This is an Action Alert from SCOPE asking you to invest a few minutes and make our voices heard.
MY PERSPECTIVE
Why am I sending this out now? Several reason; there has been too much misinformation out there from many sources and a great deal of speculation by many people. Some may have been misled by what they have seen on social media. There has been too much of this “he said, she said” stuff. In truth some of it is fact, some is speculation and some of it I have no idea!
____________________
First of all I did not attend the April 2016 annual meeting, our Allegany chapter secretary did. Did he have a proxy? No. Afterward, we discussed the meeting briefly and I left it at that. There were some emails after the meeting and through May and I pretty much ignored them – some just blowing off steam I figured.
By the end of June things were going all over the place! BOD emails were coming out faster than you could read them and they were not pretty – from either side. I had several directors/chapter chairs contact me to give me their side of the situation and why they wanted to replace Steve Aldstadt. None were convincing enough in their conversations to sway me, so in the July Meeting at Clay NY I was not completely surprised by what happened. I voted for Steve and the officers that had been voted on in April. When it was over there was a new leadership in place. That whole thing turned into a 9 hour marathon which seemed to have no one in control at times. Things got heated and the emails in the following months got even worse.
I did notice that there were no minutes of the April meeting, and what were called minutes, were nothing more than notes. To top that off, there were no minutes from the July meeting available from the then secretary!
Steve Speta and I had a meeting with Steve Aldstadt at his house/office in early August, with Budd Schroeder in attendance. We asked about the financials and Steve Aldstadt produced some statements that were several months old and appeared to be in order. Not having seen any previous balance sheets, and one other financial statement, I had nothing to go on. A week or so later, upon an invitation from Don Hey, Steve Speta and I went to the new corporate office to look at the records that had been turned over to them. Or I should say the lack of records. For an organization that had been in existence for 50 years, there was a surprising lack of records/information. Little to no cooperation from the then treasurer in producing the books or any other records, no balance sheets, no reconciliations, no bank statements. In fairness, she had not been the treasurer that long. What was convincing to both Steve Speta and I at that time were the records of Steve Aldstadt use of the corporate credit card for personal use in excess of $500. There was no documentation of what the purchases were for, just the credit card charges. There were other questionable charges, but those that appeared to be for personal use were the most telling (Local Wegmans, Rite Aid, Tops Market and Sparkle Cleaners).
At this point I understood what some of the other directors were trying to tell me and I saw things in a different light. With further information from the financial committee it looked like SCOPE was operating with a negative income and could be completely out of funds in several months. From October 2014 to July 2015 Scope had a loss of over $47,000! In the months of October and November 2015 the loss was in excess of $15,000! As a chapter chair and a director of the Corporation I should have been made aware of this, along with all the other chapter chairmen. How many of them have seen the treasurer’s reports for the months of July, October and November of 2015? If they did get copies did they make their membership aware of this hemorrhaging? I didn’t get a copy.
The new leadership was becoming more aware of all of this and was trying to stop it and get SCOPE back on their feet – not drag it down. Could it have been handled better? In 20/20 hind sight, probably, but I do not know how with the way SCOPE was losing money. Where did the money go? There are no records that I have seen that will reflect it. Our present treasurer, when she took over, could not find very many records to start off the new fiscal year – much less any other records. There was not enough documentation to get the corporation a proper audit from an outside firm! Essentially, she took what was available and started from scratch; I do not believe she could have done anything else. Since then we have had excellent treasures reports.
With all the crap flying around the BOD emails with accusations of stealing the election from SCOPE, a meeting was called for September 2016. All presently elected officers of the corporation said they would resign, if the old ones would also, and we could have a new election. None of the other elected officers under Steve Aldstadt attended the meeting other than Bill Fox, who incidentally was approved by both factions in the debacle (which goes to speak for his character). There is an accurate record of the minutes for this State Board Of Directors (SBOD) meeting! There is a copy of minutes for every meeting since then (Thank You Kathie Ricketson!).
Then there is the court case! Who won? No one. Who lost? We all did in many ways. The transcript for the court case is about 17,000 KB in PDF format. *I have included a synopsis that was sent to the chapter chairs; did yours inform you and share it with you? It is pretty accurate and tells you where we are right now.
We have a choice: we can move forward and get back to taking care of our gun rights, or we can continue the infighting and make the present administration in Albany very happy. I will try to keep the membership more informed in the future.
If you still have questions, I will try to answer them, or point you to someone who can.
If you wish to start this argument/situation over again I will ignore you and move on, a pissing contest will do none of us any good.
With the utmost respect for our organization,
Nick Massal
1st Vice-President,
S.CO.P.E. Inc.
