BCMOAA President’s Message – June 2018
The month of May has been a challenge for your Board of Directors. I returned home from an extended trip and almost immediately learned that Larry Rathbun’s medical issues were significantly worse resulting in his resignation as the President of BCMOAA. Larry’s wife, Charelene, had also endured medical issues of her own and now Larry needs her additional attention. For those reasons Charlene also resigned her position as 1st Vice President of BCMOAA. As 1st VP Charlene was not only a one person Programs Committee but she was singlehandedly managing publicity of all events. Additionally, Max Mattox, the second Vice President recently experienced an unexplained sudden loss of vision in one eye. This and other medical issues have resulted in Max’s resignation from the Board. The last shoe to fall in May was the resignation of Loretta Ballow as Secretary of the Chapter. That is the unpleasant news but the good news is that several of our active members quickly stepped up to fill the gaps. On May 14th the BCMOAA Board met to discuss and make plans to keep the Chapter moving forward. For the remainder of 2018 year the Board has approved the following members to serve on the Board of Directors in the following positions:
President Jerry Davis
1st VP Frank Connell
2nd VP Vacant
Secretary Sid Vogel (also Legislative Liaison)
Treasurer Dennis Koppersmith
Director Jerry Morrison
Director Jim Parnell (Roster Management)
Director Elenor Parker
Director Jim Wallace
IT Chair Ken Cooper
Publicity Brenda Wallace
Special Projects Jack Gifford
Our situation will not be totally resolved anytime soon but I can assure you this Board lives the motto “Never Stop Serving.” If you would like to learn more or have any questions please feel free to call me or any of the members of the Board, contact information is available on our website (www.bcmoaa.org)
Lunch Meeting May 17th – Only three days following the Board Meeting a very successful lunch meeting was held at the Fairhope VFW. Our speaker, Wayne Boulware, a retired Army Chaplin living in Orange Beach, talked about his experiences as a married Army officer with children volunteering to go to Viet Nam and his experiences there.
Email Notification Changes – With the resignation of Charlene Rathbun our Email messages notifying our members of upcoming events and other information will be coming from an ATT Email account. If you have not received any Email messages in the past few weeks please send Jim Parnell an Email message so we can identify/correct the error. Jim’s Email is jparnell38@att.net.
Future Group Trip – In the coming months you will be hearing about an overnight trip to The National WWII Museum in New Orleans.
This past year has been an uphill effort for our young chapter and I don’t for one minute believe this is the last challenge but I pledge to you that our Board will always live by the MOAA moto of NEVER STOP SERVING. BC/MOAA will soon activate the Nominating Committee for the 2019 slate of officers and as away it is very important to keep new blood flowing into our organization so please accept the opportunity to serve if asked. Thank you for your continued support and I wish you and your families a great summer.
Jerry