Date: June 20, 2001
Chair: David Anderson
Location: Japan Society
Speaker: George Packard, US-Japan Foundation

Dear Hands,

I would like to summarize my comments today at our Spring luncheon as they may be of interest to the OAH members who could not attend.

First of all, today's luncheon speaker, George Packard, was outstanding and our thanks to Jim Whitely for making the arrangements, and for having studied under Dr. Packard "several" years ago. We enjoyed bento boxes at the Japan Society. As many of you probably know, George has been president of the US-Japan Foundation since 1998 and is Adjunct Professor of Political Science at Columbia University. He has been involved with Japan in a wide variety of roles for many years.

I commented that the OAH group needed a board type governing body so we benefit from a greater number of individual insights. The directors named are: John Bohn, Rick Wheeler, Rick Roesch, Bob Sharp, Sam Heffner, Jim Whitley, Bob Hudspeth, Kerry Hemming, Ken Arndt and David Anderson.

While we do not want to change the feature of having "no redeeming social value," we also want to be responsive to the changing needs of our members. Such a board will give us the structure to properly evaluate key decisions. Topics to be considered are increased use of the website, scholarships, more meetings and at different locations and our financial structure. To the extent possible, these directors are expected to play a meaningful role in the leadership of our group.

We have also been successful with members talking on important roles in the group as follows:
web site: Bob Sharp
membership: Kerry Hemming and Ken Arndt
events: Jim Whitely and Sam Heffner
finance: David Anderson

We need help with support for Bob on the website, particularly database maintenance, events for Jim and Sam and finance with me. Any volunteers?

Lastly, we polled the group on the best date for the winter dinner and the strong feeling was February. Therefore, we will select a date later this year and advise everyone. We may not have a speaker as it seems camaraderie is more important than anything else.

Regards, David Anderson