Greetings from Knoxville and the 127 th Annual Congress of the Sons of the American Revolution! Before leaving Knoxville, I thought I would give you a detailed update on what has been happening this week at your annual national meeting. Virginia has been represented by an outstanding group of compatriots from chapters all around the Commonwealth, and I thank them for taking the time out of their schedules to represent Virginia at this important event. In addition to me, our voting delegates included 1 st Vice President Pat Kelly, 2 nd Vice President Tom Whetstone, 3 rd Vice President Bill Schwetke, Secretary Wayne Rouse, Chancellor Eric Monday, Assistant Secretary Lance Lyngar, Trustee Reverdy Wright, PG Joe Dooley, PG Bruce Wilcox, Richard Abbott, Bill Broadus, Ernie Coggins, Paul Chase, Pete Davenport, Larry McKinley, Jeff Thomas, Mike Taimi, Paul Walden, Greg Bodge, and Tom Coker. If you do not want to read a detailed report from Congress, go ahead and delete now! AWARDS and RECOGNITION The Virginia SAR received recognition in a number of areas throughout the Congress for our work and activities in 2016. First and foremost, congratulations to Barry Schwoerer of the Col. William Grayson Chapter, who received the Florence Kendall Award, which is presented to the three compatriots who recruited the largest number of members during the past year. Barry came in second with 52 applications on which he was the first-line signer. This is an amazing achievement!
The following Virginia compatriots also demonstrated excellence in the area of recruitment and were awarded the Liberty Medal for recruiting 10 new members. A number in parentheses indicates the compatriot recruited a multiple of 10 during the year. Bernard Baker, Dan River Chapter (2) David Cook, Fairfax Resolves Joe Dooley, George Mason David Hazel, Col. Fielding Lewis Ron Losee, Williamsburg Chapter (2) Dennis Peterson, Richmond Barry Schwoerer, Col. William Grayson (6) Mike Taimi, Col. William Grayson David Thomas, George Washington The Florence Kendall Award and Liberty Medals will be presented to their recipients at our Semi-Annual Meeting in Newport News on September 15-16. Our Outstanding JROTC Cadet, Marine Corps JROTC Gunnery Sgt. Patrick Kelly, from Quantico High School, placed second in the national contest and earned a $1,500 cash prize. Cadet Kelly was sponsored by the Col. William Grayson Chapter. The Virginia Society received streamers for participating in the following national youth contests: Americanism Poster Contest (grade school), Sgt. Moses Adams Brochure Contest (middle school), Rumbaugh Orations Contest (high school), Knight Essay Contest (high school), ROTC/JROTC Outstanding Cadet, and the Eagle Scout Scholarship competition. We also received the William W. Melone Award for having the largest number of new and approved supplemental memberships, and we were the runner up for the Arthur J. Trimble Award, which goes to the state society that reinstated most dropped members. Let s try to avoid getting the latter award by keeping the number of dropped members to a minimum!
Virginia once again earned the Admiral William R. Furlong Memorial Award & Streamer for meeting the qualifications relating to the award of flag certificates in 2016. We also received a special 100% participation certificate, thanks to Dr. Kirk Sheap s efforts to ensure that every chapter and the state society presented at least one flag certificate in 2016. Thanks to our past two Trustees, Bill Broadus (Spring Trustees' Meeting and Congress) and Reverdy Wright (Fall Trustees' Meeting) and to our immediate past President, Ed Truslow, the Virginia SAR also received the Officers' Streamer Award for perfect attendance at the Congress and Trustees meetings in 2016. The Public Service and Heroism Commendations booklet included recognition of Heroism, Law Enforcement Commendation, Fire Safety Commendation, and Emergency Medical Services Commendation Medals given by the Col. William Grayson Chapter, Culpeper Minute Men, Fairfax Resolves, George Washington, Williamsburg. If your chapter presented these medals in 2016 but they were not included in this recognition at Congress, it may be that your chapter did not submit the necessary form to National Headquarters. Log in to SAR.org, locate the "Compatriots" button under the search box, and from the dropdown menu, click on "Website Resources." On that page, under "Awards & Program Forms," and click on "Public Service & Heroism Award Reporting Form." (Hey, don't shoot the messenger -- I didn't design the website.) The George Washington Chapter received two stars for their Patriot Biographies streamer, which recognizes the submission of patriot biographies beyone the number needed for the original streamer. 2020 CONGRESS TABLE As most of you know by know, Virginia will host the 2020 Congress at the Richmond Marriott. Third Vice President Bill Schwetke and his wife, Cat, organized a presentation at a table the congress hotel lobby where we introduced members to our plans for 2020. We were also able to sell enough of our new Virginia Giants lapel pins and beautiful ladies brooches to cover the cost of the first order and then some. Funds raised from the sale of these items will defray the host society s expenses for the 2020 Congress. Plan to get yours at the Semi-Annual Meeting in Newport News September 15-16, 2017. Thanks
