Tracking system for required reports

Hugh discovered we hadn’t filed required annual report with Pennsylvania for many years—potentially threatening our non-profit status. This is a long-standing problem with MWSA management, and we must do better.

Report/Due to/Due by/Position or person in charge

I will create a spreadsheet to track this type of information—likely incorporating this into our portfolio document in this section of the website. Will probably have to wait until I return from vacation (May 2).

On Thursday, April 3, 2025 at 01:10:03 PM EDT, Hugh Simpson <hsimpson@simpsonlaw.org> wrote:

Received a notice from InCorp ( Registered Agent) regarding updating credit card information.  Logged in and since 2016 MWSA has been out of compliance with the State of Pennsylvania except in 2022 Joe Epley filed a report.

I jumped in and filed for 2025.

What will become problematic, I believe next year if MWSA does not file a report the organization will be out of compliance which creates a whole new set of circumstances…none good and probably cost $$ to regain “good standing”.  I attached a “how to” guide and really easy to do which is essentially updating President, Treasurer, and Secretary.

Probably need to assign this function to a specific “”billet”  as people come and go from their leadership roles.  I would say assign to “Secretary”.

Did call InCorp to ask why we hadn’t received a notice…their answer “we receive mail as registered agent”.  Nothing more nothing less.  $129 per year. 

See what I saw below. 

Entity Name

Due Date

Starts

Ends

Status

Annual Report Due

Military Writers Society of America (158927) [PA-DNPC]

04/30/2016

PAST DUE: Item due 04/30/2016

Annual Report Due

Military Writers Society of America (158927) [PA-DNPC]

04/30/2017

PAST DUE: Item due 04/30/2017

Annual Report Due

Military Writers Society of America (158927) [PA-DNPC]

04/30/2018

PAST DUE: Item due 04/30/2018

Annual Report Due

Military Writers Society of America (158927) [PA-DNPC]

04/30/2019

PAST DUE: Item due 04/30/2019

Annual Report Due

Military Writers Society of America (158927) [PA-DNPC]

04/30/2020

PAST DUE: Item due 04/30/2020

Annual Report Due

Military Writers Society of America (158927) [PA-DNPC]

04/30/2021

PAST DUE: Item due 04/30/2021

Annual Report Due

Military Writers Society of America (158927) [PA-DNPC]

04/30/2023

04/27/2022

04/27/2022

PAST DUE: Item due 04/30/2023

Annual Report Due

Military Writers Society of America (158927) [PA-DNPC]

04/30/2024

PAST DUE: Item due 04/30/2024

Annual Report Due

Military Writers Society of America (158927) [PA-DNPC]

06/30/2025

Item due 06/30/2025

Annual Report Due

Military Writers Society of America (158927) [PA-DNPC]

06/30/2026

Item due 06/30/2026

Organizational Briefing/Welcome Packet

It would be nice to have an organizational briefing PDF file that would serve two purposes:

• Hand out to new members, welcoming them and providing a brief overview of our mission, programs, benefits, leadership, website, etc.

• Same info, but for marketing/introductory purposes. Handouts for ambassadors

Recommendations

• I’d recommend one document, stored on our admin page, visible to all on the website, and downloadable.

• I can update our Wild Apricot welcome emails with a link to the document.

• We should formalize keeping the document updated at least annually and certainly with every new administration.

2025 Conference

Cost Update: the lunch conundrum

• Costs keep rising. We thought San Diego was an aberration, but it’s more like “the new normal.”

  • AV costs ($3069) will add just under $50 to the cost of every registration fee.

  • Hotel adds 12.85% tax PLUS a 25% service charge = 37.85%! (Contract)

  • The buffet lunch initially planned for Friday will add about $80 to each full conference fee.

  • Resultant registration fees: $345 full, $195 half, $145 banquet-only

  • SOLUTIONS:
    a. Not host any lunch, leading to a roughly $265 per person full conf fee, or
    b. Have a full conference (with lunch) fee of $345 or a non-lunch full or half conference fee of $265.

  • Plus/Minus

    • It’s better to have everyone sit together for lunch, but it costs a LOT!

