[Accrs] ACCRS on line meeting this coming Friday

[Alameda County Central Railroad Society]

All,

There have been some low level on and off discussions concerning our 
non-profit status.  As it is currently, donations to the ACCRS can't be 
deducted from the donator's taxes.  Our current status thus virtually 
eliminates any chances of large donations to the ACCRS.  Lack of large 
donations aren't critical in our current situation at the Fair.  
However, if we should ever have to move off the fairgrounds and start 
over, the lack of large donations would become problematic.  Even if we 
had to start over in another building on the fairgrounds, large 
donations would be a nice addition to our funding pool.

Larry Brickell volunteered several months ago to look into what it takes 
for us to change our status to what is a 501C3 federal non-profit.  Last 
Friday during the 7:00 Zoom meeting he reviewed what he had learned 
including associated cost of pursuing the change of status.   The 
federal application fee is $350. We can either complete the application 
ourselves (volunteers?) or can have it done for about $750 for us. In 
the meeting we discussed the need to do this and whether we should 
proceed.  After discussion, we agreed we should wait until this coming 
Friday and encourage more members to join in the discussion.  We must 
have membership support to consider any expenditure of funds, so we need 
to include membership in further discussions this coming Friday during 
the Zoom meeting.  Basically, the potential change of status will be 
explained and discussed and, if appropriate, vote on whether or not to 
proceed, which would involve expenditure of ACCRS funds in the 
neighborhood of $1200. There is not a rush to do this, so the vote 
doesn't need to happen this Friday if further discussion is needed.  So, 
the two questions to eventually be answered are as follows:

 1. Should we pursue the cost of the non-profit now based on the issues
    and challenges the fair has and the reduced probability of losing
    our building in the short term? Non-profit status takes 3-6 months
    to do, so we could wait.
 2. Should we use a service and allocate the $1,200 that would be
    required to get the applications completed and processed?

Please plan on attending. Phil has set up the Zoom meetings.  The invite 
with the Zoom details is below. You can join by phone for voice and just 
use your computer to see the meeting, or even just by phone.

Gary Lewis

Topic: ACCRS Friday Zoom Meeting

Time: Friday 7 PM PDT

Join Zoom Meeting

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/519022903?pwd=akhLY0k2Z2lscTRxdnBxVTlLaTJLUT09

Meeting ID: 519 022 903

Password: 014947

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Meeting ID: 519 022 903

Password: 014947

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