A vote on bylaw changes to permit a redefinition of the Guild scholarship and grants programs will be held at the next General meeting (April 23, 2016). Changes are confined to Article VII & Article VIII and can be found below. If approved, a Guild policy implementing the GNHW Grants Program outlined below would follow.
The Steering Committee (SC) has been reviewing and debating our approach to the Guild's scholarship and grants program since the middle of last year. We felt that our scholarship program was not producing much "bang-for-the-buck" and that our grants program was too reactive. Reviewing the awards over the past four years, scholarships have been given to between three and seven individuals in any given year for classes or to attend events. Grants have been almost exclusively by application.
The SC felt we could better use this money by focusing on grants serving groups rather than single individuals. As such, individual scholarships would be eliminated. Grant giving would be split into three categories:
A budget would be established each year for each category by the SC.
The Subgroups serve many woodworkers, most of which, but not all, are Guild members. Money allocated to subgroups would be split among each based on a formula accounting for the amount of activity from the previous year (i.e. number of meetings, Sunapee participation and symposium leadership). This money could be used for any legitimate purpose at the discretion of the subgroup. The SC expects to include the subgroup leaders in formulating policy.
Application Grants would be available to individuals, groups, organizations and institutions with not-for-profit motives and ad-hoc groups of individuals with a common goal. Applications would be submitted to a member of the SC (i.e. Grant Program Coordinator) and then brought forward for approval.
Guild Directed Programs are those opportunities which the SC chooses to seek out and manage. Examples could be a new Guild In School (GIS) program, an Annual Youth Woodturning Competition, donations to other 501(c)3 organizations and school partnerships.
Unspent budget in each category (including for each subgroup) would accumulate year-to year.
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
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.