOT case sensitive.
5. WEBSITE: Our website is up and available to view at  https://nwlehighvetsmemorial.org.  Visitors to the website can access Our Vision, a google map showing directions to Ontelaunee Park, contact information, committee members, a form to submit Veteran information to fill out and mail on-line or US Mail, Rules for engraving names on the panels, picture of the design concept and meeting minutes.  Future pages will show the construction schedule and progress, donation status vs. the goal for required funding and a page to make on-line donations using a credit card or where to send a check.

Since this meeting on May 21^st, we have applied to and have been accepted for a payment gateway that will enable us to have credit card donations sent directly to our account at our financial institution.    The web developer will do test runs to ensure that credit card donations are received by the bank before rolling this out.  Information will include how donors can also send a tax deductible check to the township for the memorial.

ACTION REQUIRED: We need to send Wayne Kessler some information about what we want on our donations page such as levels of giving i.e. $25, $50, $100, $250 plus OTHER.  Do we want to assign a name to each level of donation?  What fields need to be completed such as name, address, credit card info, etc.  Should we encourage a donation level, for example, if our memorial cost is $300,000 and we have 3,000 names, the cost per name would be $100.

5. NAME CHANGE: The committee unofficially decided to change our name to Northwestern Lehigh Veterans Memorial from Ontelaunee Park Veterans Memorial when we included all three Townships. Eugene suggested after we closed the meeting that we need to make a formal motion to officially change the name at our next meeting.
6. DONATION ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: Discussion about sending a formal letter or post card to donors to acknowledge receipt of their donation. Eugene and Donald will talk to Tammy about how this should be done. Donald is looking into a suitable card that can be sent to donors as used by our fire companies for this purpose.
7. LETTER TO THE COMMUNITY: Now that we have our website up and running and are completing the donation page, we discussed the need to send a letter requesting donations and Veteran’s information for the memorial from all four Townships. Donald will approach all Township officials to request that each Township send a mass mailing of a letter written by the memorial committee.

Dave Keller moved to approve, Eugene Handwerk 2^nd, approved by all.

7. NONPROFIT STATUS: Donald and Harold met with Charles Stopp regarding nonprofit status. Atty. Stopp recommended that we piggybacking on Lynn Township’s legal status for receiving tax deductible donations into our memorial account. The major advantage, aside from the initial application cost that could reach $4,000 and the administrative attention that the committee would have to monitor, is the continuity with Lynn Township for maintaining our checking account, auditing requirements, and future maintenance of the memorial after construction into the future.  This legal opinion was received after our March 4^th email discussion about pursuing our own 501c3 status during which the committee’s consensus was to apply for it.

Eugene Handwerk made a motion, seconded by Harold Handwerk, and approved to adopt Atty. Stopp’s recommendation stated in paragraph #1 of his letter dated May 2, 2019, to piggyback with Lynn Township rather than pursuing our own 501c3 non-profit status.

9. Acknowledgement of DEB ANGST for donation of baked goods. Donald and Harold had an information booth set up in Ontelaunee Park on April 27^th for the Lynn Township Yard Sale. Deb Angst donated baked goods to the Memorial that were sold to attendees for a sum of $122.  Thank you, Deb!
10. NAMES ON MEMORIAL PANELS: There was a short discussion if there should be a minimum time of Township residency required to have a Veteran’s name engraved on the panels. The consensus was to not require a minimum time of residence to be included.

A suggestion to make a change to our “RULES for engraving names” #7.  Instead of stating that “All names included are based on public records…”  we should say “Some names are included…”  This was suggested because some names come from cemeteries and public historical records however, some are submitted by private citizens, family or friends.

Motion to make the change by Eugene Handwerk, seconded by Harold Handwerk, approved by all.

10. 10. ADJOURN: Motion by Dave Keller, second by Eugene Handwerk.

11. NEXT MEETING will be determined by President Christ who will notify the committee.

ATTACHMENTS:

1. RULES for engraving names (with change #7)
2. LETTER from Attorney Charles Stopp dated May2, 2019
3. Article written for the Heidelberg Township Newsletter