Opinions: Lodge Fees and Stuff...

[N. A. Corbier]

Kevin Jordan, President of NAPSOA Incorporated and one of the people working to found a FOSPO Grand Lodge has stipulated that any "local" lodge wishing to use the FOPSO name and logo shall pay an administrative fee of $200 dollars to the "Grand Lodge," and submit a detailed application for each lodge member.

In a nutshell, to begin a local lodge a leader and hopefully president of the local must organize a group of officers that want to join FOPSO, no less than 3, but 5 is recommended.

Next, these 3 to 5 members must contact FOPSO Grand Lodge and request admission into the fraternity, showing the names and qualifications of each inductee to the Grand Lodge for consideration. The Counsel of the Grand Lodge shall review the application and decide whether or not to accept the application. The Counsel shall consist of the Grand Lodge President, Founding Members of the Grand Lodge and as local lodges are admitted, the Presidents of the Local Lodges as delegates.

The application fee of $200.00 is a one time fee for the enrollment of the local into the records of the Grand Lodge and Fraternity. Afterward a local tithe of 10% of the monthly membership fees (if the local’s initial year this begins on the first day of the next quarter of the fiscal year. An example, a lodge opened in Jan. would make the first 10% payment in April.), (if the officer’s yearly membership is $60, that’s $5 per month and .50 cents to the Grand Lodge, $4.50 stays locally for lodge needs.) this is to maintain recurring expenses such as webhosting and other administration costs. As a non-profit organization, all surplus funds at the end of the fiscal/accounting year, will be donated to a charity like Jerry Lewis MDA, in the name of FOPSO’s Membership. A delegation team will be sent to present the check to the MDA Telethon just like the Firefighters Associations. We can even adopt MDA as our charity of choice and have fund raisers to increase awareness of FOPSO and serve a good cause at the same time.

The application fee also grants the local lodge the right to use the FOPSO name and logos on advertising, clothing, banners, websites and other media sources to further spread the influence and message of FOPSO to the masses.A rejected application will have the application fee returned to the founding counsel members with the decision.

The new Lodge will receive a website through the Grand Lodge and be provided will all copyright materials and logos needed to set up. A portion of the 10% from the membership will go to the creation and distribution of these materials.

Press releases will be issued via various media outlets and recognition of the newly formed lodge will be featured in the newsletter that is currently under development.

Accepted lodges will then need to set up a non-profit LLC company registered with their state of residencey. The local will also register so they can accept dues and fees from their local members.

The president of the local is automatically the delegate to the Grand Lodge.

The function of the Grand Lodge is to give a national voice to the local lodges. The presidents of each local will network through the Grand Lodge to give the fraternity a unity of purpose and goal across the borders of their local community into a much larger community.

Our purpose is to give voice to the officer at the post over ANY company. We are a “grass roots” fraternity. The National Delegates Counsel or Grand Counsel will present what issues are most important to the officers in their local. Maybe its medical plans, or legal defense funds, but whatever it is the strength of FOPSO is in our numbers and brotherhood of our cause!

Your initial application should consist of:

Names of the Founding Counsel and the President elect. (5 recommended)
Address, City, State of the proposed Lodge.
Contact Information for the Local Counsel (addresses, email, IM and phone)
A sworn letter signed by the counsel to abide by and uphold the Articles of the Fraternity of FOPSO and oath to protect what we hold dear in the responsibility we undertake.

I hope this clears up some of the questions.

I have heard negative feedback towards this fee, as well as some of the other statements contained in this message, ranging from such things as FOSPO's "Grand Lodge" is not incorporated anywhere, to this being Kevin "Isn't NAPSOA a guard association, not a security company" Jordan at the helm.

I am wondering the board's thoughts on this arrangement, etc. Currently, Cityscape Solutions pays the bill for "FOPSO's" web hosting, as it does for NAPSOA itself. NAPSOA's involvement in FOPSO has been Kevin Jordan's posts, such as the one above.

[davis002]

It appears that this $200 "application fee" is nothing more than a way for him to line his own pockets. I have hard time believing it's meant for anything else. You don't talk about starting an association for months, then as soon as a group decides to start a local, you tell them "oh yea, it's going to be $200".

That's too bad, because FOPSO is a good idea. It can do alot of good things, but when it all Kevin talks about is discounted health insurance and Jerry's kids, I have a really hard time taking it serious.

Seeing that I am a member of the FOPSO working group, I must say I don't have much faith in Kevin. His leadership leaves much to be desired.

For now, i'll be the quiet guy sitting in the back of the room, waiting to see what happens next.

[GCMC Security]

It appears that this $200 "application fee" is nothing more than a way for him to line his own pockets. I have hard time believing it's meant for anything else. You don't talk about starting an association for months, then as soon as a group decides to start a local, you tell them "oh yea, it's going to be $200".

That's too bad, because FOPSO is a good idea. It can do alot of good things, but when it all Kevin talks about is discounted health insurance and Jerry's kids, I have a really hard time taking it serious.

Seeing that I am a member of the FOPSO working group, I must say I don't have much faith in Kevin. His leadership leaves much to be desired.

For now, i'll be the quiet guy sitting in the back of the room, waiting to see what happens next.

