MAFFI President's Message - August 2002

Even though the MAFFI meeting at Riverside was a big success, it also marked the departure of Vice President Aldie Johnson. I would like to -express my deepest thanks to Aldie for his dedicated work to MAFFI and the entire Model A community during his 6 years as a MAFFI Trustee. He continues to be one of the experts in the Model A community, and one of the hardest, most dedicated workers. Unfortunately, the term limitation of 6 years service caused him to relinquish the job of Vice President. By the same token, I welcome Jordon BelIer as the new Vice President.

At Riverside we made excellent progress in defining the responsibilities of various Trustee positions, establishing policies and simplifying the mission statement of the foundation. We continue to work on one of our biggest challenges, which is to consolidate in one location a comprehensive inventory of all of MAFFI's non-monetary assets. Jordon Beller is the Trustee responsible for making progress with the inventory. In the future the value of these assets will be included in financial statements. The underlying goal is to pin down MAFFi-owned inventory wherever it may be located, and making sure it is listed in our records.

In other business, we slightly amended Article II, Section 2 of the MAFFI by-laws, regarding the purpose of the foundation. The amended language will be submitted to the membership for approval. We also moved forward in the area of policies with regard to loans, accessions and de-accessions of MAFFI property. It is very important to the foundation to have durable and binding documentation for its property.

Progress continues to be made on the indexing of parts drawings. We may be able to open negotiations with the Ford Museum to begin scanning the material as it is indexed, now that we have a better idea of the total scope of the project. Similarly, the Coffield Ad Collection is now housed in acid-free albums, one of which is on display in the MAFFI booth at national meets, and progress in arranging the Rentz Photo Collection continues. As described in an article in this issue, we have also taken a step toward increasing the involvement of youth in our hobby.

Finally, I would note that we are always on the lookout for a dedicated Model A'er who is willing to volunteer to serve as a trustee of the foundation.

Ross Milne