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STATE
LODGE OF MARCH NEWSLETTER
2008 F.O.P. STATE CONFERENCE The 2008 State Conference will be
held at the DoubleTree Hotel in Conference information and registration forms are scheduled to be mailed out the last week of March. CELL PHONE RECYCLING PROGRAM TO
BENEFIT MLEOMM FUND Kathy Cole from Michigan Concerns
of Police Survivors (MI-COPS) spoke at the Mid-Year Seminars and Board
Meeting. She announced that the
Michigan Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Monument (MLEOMM) fund is now part
of the Charitable Recycling program where every time you send in an old cell
phone, a donation of $1.00 is made to the MLEOMM Fund to help build a State
Memorial for fallen police officers.
So, if you have old cell phones just lying around collecting dust, why
not donate them to this important endeavor.
Here is all you have to do: 1)
Drop cell phone(s) in an envelope (ONLY the phones—no chargers, car adaptors,
cases or other accessories), 2) fill out the bottom of the enclosed form
(name, address and number of phones--$1.00 is donated for each phone),
3) tape the pre-addressed top of the form to the envelope (postage is
pre-paid), and drop it in the mail – you have just made a donation to the
Memorial! A message from MI-COPS: “Thank you for remembering the men and
women who gave their lives in the line of duty in the State of PEACE OFFICER OF THE YEAR NOMINATIONS There is still time to submit your nomination(s) for this year’s award. The cutoff date for nominations is Friday, April 11. If you would like another form or more information, give the State Lodge a call at toll free 1-888-367-6424. 2008 ANNUAL GOLF OUTING This year’s outing is scheduled for Thursday, May 8, 2008, at the Greystone Golf Course in Romeo (same location as last year). National Vice President Dave Hiller will be running for re-election in 2009, so this event will be used as a fundraiser for his campaign. Registration forms and sponsor forms were sent out in January and included in the recent issue of The Peace Officer magazine. The deadline date for registration is April 3, 2008, so get those teams and sponsors registered ASAP! Co-Chairs Dave Willis and Pat Lemke have been working extremely hard to make this event even bigger and better than last year’s event. Come join your F.O.P. brothers and sisters for some fraternalism, good food, great golf and a lot of laughs! Besides all of that, it’s for a great cause – getting our own Dave Hiller re-elected to the National Vice President position! 2008 RAFFLE CLOSEOUT March 1st was the closeout date for this year’s raffle. To date 5,864 tickets have been sold statewide which are 21 tickets down from last year’s sale of 5,885 tickets. Please send in your final report of sold/returned/lost tickets to Jacque Beeson at the State Lodge ASAP so she can get the 2008 Raffle closed out! As of this writing 15 lodges still have a total of 970 tickets out. Some lodges are only missing 1 or 2 tickets. If you have any questions as to the status of your lodge, please contact Jacque. Lodge Subsidy checks began being mailed out last week to all lodges that have closed out their 2008 Raffle and submitted their final report. THE
PEACE OFFICER MAGAZINE The Winter 2008 issue of The Peace Officer magazine was just mailed out and we are already talking about submissions for the Spring-Summer issue. The cutoff date will be April 18th. Please get any articles/pictures to the State Lodge by that date for inclusion in the next issue. Also, if you have any suggestions for making the magazine more enjoyable/informative for the membership, please let the State Lodge know. One final note about the magazine -- each magazine costs over $1.00 to mail, so it is extremely important that addresses for members are kept up to date. Please remind all of your members how important it is to keep their lodge secretary informed of all address changes! LEGISLATIVE We will be beginning our endorsement process soon. Chairman Hiller would like to remind lodges that the State Lodge issues endorsement in statewide and national offices; however each lodge is encouraged to provide input on candidates running for these offices. FEDERAL REPORTING Lodges are reminded of the new requirements that all non-profits file with the IRS regardless of income (see enclosed article). The Michigan F.O.P. is proud to
announce the establishment of the MI-FOP Individual Body Armor Purchase
Program. The Michigan F.O.P., in
conjunction with Michigan Police Equipment Co. of Lansing, has negotiated
with BAE Systems for an individual body armor program to offer to our
members. You must be an Active
member in good standing to take part in this program. Completed paperwork must be submitted to
the MEMBER BENEFITS At the recent Board Meeting the Board voted to offer two new benefit programs to the membership. 1. Work Style Voluntary Benefits This program offers low group rates for all types of insurance. Every member will be receiving a letter with information on the program along with a contact number and member code. 2. Aflac Tell your members to check out the inside front cover of the latest Peace Officer Magazine. We announced our partnership with the American Family Life Assurance Company of Columbus (Aflac). Contact information is listed along with an explanation of the program. In addition to this information, we will also have the contact information and links on our website. A representative from each of these programs is available to come to a Lodge Meeting and explain the programs in person and answer any questions you may have. We encourage the membership to take advantage of these and all of the other programs offered by the State Lodge. If you have any questions on these or other member benefits, contact the office. HOUSEKEEPING ITEMS FROM MARY 1. Enclosed
are the updated Lodge Listing and E-Mailing Listing. Please look over both documents and make
changes/corrections. You can either
mail the corrections to the State Lodge at 2. Reminder: Since monthly raffle winners are posted on
our website, no hard copies are sent out with newsletters. However, if you do not have access to a
computer and would like to receive hard copies of each month’s reports,
please let me know. 3. Attached
Fliers 4. F.O.P.
Auxiliary is sponsoring a Bowl-A-Thon at Regal Lanes in HOUSEKEEPING ITEMS FROM JACQUE 1. We
are continuing to redesign the web page.
The “Secretaries Only” portion is currently not in use. Please contact me if you need any forms
(e-mail me at jbeeson@mifop.com or
phone toll free 1-888-367-6424). Work
is being done to upgrade this portion and everyone will be notified once it
is up and running. 2. Second-half
Per Capita will be going out to local lodges in the near future. Please make sure your Per Capita is paid by
May 1, 2008. Delegates to the 2008
State Conference will not receive their Credential Form until Per Capita is
paid. 3. On-Line membership reminder: Please remember to send checks to the State Lodge when you are adding new members. Also, if you are changing a membership status from “inactive” to “active”, you must also send in checks to the State Lodge. If you need assistance navigating through the Grand Lodge on-line membership system, PLEASE don’t hesitate to contact me! I’ll be happy to walk you through it step-by-step. |
