Hi All I just wanted to say I heard rumors that MWC was no more. I wanted to find out if that was true? Buddy
Wow if the membership from there gets together with the IRCWCC membership were talking possible record breaking attendance of ships and people. That would be totally incredible to see.
Membership and attendance has always been two things.. I am not sure but I think in the past Nats attendance was only slightly higher than half the registered members. There are lots of folks that most likely wont go to Nats and will only battle at their local pond. However we are hoping for a 50 ship nats this year.. that is 50 on the water anyway.
It goes way back to the start of the club. Up until 2014 the club thought everything was moving along just fine. The club was supposed to be set up as one kind of charitable nonprofit corporation. The lawyer who did it set it up as some other kind. No one noticed or or maybe knew the difference. At some point the tax laws were changed that covered small nonprofits to require them to fill out tax forms and send them in. Even if they didn't have taxes to pay. Since the club thought they were corp type X not type Y they didn't think they needed to send in anything. Maybe by now both types still need to file, just no one looked into it. At some point the club got an EIN number, a tax ID number. It's needed to get checking accounts. This number was possibly linked to Model Warship Combat. Not Model Warship Combat Inc as we are officially called as a corporation. The very first treasurer set up a bank account at his local bank. This was inconvenient with the next group of treasurers as they had to mail checks to this tiny bank. Changing treasurers was hard as you had to mail in signature cards. Around 2007-08 the treasurer asked the BOD to get another checking account set up at Wells Fargo. They have locations all over and are easier to change treasurer with. This had a $5 a month fee and fees for Canadian checks, bounced checks... Back when the WF account was set up there might have been different bank rules which is why the next things may have not been noticed. The treasurer in 2014 wanted to set up a new checking account with another bank (Chase I think) that had lower fees. They needed our articles of incorporation and an EIN number. We had the EIN number, but no paper work that went with it. The bank told him he could not set up an account with out that paper work. He tried to look up the EIN number but couldn't find one for us or verify who the number we had was for. He decided that we needed a new EIN number with the correct name. He applied for and received one. Then went back to the bank and opened a new account. Either the new bank account or the new EIN number got the tax man looking into the club. In late June I was told that the new treasurer needed more paper work to back file taxes. In late October he got two letters from the tax man officially asking for tax forms from 2012 & 2011. He went to a lawyer and CPA and they suggested to fold the club as whatever fees and penalties may be more than we had in our account. Those are the facts as best as I know them. What bothers me is how it all went down at the end. The new treasurer didn't get BOD approval to start a new account. He didn't go to the BOD with the problems after the first trip to the bank. Had he gone to the BOD for direction after the first attempt to set up the account maybe the direction would have been to stop. Then maybe we could have fixed things while we were still under the radar.
In 2007, the banking rules had changed to where we were no longer able to submit the treasurer changes by mail. The little bank required both new and old treasurers to be present at the bank (it was a small town single location bank). Since that was an out of state flight for both of us, the BoD authorized the new treasurer (aka me) to get a new bank with someone that had national branches. Setting up the new Wells Fargo account back then was still very easy. I don't think the next round of banking and tax laws went into effect until 2009 or 2010. When I checked in 2007 on the IRS filings, it was still no filing unless receipts were over $16k, iirc.
I'm not savy to tax laws, nor am I familiar with all the ins and outs of Corps and such, but I do know this, there are circumstances other than just the club name, corporation identity, and taxes that has disbanded the MWC. If it was just a tax, incorporation or other such thing, all the club would need to do is set up a new identity, done the right way, and then continue.. seams to me there is a lot more going on than meets the eye! All I do know for sure is it is a shame that ALL the club members, including those who like myself, come and go, do not get together on a date, use a conference call on skype or something, and iron out a new MWC chapter... For whatever reason, it seams most members have no interest in keeping the club going! I cant believe the MWC ended without much of any effort to reset the club....
Perhaps if they were the only game in town, there would have been more interest & effort spent on it. As it was, 80% of those who were into fast-gun style play had no issues with joining (or REjoining) IRC. The other 20% either just don't care and are willing to just quit, or were the hard-core types who caused the initial split to begin with.
