Professionals and Amateurs Together

GNHW Grant Program

May 4, 2016
News: Grant Program

The roughly 70 members present at the April 23 General Meeting voted unanimously to accept the proposed changes to the Guild bylaws. These changes eliminate the Guild scholarship program to individuals and directs our efforts to a Grants Program largely focused on groups. The adopted bylaws and explanation can be found on the website here.

The bylaws do not spell out the details leaving the them to an upcoming policy. The Steering Committee reviewed a draft policy in April. This policy is outlined here. If adopted, Grant funding will be split into three categories:

  • Guild Subgroups
  • Application Grants
  • Guild Directed Programs

A meeting with subgroup leads (or their representatives) to review the draft and receive input will be held prior to the May meeting of the Steering Committee.

The amount of money in the Grant Fund at the end of April was a little more than $14K.

The new Grants Coordinator will be Steering Committee member Dave Foote. He can be contacted at grants@gnhw.org

Be Aware of Scammers
Answering These Ads!

Please be aware that there is a scammer answering these ads. Be careful!!!!

I recommend that you only take CASH or checks from people you know. Very little of the stuff that is advertised is so rare or such a great deal that someone would hire an “agent” to ship it.

BE CAREFUL!!!!

Peter

HOW THIS SCAM WORKS

If you are selling something online, as a business or through classifieds ads, you may be targeted by an overpayment scam.

The scammer will contact you, make you an offer—often quite generous—then make payment through credit card or cheque. They will be for an amount that is greater than the agreed price.

The scammer will contact you with an apology for the overpayment, offering a fake excuse. The scammer might tell you that the extra money was included to cover agent’s fees or extra shipping costs. Or they may just say they simply made a mistake when writing the cheque.

The scammer will then ask you to refund the excess amount or they will ask for you to forward the amount through to a third party. They will ask for this to through an online banking transfer, pre-loaded money card, or a wire transfer such as Western Union. You then discover that their cheque has bounced or the credit card had been a stolen or fake card.

A newer variation on this scam involves online sales, usually through classified sites, where the scammer pretends to have made a payment for a larger than agreed amount through services such as PayPal by sending a fake receipt of payment. The scammer will claim that the money is being held until you forward on the extra money.

If you send any money, you will not get it back. If you have already sent the ‘sold’ item you will lose this as well. At the very least, the scammer will have wasted your time and prevented you from accepting any legitimate offers on your sale.

I just wanted other Sellers to be careful as I see some valuable machines for sale here.