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Member of 2 Chapters?


lilgeneral

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Can I be an IPMS member with 2 Chapters? I attend a chapter where I reside, but am also heavily involved with my home (where I grew up) chapter 2 hours away.

 

Michael

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As far as I know you can. I know of several people who do just this. As long as you are a dues paying member of the local and national, a club can "claim" you as a national member for charter purposes.

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As far as I know you can. I know of several people who do just this. As long as you are a dues paying member of the local and national, a club can "claim" you as a national member for charter purposes.

 

If I am not mistaken, you can only claim "official" IPMS/USA membership in ONE club to keep the required number of members in a club. Someone correct me if I'm wrong.

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There's nothing in the C&BL about this either way. I'd have to ask our Membership Sec. and DLC for their opinions for a definitive answer.

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In theory I agree that a member should only be listed on a single club but in practice, as long as the multiple clubs are not sitting at the minimum 5 members I would not make a big deal of whether someone is in multiple clubs. It is also something that we are not set up very well to police precisely since reviewing fact sheets can happen at separate times and I for one and as well as the RCs do not have precise photographic memories for comparing all members of a club against all other clubs.

 

Being an officer in multiple clubs is specifically allowed by all of the rules and guidance I work off of as DLC. Highly skilled and involved people (like Ed) are highly likely to be leaders in multiple clubs and if we dictated that they could not be officers in multiple clubs then IPMS would be dictating officer election results in clubs. Hypothetically If both clubs are at the 5 minimum members I will encourage one or both clubs to find a sixth member but with an officer is involved it would not be high on my radar screen (and I have never seen it be an issue).

 

In Ed Wahl's case with Will Cook, the club is far above the 5 IPMS member minimum so him being involved in a second club is not an issue (his second club SPASM also has far more than 5 current IPMS members).

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I'm also a member of two clubs. I'm a member and the Chapter Contact of IPMS First Coast here in Jax. :)

 

I was also a member of the Columbus Rickenbacker club from '79-'99, and they were nice enough to make me a "lifetime" member just before I moved. :smiley20:

 

I think the lifetime member ship may be void if I was to ever move back though..... :smiley3:

 

GIL :smiley16:

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Thanks for the replies. I realize now after posting that it may not be that big of deal in the grand scheme of things. I hope I don't with this post cause some hard line official ruling to a detriment of this idea.

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I am member in 5 I.P.M.S. clubs an officer in one. I know my number is used to make the the required national member quota in at least one of the clubs. I have no problem with any club using my IPMS number that I am a paying member of. I consider it a service to the club that I can do to help.

I also belong to 3 other modeling clubs. Needless to say I have a model meeting every week and twice a month two in one week. It's good to be retired. Add to that 33 models shows a year vending,entering contests,and looking at a lot of models.

 

Ronbo.

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OK, we've discussed this and here's the official position in a nutshell

 

1. You can be a member of as many chapters as you want.

2. You can be an officer in as many chapters as you want.

3. Only ONE of the chapters of which you are a member can claim you as a national member for the five member minimum for chartering purposes. This is because IPMS/USA's operating budget depends on membership dues to fund all services and benefits. From the chapter perspective, these services include liability insurance, now required for just about every meeting/contest/event, and publication and sponsoring of local, regional and national events. When chapters "share" national members with other chapters, it dilutes our ability as a national organization to provide these services to all chapters.

 

Thanks for bringing this up so we could settle on a policy.

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Thanks, Ron,

 

Please explain the logistics for #3 above. Who make the choice of Chapter? How is this to be monitored by the RC and DLC? The Charter renewal lists are not usually seen by anyone other than a Chapter officer or the CC. Will a double or triple member have his or her IPMS/USA number highlighted in some color other than red or yellow or green so that Chapter loses one counting member? I predict this will be a bookkeeping problem that someone must sort out today as the recharter notices are ready to go out soon if not already for 2016.

 

Ed

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IIRC, there is only one field per member record for Region and Chapter - and that's the where a member will show on a recharter form.

Other chapters would have to write that member in and return the form and then it'll be up to the DLC & those chapters to sort out.

 

One reason it might be better to shift this whole effort down to the RC's.

 

FWIW, IMHO.

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Didn't say it was easy to enforce, only that it's our policy. If the situation arises, this will be our guidance but it would only really come up if two or more chapters who have only four national members all claim the same fifth guy.

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