    • It MIGHT be better to forgo lunch altogether because if we do both, there will be an “in” and “out” group during lunch, and we don’t want to encourage that type of division. The alternative is that everyone is on their own for ALL meals except the banquet.

• We’ll discuss the relative merits of these two options during the meeting. We need to make a good faith effort to set fees to meet our costs!

• VOTE:

  • Full with lunch—full is $345

  • Full without lunch—$265 (includes everything else)

  • Offer both—both of the above

  • FYI: HALF is normally everything AFTER the sit-down lunch.

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Location and Date

• UPDATE (12/9): Poll results (25 participants)

  • Click for Poll Summary

  • Location tally

    • Nashville 9 45% (Jim can’t attend here)

    • Dallas 7 35%

    • Kansas City 4 20 % (Rob lives nearby and has offered to help with planning)

• UPDATE (11/26/24). Only four board members provided input to our methodology, so we’re moving ahead with a poll to ask for input.

  • Only those who plan to attend (plus “maybes”) will be asked to vote.

  • We’ll ask for input on content, cost, and activities during the conference and MWSA programs and benefits (open to all).

  • We’ll take member input to fix and approve the location during our Dec 11 board meeting.

• San Diego, so now mid or east

  • We traditionally alternate West of Mississippi, East of MS, central US

  • Last 8 conferences:

    • San Diego, CA

    • New London, CT

    • New Orleans, LA

    • Virtual (Covid)

    • “

    • Albuquerque, NM (joint w SWW)

    • Charleston, SC

    • San Antonio, TX

• Top 3 from conf survey: Nashville, Kansas City, Dallas

  • In the conference survey spreadsheet below, click on “Location Tally” (at the bottom of the spreadsheet) to see the results from San Diego attendees.

• Vote by membership on location and/or date

  • If we’re soliciting input on the date, I’d ask for a date range: i.e., end of Sept, or mid-Oct, or early November, etc.)

  • Date range constrained by awards schedule—earlier than mid-September tough-to-impossible. December is too busy. Also, need to allow time for travel planning for awards finalists.

• We need to nail down the location and date soon to allow planning

  • My preference is to have our membership vote by the end of THIS MONTH (November), approve in our Dec 11 meeting, and announce after approval.

• Organizer? Cathcart if no one else wants to run it.

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2024 Conference Survey

Budget

2024 Recap

Dues Income

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Conference Income

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12/6 Finance Committee Meeting

We agreed to annual deficits of $2000 to as much as $4000-5000 to whittle down the current $48k cash on hand. We further agreed on a target cash cushion of between $10k and $20k. $20k target.

We also agreed to stop segregating funds into separate programs, awards, and operations accounts. While those budget categories will, in effect, be maintained via our budget spreadsheet, we’ll no longer have to transfer funds between accounts to make necessary payments. We’ll also stop keeping the running totals of each account separately. As a result, from now on, the treasurer will report overall cash on hand (not broken down by the three accounts).

Regarding the 2025 conference, we:

• Agreed to a new budget line item of “support to conferences” (paid via general funds instead of conference registration fees)

• Included under this new line item (total estimated $2699):

• Hotel subsidies to board members working during the conference from general funds (estimated at $1500).

• $250 for a videographer during the awards banquet

• A possible subsidy to conference presenters. We agreed that if we could figure out a practical way of providing a 10% subsidy of registration fees (approx. cost $413), we’d present more accurate numbers and methodology to the board for their consideration and approval.

• $500 to cover any excess conference costs not covered/anticipated by the total income from registration fees.

• The reimbursement for the hotel and conference fee to the awards director (s) was not included in the new line item because this expense is listed as part of the awards budget (and covered by awards submission fees).

• Committee members will scrub existing line items in current budget spreadsheet. Hugh will align QuickBooks with these categories.

Action Items (for the above FinComm meeting)

• Budget Spreadsheet

  • Agree to spreadsheet format

  • one for the finance committee and board, another for public/membership

• Ways to address deficit spending

• Ways to address “robust” cash on hand… i.e., deficit spending!

• Create 2025 budget plan and submit for board vote by the 11 Dec meeting.