MY PERSPECTIVE
Why am I sending this out now? Several reason; there has been too much misinformation out there from many sources and a great deal of speculation by many people. Some may have been misled by what they have seen on social media. There has been too much of this “he said, she said” stuff. In truth some of it is fact, some is speculation and some of it I have no idea!
____________________
First of all I did not attend the April 2016 annual meeting, our Allegany chapter secretary did. Did he have a proxy? No. Afterward, we discussed the meeting briefly and I left it at that. There were some emails after the meeting and through May and I pretty much ignored them – some just blowing off steam I figured.
By the end of June things were going all over the place! BOD emails were coming out faster than you could read them and they were not pretty – from either side. I had several directors/chapter chairs contact me to give me their side of the situation and why they wanted to replace Steve Aldstadt. None were convincing enough in their conversations to sway me, so in the July Meeting at Clay NY I was not completely surprised by what happened. I voted for Steve and the officers that had been voted on in April. When it was over there was a new leadership in place. That whole thing turned into a 9 hour marathon which seemed to have no one in control at times. Things got heated and the emails in the following months got even worse.
I did notice that there were no minutes of the April meeting, and what were called minutes, were nothing more than notes. To top that off, there were no minutes from the July meeting available from the then secretary!
Steve Speta and I had a meeting with Steve Aldstadt at his house/office in early August, with Budd Schroeder in attendance. We asked about the financials and Steve Aldstadt produced some statements that were several months old and appeared to be in order. Not having seen any previous balance sheets, and one other financial statement, I had nothing to go on. A week or so later, upon an invitation from Don Hey, Steve Speta and I went to the new corporate office to look at the records that had been turned over to them. Or I should say the lack of records. For an organization that had been in existence for 50 years, there was a surprising lack of records/information. Little to no cooperation from the then treasurer in producing the books or any other records, no balance sheets, no reconciliations, no bank statements. In fairness, she had not been the treasurer that long. What was convincing to both Steve Speta and I at that time were the records of Steve Aldstadt use of the corporate credit card for personal use in excess of $500. There was no documentation of what the purchases were for, just the credit card charges. There were other questionable charges, but those that appeared to be for personal use were the most telling (Local Wegmans, Rite Aid, Tops Market and Sparkle Cleaners).
At this point I understood what some of the other directors were trying to tell me and I saw things in a different light. With further information from the financial committee it looked like SCOPE was operating with a negative income and could be completely out of funds in several months. From October 2014 to July 2015 Scope had a loss of over $47,000! In the months of October and November 2015 the loss was in excess of $15,000! As a chapter chair and a director of the Corporation I should have been made aware of this, along with all the other chapter chairmen. How many of them have seen the treasurer’s reports for the months of July, October and November of 2015? If they did get copies did they make their membership aware of this hemorrhaging? I didn’t get a copy.
The new leadership was becoming more aware of all of this and was trying to stop it and get SCOPE back on their feet – not drag it down. Could it have been handled better? In 20/20 hind sight, probably, but I do not know how with the way SCOPE was losing money. Where did the money go? There are no records that I have seen that will reflect it. Our present treasurer, when she took over, could not find very many records to start off the new fiscal year – much less any other records. There was not enough documentation to get the corporation a proper audit from an outside firm! Essentially, she took what was available and started from scratch; I do not believe she could have done anything else. Since then we have had excellent treasures reports.
With all the crap flying around the BOD emails with accusations of stealing the election from SCOPE, a meeting was called for September 2016. All presently elected officers of the corporation said they would resign, if the old ones would also, and we could have a new election. None of the other elected officers under Steve Aldstadt attended the meeting other than Bill Fox, who incidentally was approved by both factions in the debacle (which goes to speak for his character). There is an accurate record of the minutes for this State Board Of Directors (SBOD) meeting! There is a copy of minutes for every meeting since then (Thank You Kathie Ricketson!).
Then there is the court case! Who won? No one. Who lost? We all did in many ways. The transcript for the court case is about 17,000 KB in PDF format. *I have included a synopsis that was sent to the chapter chairs; did yours inform you and share it with you? It is pretty accurate and tells you where we are right now.
We have a choice: we can move forward and get back to taking care of our gun rights, or we can continue the infighting and make the present administration in Albany very happy. I will try to keep the membership more informed in the future.
If you still have questions, I will try to answer them, or point you to someone who can.
If you wish to start this argument/situation over again I will ignore you and move on, a pissing contest will do none of us any good.
With the utmost respect for our organization,
Nick Massal
1st Vice-President,
S.CO.P.E. Inc.
..
