United States Submarine Veterans, Inc.
Pocono Base – Meeting Minutes
Wednesday, 17 May 2006
Meeting called to order at 1905 by Base Commander Rich Holmes at the
American Legion Wilson-Fisher Post in Pocono Pines, PA. The Purpose of
the Organization was read. The Base Bell was tolled once for each of
the following Boats and their crewmembers that were lost during the
Month of May:
23 May 1939 USS Squalus
SS 192 26
Men
12 May 1944 USS Gudgeon SS
211 78 Men
04 May 1945 USS Lagarto
SS 371 85
Men
27 May 1968 USS Scorpion SSN
589 99 Men
01 May 1988 USS Bonefish SS
582 3 Men
A moment of silence followed and an invocation was given by Bob
Vaughan. The COB led the members in reciting the Pledge of Allegiance.
Roll Call: Members present
were: Rich Holmes, Mike Smith, Bob Vaughan, Bill Hannon, Bill Klose,
Bob Smith, Tom Shields and Jeff Owens. Membership introduction was
skipped due to members present knowing each other.
Guests: None
The secretary confirmed that a quorum was present.
The Minutes: the secretary read
the minutes for the April meeting with the following corrections. The
new secretary has been misspelling Bob Vaughan’s’ last name since the
November Minutes by omitting the ‘a’ after the ‘h’. John Saeli was the
2nd motion to adjourning the April meeting.
Motion to accept the minutes as corrected made by: Jeff
Owens. 2nd by: Bob Smith.
All in favor to accept.
Treasurer’s Report: Bill
Klose’s reported an ending balance $3340.48 on 30 April 2006 after
$53.00 in deposits and $208.83 in expenses and outstanding checks.
Motion to accept the treasurers report was made by: Jeff
Owens 2nd by: Bob Smith
Committee Reports:
Membership:
No Report, John Saeli is attending his boat reunion. John did send an
e-mail that stated that we have 41 members.
Correspondence:
Jeff forwarded information concerning the Armed Forces Day Parade in
Scranton.
Rich Holmes stated that he got an e-mail that said
that Jack Ensminger is going to be the new D2 commander. Jack was a
former commander of the Tri-State base and a former National Commander.
We received a couple of belated awards from the 2005
Awards Announcement. They were for the website and newsletter. The
awards were ‘Class II Letter of the Year for 2005’ and the ‘Class II
Base Website Award for 2005’. We are also in competition this year for
the newsletter and the website.
John Saeli also sent in his e-mail about the membership that there is a
possibility of obtaining a MK 14 torpedo for a memorial from some
storage facility. We need to act on this and find out if we could
get a hold of one for a future memorial.
Parades: The Armed Forces Day
Parade will be held on Saturday 20 May 2006. The parade is scheduled to
step off at 1045 hrs. They would like the groups to arrive no earlier
than 0900 and no later than 1000. We will be in division 2 and will
line up behind the VA Hospital. A map was included with the e-mail and
there is information available at the meeting. We have 6 members
committed to go. We were given vehicle passes if anyone is going
to ride instead of march. We will be using the Ensign and the base flag.
The Memorial Day Parade in Pocono Pines will be held on Monday, 29 May
2006 at 1000 hrs promptly. We are to meet at the Tobyhanna Elementary
School by 0930 on Monday morning. We welcome all those members who are
able to attend.
Publicity: Jeff Owens stated
that he remade the base brochure and has posted it on the base website.
The secretary (Mike Smith) will work on printing out some brochures.
Memorial: We discussed the
possibility of adding to the memorial area on the Tobyhanna Army Depot.
Bill Hannon voiced his concern about the location of the memorial on
the base and that it may not be able to be expanded. There is also the
concern that unless you an employee or a retiree, you cannot get on the
base, so the memorial would unlikely be seen by outsiders.
Another option would be to get in touch with Mario
Scarvello. We could tell him we would like to do a memorial and let him
give us a suggestion for a location, maybe even in Stroudsburg. If we
wanted to try for one in Scranton, we could try to get a hold of Frank
Tyson.