to all of the Virginia Compatriots and their wives who staffed the table during Congress! SUNDAY NIGHT ORATIONS FINALS Although the Virginia SAR's oration contest winner did not make it into the finals, Virginia Compatriot and Past President Larry McKinley did his usual fantastic job as master of ceremonies for this event, which is one of the most popular events of the Congress. Larry was ably assisted by his daughter, Holly Lynne McKinley Schmidt, and Compatriot Darrin Schmidt. The winner this year was from California. ACTIONS BY THE 2016-17 TRUSTEES The 2016-17 Trustees met for the last time on Sunday, July 10, and addressed, among other things, the following issues: 1. The trustees approved modifications to the agreement with King's College London relating to the SAR Visiting Professorship at that institution. The modifications reduce the annual amount due and the manner of payment to address tax implications for the professors and the reduction in the value of the British pound against the U.S. dollar. The modification also exercises the SAR's option to extend the agreement to a total of five years. (If you d like to donate to this important program, let me know!) 2. The trustees also received, for informational purposes only, a draft budget for 2018. The final budget will be adopted at the fall meeting of the trustees. 3. The Executive Director reported on the hiring of additional staff genealogists to address the backlog in approval of membership applications. He also reported that the time to approval at headquarters is now down to six weeks and they hope to have it down to four weeks by the end of the year. This was Reverdy Wright s last meeting as our National Trustee. I hope you will all join me in thanking Reverdy for his service the next time you see him. ACTIONS BY THE CONGRESS The primary responsibility of the national congress is to elect the general officers, vice presidents general and trustees for the following year. Among other officers, this
congress elected Larry Guzy of Georgia as President General, Warren Alter of Arizona as Secretary General, and Jack Manning of New Hampshire as Treasurer General. Davis Wright of Delaware and John Sinks of DC were re-elected as Chancellor General and Genealogist General, respectively. Doug Collins of Kentucky was elected as Librarian General, John Wakefield as Chaplain General, and Matthew J. Barlow Jr., M.D., as Surgeon General. In the only contested race, John Thornhill of North Carolina was elected as Historian General. At our annual meeting in February, we nominated the late Ed Truslow as our national trustee and me as our alternate national trustee. Because the Virginia bylaws do not have a mechanism for changing these nominations after our annual meeting, I was elected by the Congress as your trustee for 2017-18, and we will have no alternate trustee. Upon recommendation of the Executive Committee, the Congress voted to set dues and fees for 2018 at the same level as 2017. (Yea!) Upon recommendation of the Bylaws Committee, the Congress voted nearly unanimously to amend Article III of the Constitution to change the requirement that a patriot ancestor "at all times" demonstrated unfailing loyalty to the patriot cause to reflect our actual practice of looking at whether the ancestor demonstrated loyalty to the cause at the time of their last known service. The current language of the constitution would render ineligible for membership men descended from patriots who, for example, (1) straddled the fence for a while but then fought or (2) perhaps joined the cause after deserting from the ranks of the Hessian troops fighting for the British. The Indiana SAR presented a proposal to change the term for general officers (other than vice presidents general) from one year to two years engendered more debate. Following that spirited debate, the proposal failed. A two-thirds vote in favor was required, and it did not appear to me that even half of the delegates present voted for the proposal. The Congress voted to amend Bylaw 4 to eliminate some language relating to the nominating committee that was duplicative of language in Bylaw 20. This motion was adopted on a voice vote that sounded unanimous to me.
