Presidents Annual Report April 2023
April 7, 2023 Save the Date Newsletter
50th Anniversary Reunion, February 20th 2026 Port Hueneme, California
Good evening shipmates
It’s time for a little State of the Association newsletter, probably overdue again, but better late than never, some of this is repeat information from my last newsletter but this is unavoidable at times, my mission is unchanged from the last newsletter, beg shipmates to join the association and beg for donations, as before, I will mention money many times.
I will try to answer some of the most common questions we are asked by our members and I will beg you to donate time or money to help the Association, yes, I will mention money many times in this letter.
The most common question is always, when is the next reunion and where will it be held, this is easy, if you were at our March 24th 2023 USS Paul F. Foster BBQ you heard Captain Anthony “Tony” Holmes, Commanding Officer, Naval Surface Warfare Center, Port Hueneme Division tell us that we are welcome back to Naval Surface Warfare Center and we are on the schedule for our next reunion for February 20th 2026, so location and date are set, 3 years in advance, should be plenty of time to clear your schedule!
Some may ask why February? its cold, school is still in session, summer is better, fall is better, the list of comments will be long, well the reason is easy, USS Paul F. Foster was commissioned into the worlds greatest Navy on February 21st 1976, and 50 years later she will still be serving the United States Navy, God willing of course.
A Navy Destroyer, actually any Navy ship that has served 50 years is rare, so we are going to celebrate this fact with the Navy on February 20th 2026, 2023 was a record breaking reunion, let’s make 2026 twice as big.
Some goals for the 50th anniversary reunion.
· Find more plank owners and try to get them to this event, we had about 9 or 10 in 2023, let’s find the rest, to help with this I have appointed Plank owner Mike Dickerson as Chairmen of the new Plank owners committee.
· Find more former Commanding Officers and Executive Officers, I have been in contact with about half, and will continue my search.
· More commitment from you, not trying to offend, but some of you are very wishy washy on commitment to events and it puts more stress than you realize of your board members, the more commitment we can get from you, the more power the board has when negotiating with hotels and catering services.
· One change is an earlier cutoff date for registration, this won’t be popular but its necessary, I am giving you 3 years to work on your schedule and commit to this reunion early.
· Donors, if your company is looking to donate to a great Veterans group, reach out to us and let’s talk, donations might lower reunion costs for everyone or give us leverage when negotiating, if you have ideas let’s talk.
Association business:
The boring stuff, where I beg for money. as a nonprofit, The USS Paul F Foster Association is always trying to inspire people to join our cause, part of that cause is always trying to raise money, if you can make an annual donation. it goes a long way to paying the bills and improving the Association and helps to fund many other things. I will mention money again……….
https://www.usspaulffoster.org/annual-donations
Business Meeting:
We held our regularly scheduled business meeting at the reunion, attendance was awesome, record setting, nearly 50 members showed up.
We made some changes to clarify some things in the bylaws and held our election.
Your new elected board Members.
Dave Klein, President
Oneal Suire, Vice President
Christian Berblinger, Secretary
Jon Powell, Treasurer
Website report:
Lou Prevost continues to improve functionally of the website, we have made some security changes to protect your information and we have some other changes in the works for the website, most will be in the background and you won’t see them but you will benefit from the changes. We could still use a trained Webmaster but Lou and myself muddle through keeping it updated as best we can.
Websites are expensive, very expensive, you might ask what we do with your donations? Well, the Website takes a fair share of that money, any major changes to the Website itself have to be contracted out and its very expensive work, if you have skills as a Webmaster and want to help, please send us an email. We really only require some parttime help to make occasional changes to the website, or even hosting the website if you are able to donate that service.
Lifetime member page https://www.usspaulffoster.org/lifetime-members
We have twenty one Lifetime members now, just outstanding.
Ships store: We continually try to add items to the store, but again that takes money, so the more money we can raise the more items we can stock, Yes, everything is about money, I will be mentioning money several more times in this letter lol
Your store purchases are very much appreciated, those monies are used to fund more items, you may not be aware, but many items in the store are initially funded by board members with personal money as generous donations, (see, I mentioned money again), I want to personally thank those board members for their generosity.
https://www.usspaulffoster.org/ships-store
Treasure report: We have slowly built up a good balance in our bank accounts, enough that reunions are easier to manage now, you may not be aware but the deposits for first few reunions were funded by board members with personal credit cards, (see, I mentioned money again) your donations are important for us to survive, we now have enough bank funds that we have an Association credit card to use for reunion deposits, a huge burden taken off board members.
https://www.usspaulffoster.org/annual-donations
Historian: This is a personal passion of mine; I just love collecting and sharing Foster history and everything about our journeys on her. At the 2019 reunion I brought one 3 ring binder to share, I saw everyone’s enjoyment reading that book and knew I had to do better, for the 2023 reunion I was able to bring 3 large binders full of history, one book for each of Foster’s homeports, and a copy of each cruise book. I truly enjoyed watching everyone discover something in those books. They will travel to every reunion. we now have 3 large history books to bring to all future reunions,
This is getting long, but I must thank all the other board members that volunteer to work hundreds of hours on this Association, without ONeal Suire, Lou Prevost, Deb Prevost, Jon Powell and Diana Powell, Christian Berblinger, Meg Costa, Scott Bjerken, none of this would happen, some of these folks have been doing this for over ten years,
David L. Klein
GSM1 1987 to 1993
President
USS Paul F. Foster Association