We are starting the process of planning the election of board members for 2012. Jim Pyzyk and Captain Howard Stoodley are up for re-election this year. Anyone who is willing to serve on the board for three years, and feels they have qualifications that would be helpful to the board and the association, please let me know. If interested, it would be helpful if you would submit some sort of resume of similar or related things you might have done, and perhaps a paragraph of your ideas of what the board could be doing to better the Hotel. It would be particularly helpful to have a CPA volunteer to stand for election as Jim is weary of handling the Treasurers position, and it seems like a good idea to have the person responsible for handing the assets be a member of the board – although the by-laws don’t require it. The Hotel, as you know if you have read the financial reports, generates a couple million dollars in revenue annually and has significant payroll, so although it’s not IBM, this is not a trivial undertaking.

You should be aware that there is no pay involved – other than the travel and room expenses of attending the annual meeting. You should also be aware that this obligation WOULD take up a certain amount of your time, and likely WOULD subject you to a certain amount of criticism from other members no matter what you do (or fail to do). Board meetings are – as is now required in the by-laws – held not less than every other month by conference call (except the annual meeting) and usually last about an hour. We also sometimes use email or direct contact to communicate between conference call meetings when necessary. When possible, we try to accommodate everyone’s schedule so they can attend the conference calls. This is often a Tuesday or Thursday and start time is 7:00 PM EASTERN time. In short, ’tis a dirty thankless job, yet someone’s got to do it. If you are willing to be that someone, please let me know. Anyone interested can email me at mitchloftus ‘at’ msn.com

Mitch Loftus Sec’y B of D, HOTC