President’s Corner March 2025 Our request to the IRS to have our Chapter redesignated as a IRC 501(c)(3) Tax Exempt (Non-Profit Corporation) changed from a 501(c)(4) was approved. Effective July 11 2024. This means we have transitioned from a ‘social welfare’ organization as approved in 1963 to an ‘Organization organized and operated exclusively for …, charitable, scientific, …, educational, or other specified purposes. This grants us the ability to issue letters to acknowledge tax deductible contributions from individuals or organizations among other things. The IRC (Internal Revenue Code) requires use to include specific language in our Articles of Incorporation and Chapter documents (specifically our Constitution) to maintain our 501(c)(3) designation. The Amendment to the Articles of Incorporation will be submitted shortly and the changes to the Constitution will be voted on during the April meeting. The draft constitution will be posted on the document section of our web site for anyone who wishes to review the changes. We will be resubmitting our request for VA State Sales Tax exemption. Any questions or comments please submit directly to the Chapter President via chapter email. We have annual elections coming up in May. All Officers and three Director’s positions and up for election. If you are interested in helping, and run for office please speak up and notify our Election Chair (Marty Sprick). Nominations close for the elections at COB after the April 27 meeting. Voting will take place during the May 18 meeting. The First VP position currently does not have any candidates for that position. The 1st VP is expected to follow the maintenance of our equipment and pull together and update annually the Five-Year plan. We will be eliminating the two dumpsters we have on the property because the new trash company is asking too much for the service and poor service. Unfortunately, the contract cannot be fully canceled without a significant penalty so we have reduced the pick-ups and cost considerably for the rest of the year. Use the dumpsters until full, then use the roller bins which our caretaker will take to the dump. Once the dumpsters are removed at the end of the year the roller bins on the trailer will be our trash disposal. We eliminated the phone land line to the chapter and switching it over to a cell service to be held by the caretaker. The number has not changed (540-752-5331). This will save about $460 per year and has improved our response to phone inquiries. Our Spring water sampling will be conducted in May please bring you kids and yourselves to help and see how it is done and how we verify the cleanliness of our water and soil. Please check the web site to see when work is going on and ranges might be closed. Remember construction activities takes priority as we are paying for the effort. If you need service hour time or would like to earn volunteer time for dues reduction and cannot make the monthly working party contact the Caretaker and arrange other time to help. You can earn hours any day.