William Penn Life, 1971 (6. évfolyam, 1-4. szám)

1971-11-01 / 4. szám

Minutes of the 27th National Convention of the William Penn Fraternal Association

in the King’s Garden Room of the Pittsburgh Hilton Hotel, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

SEPTEMBER 13, 14, 15, 16, 1971

1. Mro Elmer Charles, National President, calls the Convention to order on Monday, September 13, 1971 at 9:05 A.M„

2. Mr. Charles calls on Colonel Gus G. Nagy, Field Manager, Central, to post the colors and Michael Kara, Jr., Spec. 5 and Andrew McNellis, Sargeant, assist in posting of the colors. Pledge of Allegiance by the Convention Members was led by Colonel Gus G. Nagy.

3. The National Anthem was led by Mr. Louis Siebert, Branch 226, McKeesport. Mr. Siebert also led the group in singing the Magyar Himnusz.

4. The Invocation was given by Rev. Zoltán Kovács, Pastor of the United Church of Christ, Homestead, Pennsylvania.

5. Mr. Elmer Charles, National President, now extends his greetings to the National Convention. His message is attached to and made a part of these minutes.

My Fellow Delegates, Distinguished Guests, Ladies and Gentlemen:

The sound of the gavel officially opened this 27th National Convention. Now the privilege, the pleasure and honor is mine to greet you. To you I say “Welcome”. In Hungarian it’s more Godly “Isten hozott”, but the Spanish have an especially nice way of saying it — “Es su casa” “The House is yours”. I use this fitting expression for it contains a cordial welcome and a promise.

As I begin my remarks to you at this Convention, which will be historic in more ways than one, let there be joy and gratitude in our hearts for what has been accomplished this far, and go from here with ever increasing loyalty, ability, dedication and alertness to achieve greater success.

The theme for my message to you, therefore is “success breeds success”. The theme does not come from the Bible. The inspiration to use it comes from a statement made by our eldest statesman, an old friend, my predecessor, who stood at the helm of our Association as National President and as such surely can recognize results when he sees them.

A friend of his and a friend of mine at the 85th Anniversary Banquet asked him teasingly, and I quote, “Julius, are you going to vote for Elmer”? And the answer came, and I quote again “Who can vote against success”?

The theme “Success breeds success” is an old Pennsylvania Dutch motto coming from “Them that has gits”. Today I am bold enough to suggest for this Convention and for the promise of the future the motto “Success breeds Success”.

The great majority of you I know, having the insight and understanding, will accept this motto for it is a justification of your faith and our efforts.

Regretably there is always a minority which has yet to understand the meaning of success and fail to appreciate the efforts, dedication, sweat and tears that have gone into the building of the •success which may not always be represented in sums of money. We must recognize material investments too. Many times a new plan of insurance or a program of investment bears its fruit many years after the tree was planted.

We welcome well meaning critics, who may not understand, but we cannot be bedazzled with false statistics, glittering lies, with a million dollar a year sales hoax. We cannot allow in our midst those who would like to, if they could, run our Association

for their own glory and profits. Yes, they dare to criticize us for not letting them take our savings and earnings. Every cause ha1 traitors. Jesus Christ had his Judas too.

Let it be known that we recognized the loafers, the free loaders. tbo hangers on. They too belong among the critics because they were ..dd to produce and they didn’t like it. You and I know that if we don’t hoe our garden we will have weeds. We had enough weeds. Now we want a clean row, a straight line and diligent people with whom we can gather a rich harvest.

My Fellow Delegates, beware of false witnesses.

In your hands we have put the Report of the Board of Directors. In it you have the results of the last four years of this administration and the results of the previous four years as comparative data. The report testifies to the results of 16 regular and I special meeting. At each meeting we worked conscientiously with dedication and ability to make the Association a success. Let me assure you that we have been most conscientious and diligent servants because the Association is not just an organization. For us, it is “Es su casa”, a family, a home where the heart is content and a promise is growing for our children and our children’s children. You, the elected delegates, will study this report; you will weigh the results in this report; you will note the step by step progress we have made; the advances we have achieved; the growth we have recorded and then you will answer the question “who can vote against success” with your actions.

The success of your Association is based on our ability to accept changes when necessary. Bernard Shaw said “Progress is change”, and I say to you “Change is success”, and we are proud of our membership; proud of you; we are proud of those members of the Board who can and will accept changes and welcomes success.

The greatest effort and achievement of the last six years has been the transition from pen and pencil to the Computer.

Our Association is currently enjoying an enviable position in the field of Fraternal Insurance. It ranks 24th with insurance in force of 114 Million Dollars among 143 societies. I suggest to you that unless we continue to make changes to produce more service and economy, it will not enjoy this status for a continued period of time.

Those of you who attended the 85th Anniversary Celebration can recall my statement that with continued success we could well belong in the very select first ten societies because the spread between the Association and the tenth ranking society is not that great nor is it impossible to achieve. Yes, success breeds success. Therefore, during the next four years, it is our desire to put the William Penn among the first ten. Will you help us achieve that goal?

To accomplish the feat of belonging to the first ten, I suggest the following objectives: Keep top management personnel at a minimum; utilize the computer service to its fullest capability; to reduce the volume of records and to increase the informative data; adopt the modern concept of marketing and implement it throughout our entire field of operation. We must establish our sales ef-5