The Indiana SAR proposed creating the position of "Alternate Vice-President General" to function as VPG if the elected VPG cannot fulfill the duties of his office. After some debate, a motion to refer it to the Bylaws Committee for further study was adopted. The Kansas SAR proposed enlarging the number of National Trustees by electing two trustees and an alternate trustee for each state (rather than the one trustee and one alternate at present). The stated rationale was to give the states more of a say in a trustees meeting (i.e., to dilute the votes of general officers and past presidents general, who are also elected as trustees). After a lengthy debate, the motion failed spectacularly. Perhaps the most salient point made against the proposal was by John Dodd of California. He argued that if the Congress did not want to have PGs and general officers as trustees, they should change that bylaw, not double the number of trustees. In the end, I don't think more than 15 of the 300+ delegates voted in favor of the proposal. An amendment proposed by the bylaws committee to allow Congress to approve the PG's appointments to the Executive Committee was adopted. This change will avoid a procedural anomaly at Congress which made it necessary to recess Congress, convene the lame-duck trustees for five minutes to approve the ExCom appointments, and then reconvene the Congress to elect those appointees (and others) as trustees. The Congress adopted an amendment to Bylaw 22 (Fees and Dues) that adjusted the "family plan" to expand the number of people eligible to be included in a family plan set of applications. Additionally, the bylaw now explicitly allows for family plan supplemental applications. The Congress considered another amendment to Bylaw 22, proposed by the Executive Committee, that would have codified the practice of applying dues received for applications approved after October 31 to the following year. While this has been our practice for some time, it was inconsistent with our bylaws. An amendment was offered by the Indiana Society to move the cut-off date for the application of dues to the current year to September 1, and, following some debate, the amendment passed with a significant number of dissents. The Bylaw amendment (as amended) was adopted. Therefore, any application approved after September 1 will have the dues paid with the application applied to the following year. President's Commentary: While this
will result in a one-time decrease in annual dues income (approx. $14K), it will avoid the situation where a member is approved and the first communication they receive is a request for dues for the next year. This should decrease the number of early drops for nonpayment of dues and give us an opportunity to demonstrate the value of membership to those new members before we hit them up again for dues. This change likely affects applications already pending at headquarters, and Virginia SAR Secretary Wayne Rouse will be sending out instructions on how we are going to handle this with regard to state society dues. PRESIDENT GENERAL'S BANQUET On Tuesday night, President General Tomme presented numerous awards to individual compatriots and ladies for their work during 2016-17. Vice President General Mark Brennan received the Meritorious Service Medal (national) for his outstanding service as VPG of the Mid-Atlantic District, and I received an oak leaf cluster for a second award of the same medal for my service on the national Executive Committee. Both of our terms in these roles ended today with the swearing in of the new General Officers and Executive Committee members. The very entertaining guest speaker during the dinner was Jon Meacham, executive editor and executive Vice President of Random House and the author, most recently, of Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power. Meacham received the Pulitzer Prize for American Lion, his 2008 biography of Andrew Jackson. He is a Fellow of the Society of American Historians. The banquet also included the change-of-command ceremony for the SAR Color Guard. David Hoover relinquished command and received the Gold Color Guard Medal. President General Tomme installed Mark Anthony of Georgia as the new National Color Guard Commander. ACTIONS OF THE 2017-18 TRUSTEES After the Chancellor General administered the oath of office to the new trustees elected Wednesday morning, Secretary General Guzy convened the trustees for a brieaf meeting. During that meeting, the trustees acted on a recommendation from the Congress to realize just over $200K in unrealized gains on the Alexander Hamilton Fund by July 31, 2017, to apply that amount to the outstanding line of credit with Fifth/Third Bank
(the balance of which is approximately $384K). The motion was adopted unanimously. The trustees also revised the action of the trustees at the spring meeting to expand the documentation necessary for proof of birth and gender. The measure was adopted with a handful of no votes (Virginia's trustee abstaining). President's commentary: The purpose of this revision was to allow for alternate methods of proof that previously had been accepted but were inadvertently barred as proof by the action of the trustees at the Spring 2017 trustees' meeting. This comes up occasionally with the admission of high profile individuals whose applications can be (and have been) approved without a birth certificate. The Genealogist General moved to alter the application form by adding a requirement that the residence of the patriot ancestor be listed on all applications effective 1/1/18. After a brief debate, the motion was defeated. INSTALLATION BANQUET No surprises here the Installation Banquet featured the installation of the new General Officers, including PG Guzy, and the Vice Presidents General. In his speech, PG Guzy did not announce any new initiatives but did state that his year would be dedicated to finding new ways to increase our membership, pertiucularly among younger men. He set a goal for the organization to reach 64,000 members by the 250 th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence in 2026. Just after 10 p.m. Wednesday night, PG Guzy brought the gavel down and declared the 127 th Annual Congress adjourned. The 128 th Annual Congress will be in Houston, Texas. As always, if you have any questions about the items covered in this report -- or anything else related to the SAR -- please do not hesitate to contact me! Michael J. Elston President and National Trustee Virginia SAR