A meeting of the Executive
Council of the DINFOS Alumni Association was held on January
5, 2008, at The Garrison Restaurant at Ft. Harrison.
Present were:
Jack Rubak, President
Tom Conrad
Mike Davis
Bob Foster
Mike Scott
Helen Stritt, Secretary
The President, Jack Rubak,
opened the meeting with greetings and the agenda to be
discussed.
Mike Scott discussed
memberships. He has prepared rosters of all of the members
since 1995, and suggested getting together with Helen Stritt
and Jack Rubak to go over the roster to compare it with the
names on the mailing list. He felt that with Helen’s and
Jack’s memories, we can weed out those with whom we’ve lost
contact and have no current address. A meeting to do this
will be scheduled within the next couple of weeks.
Rubak then said he had
heard from several people providing information for the
Alumni Association. First, Colonel Meek’s widow had sent
him an article from Tom Wharton who is the Editor of the
Salt Lake City Tribune. She thought we would want to
contact him as he was an Information Specialist, and went
through DINFOS in 1970. Rubak mentioned having sent him an
e-mail message a couple of months ago, but so far, has
received no reply. Mike Scott will try to contact him
through Wharton’s newspaper.
Next, Rubak said he had
received a letter from John Donovan who worked for Army
Public Affairs and who came to the school periodically when
it was at Ft. Harrison to talk to the Public Affairs Officer
Course students. John has retired and wants to keep in
contact with us.
Another item, Jeff Curtiss,
a former Navy instructor at DINFOS, has volunteered to put
together a newsletter for the Alumni Association. All
agreed that a newsletter would be a good idea, especially if
we enlarge the membership. We will give Jeff a contact at
the school at Ft. Meade. He also can check the school’s
website:
www.dinfos.osd.mil for information and for a picture of
the Commandant, Captain Curry Graham, picture for inclusion
in the newsletter.
Also, in our newsletter, we
will need to include the objectives and purposes of the
Alumni Association as outlined in our Constitution and
Bylaws. In the past, the Alumni Association has made
contributions to the school’s library. We will continue
this as well as underwriting a guest speaker to speak to the
students, when appropriate.
Bob Foster said that in
addition to mailing the newsletter, we can also put it on
our website, but it’s not a good idea to have public access
to e-mail addresses. He said he has deleted all e-mail
addresses directly until we have our website secured. Mike
Scott suggested contacting alumni to determine if they agree
to have their e-mail address published on our website.
Also, Foster said the “New
Graduate” section is up and running on the website.
Tom Conrad brought with him
the printed brochures and the postcards. Everyone present
agreed that they were first-class and that Tom did an
excellent job in preparing them (see enclosures). They are
now ready to be handed out which was the next topic to be
covered.
Rubak will be in touch with
Keith Oliver, our point-of-contact at DINFOS, Ft. Meade.
Suggestions were made to have the brochures and postcards be
included with the diplomas given to graduates, send Dr.
Rubak to the school for a couple of days to start the
process, or have Steve Karalekas, a retired Navy Captain, a
former DINFOS instructor and a former Chairman of the DINFOS
Board of Visitors, deliver the brochures to the school.
Steve lives in the DC area and has offered to help the
Alumni Association in any way he can. We will need to work
out how best to distribute the brochures.
Also, Bob Foster asked Tom
Conrad to send him a copy of the brochure from his computer
to put on the PDF file on our website.
As to memberships, Mike
Scott said we now have 120 Life Members with 680 who are or
who have been Regular Members. Of the Regular Memberships,
there are 310 with expired memberships.
To save on money when
mailing out renewal notices, Bob Foster suggested using the
USPS “Click Mail” service. After uploading an outgoing
letter or post card message, the service does the printing,
folding, stuffing, addressing and mailing. Publishing and
mailing rates are very inexpensive.
Dr. Rubak stressed the
importance of getting our not-for-profit status from the
state of Indiana. He will again have the paperwork prepared
and try again to see what must be done in order to obtain
this status. In the meantime, we need a Treasurer: These
names were suggested: Winnie Withers, Betty Galbreth,
Barbara Bolton, Perry Brandt, Ken Lord, Jan Walton and Dick
Cassin. These persons will be contacted to see if they
would be willing to accept the position.
Last but not least was
setting up a date for our next membership meeting. The
dates of March 1 and March 8, 2008 were proposed. We will
check these dates with Captain Graham to see if he can make
either of these. In addition, a suggestion was made to have
an Iraq public affairs veteran join the Commandant as a
guest speaker. Mike Davis will contact the Public Affairs
Office at Grissom AFB to see if they can propose someone to
do this.
Also, a suggestion was made
by Mike Scott to have Robert Hodierne as a guest speaker at
one of our future meetings. He is the Managing Editor of
the Military Times and wrote an editorial comment on
getting out of Iraq.
Mike Davis has asked for a
History of DINFOS. This will be forwarded to him.
Bob Foster commented that
he is working to transfer @dinfosalum.org e-mail accounts to
“Google Apps,” bringing together essential services to help
DINFOS Alums to communicate and collaborate more
effectively. The services will include a new Start Page, a
central place for users to preview their inboxes and
calendars, access essential content, and provide 25 MB of
storage for each e-mail account.
With no further business to
be discussed, the meeting adjourned at 1:55 PM.
Respectfully submitted,
Jack Rubak,
President
Helen Stritt,
Secretary
.