Old Business:
The secretary has been tasked with writing a letter to the American
Legion in regards to having a locker installed for our property. We
would like our own locker, but if we can find a bank of three at a
reasonable price we would donate two of the lockers to the legion while
keeping one for our use. The concern about getting a set of lockers is
the amount of space required. Would the legion be able to fit a bank of
three lockers in the storage room or not?
The letter would at least go on the record of having
made the attempt to place a locker at the legion hall.
Last month the discussion came up about the license
plate issue. We would wait until the May meeting to see if there was
any response to Jeff about the letter that was sent out. Rich Holmes
basically feels that this is a dead issue. Jeff reported that he has
not received any feedback about it from anyone.
John Saeli has not had the time to look into getting
a ceremonial bugle, as he has been busy since last months’ meeting.
Jeff Owens voiced his concern, that if we get one, our name will be
sent out to the various funeral homes for services. Rich says that
would be ok. He feels that this would be a way of getting some
publicity.
Tom Shields said that the Coolbaugh Day Fair should
be the same as last year. We
are also hoping to get something closer to the front this year instead
of being tucked in the back. Tom said we made some money on it, but
think that we could do better. Tom was thinking that if we could change
our menu if it is allowed he would look into it. We do not know the
date yet, but we have time to work on this.
New Business:
There was no new business.
Good of the Order:
Our newest member (Jim Dickson) has had a plaque
made up for us to hang. It is a set of Dolphins set on a wood plaque,
with our base name engraved onto label plates. Part of
tonight’s issue of what to do with it also falls
into play with our liaison to the legion. Do we need to request a place
to mount it, or place it into a locker? We were given
a section of wall space in the bingo hall side to put up what we want.
The legion will do the hanging. The gentleman that usually hangs things
up on the walls was on duty during tonight’s meeting. It was agreed to
talk to him about hanging the plaque up tonight after our meeting.
We joked about our newest member having some
interesting connections after having worked at Tobyhanna for the last
thirty years and how he had the plaque made there for us.
The secretary has worked on getting our minutes and
other paperwork into order and has created the Pocono Base Deck Log for
anyone to see at the meetings. The secretary will also be sending the
minutes to Jeff Owens in the form of a PDF file. If done this way it
should keep the graphics intact instead of being lost when Jeff
converts the DOC file to the HTML web file.
Rich stated that a couple of months ago, and would
like to continue this. He asked the bartender tonight to light off the
grill and order food from the legion, instead of ordering food from
outside anymore. This way we give business to the legion, and anyone
who wants to eat can order from them. Rich also wants to know if around
the midpoint of the meeting should we give the cook a list so that it
is ready when we conclude business. The members present concurred that
this was a good idea.
Rich also stated that he wants to start the meeting
promptly at 1900 and end at 2000.
It was also discussed about the reading of the
minutes. According to the by-laws the minutes are to be posted at least
one week prior to the next meeting. Rich stated that he like to have
the minutes read since they put back to mind what we talked about
previously and can use it as a guide to follow up. It was suggested
that the secretary be allowed to paraphrase the minutes to help shorten
the length of time it takes to read them. It was also suggested that
the secretary read just the Old and New Business sections since the
other sections are redundant.
We held a discussion about next months meeting,
which would normally be held on the third Wednesday of each month. The
June meeting will be combined with the American Legion’s Flag Day
ceremony on Wednesday, 14 June 2006. Food will be ordered from
the Legion after the ceremony.
Next meeting will be a special meeting held at 1600 on Flag Day, which
is Wednesday 14 June 2006 at the Wilson-Fisher Post in Pocono Pines.
The base meeting will begin at 1600; the flag burning ceremony is
scheduled to be held at 1800 at the post.
Rich Holmes entertained a motion to adjourn.
All in favor to adjourn, motion carried.
Rich Holmes led the recitation of the Creed of USSVI.
“To perpetuate the memory of our shipmates who gave
their lives in the pursuit of their duties while serving their country.
That their dedication, deeds and supreme sacrifice be a constant source
of motivation toward greater accomplishments. Pledge loyalty and
patriotism to the United States Government.”
Bob Vaughn led us in a closing prayer.
Rich Holmes declared the meeting of the Pocono Base adjourned.
The meeting was adjourned at 2003 hrs.
Food and drinks from the legion followed.
Respectfully submitted
Michael D. Smith
USSVI – Pocono Base Secretary