Seconded, He has not stated where that 200 will go for, besides "use of the FOPSO name", which he does not own. Nope not gonna bite. He wants the money so he can incorporate his "Grand Lodge"

[SecTrainer]

Gresham's Law states that "bad money drives out good", meaning that where counterfeit money is rampant people will stop accepting even good money because they can't tell the difference.

I think the same thing is true of "counterfeit" security organizations and "bad" security licensing regulations. Where these things exist, they tend to suck all the oxygen out of any efforts to establish PROPER organizations and PROPER licensing requirements.

All this "Grand Lodge" stuff is getting the cart miles ahead of the horse, basically trying to create (apparently) a "twin" organization to the FOP but without any of the substance or the history of the FOP, which began as a small local organization that had some LOCAL success and gradually grew to what it is today.

In other words, this is like trying to give birth to an adult without being willing to go through the necessary stages of growth through childhood and adolescence. IT WILL NOT WORK because this is NOT how organizations of this nature are formed and grow to maturity. Mr. Jordan has a dream (which might be a very worthy one), but the problem is that he wants to wake up tomorrow morning to find that it has sprung out of a trap in the floor as a full-blown reality.

Internet discussion forums seem to fuel this illusion nowadays. We throw up a discussion board and people from all over the world can "join". This does not mean they can or would do anything truly useful other than to GAB with one another. And, even something as "nonfunctional" (I did not say "dysfunctional" ) as a discussion forum will not necessarily be that successful in attracting members. It's not an unimportant fact that this forum has been in existence for some time and yet, out of a million-plus security people in the United States alone, it has only 1700 members, and of those only a tiny fraction are "active". And this is just a DISCUSSION forum. When you start tying real work to membership...well, you get the picture.

I repeat advice that I posted elsewhere regarding this organization. Start it locally, get something useful DONE at a local level, and see where it goes from there. When you've got PROOF OF CONCEPT at a local level, you've got an engine for growth beyond the local level. On the other hand, if you CANNOT get anything useful done locally, you don't have anything anyway.

What do I mean by "something useful"? Well, there are any number of things, and it could be relatively simple, such as:

1. Create a pro-quality presentation to be made to high school seniors in the area regarding security as a career for them to consider.

2. Put up a security-related job/resume website with a focus on local jobs, and WORK TO GET THOSE WHO HIRE OFFICERS TO POST THEIR JOB OPENINGS. (For instance, this would mean calling companies with ads for officers in the paper to inform them of this resource, cold-calling on companies that are known to have their own proprietary forces, etc.).

3. Hold membership drives. Hold membership drives. Hold membership drives.

4. Hold regular meetings without fail, and invite quality speakers. There are a million security-related companies from ADT to Zecurity-R-Us who would be happy to send a speaker as part of their own outreach programs. What about a local architect who can speak about CPTED? What about a hospital security director who can talk about opportunities in his field? The list is endless, and you'd only need 12 a year. Criminy, the local chapter of the Certified Fraud Examiners alone could probably fill your podium for a year, to say nothing of people from security consulting organizations, insurance companies, etc, etc, ETC.

5. Set up student chapters on local college campuses.

6. Work with local college LE programs to get them to include one or more courses in security.

7. Set up an Officer-Family Support committee whose members will be willing to be trained in crisis support, to help officers and their families during after-incident periods.

8. Create an LE-Security Liaison Committee that truly does work (that horrible word again!) to develop constructive relationships between the two domains. Hold joint LE-Security "games". Participate in a fund-raising event held by the local LE agency by sponsoring a "booth".

9. Set up a security-related scholarship fund and invite local businesses to get publicity by making contributions. It doesn't have to be a 4-year full-cost scholarship...perhaps just something in the range of $1000 a year. If you can't raise $1000, step aside. Hold an essay (research paper) contest on a security-related subject to be judged by security executives in the area in order to determine the winner. Then, hold a grand ceremony to award the scholarship (and don't forget to mention those judges and sponsors!). Invite the news media to the award ceremony.

...I could go on all day and there's enough work in just the list I mentioned to keep any organization busy. You got milk...now, do you GET LOCAL? If you truly "get local", you won't have to worry about finding growth. Growth will come to you.

[GCMC Security]

Excellent post Sec, and actually what I was attempting to do here, locally. We were at the process of starting to incorporate (As required by law) when Kevin posted that BS. I can see when there is a Grand Lodge, paying some dues into it, BUT right now the Grand Lodge doesn't exist and is far from existing. So we'd be paying 200 dollars to nothing. I refuse to do that. I'm not going to let this die locally, I will find a way to make this happen. I'm just not going to pay 200 dollars to a guy that can't show me why.

[SecTrainer]

Excellent post Sec, and actually what I was attempting to do here, locally. We were at the process of starting to incorporate (As required by law) when Kevin posted that BS. I can see when there is a Grand Lodge, paying some dues into it, BUT right now the Grand Lodge doesn't exist and is far from existing. So we'd be paying 200 dollars to nothing. I refuse to do that. I'm not going to let this die locally, I will find a way to make this happen. I'm just not going to pay 200 dollars to a guy that can't show me why.

I'd forget about any other affiliations. Just start a local organization for security officers (it doesn't have to be called a "brotherhood" or "lodge") that has its sole focus on officers in the Pensacola area. Do good things for Pensacola security, and the growth will come.

Meanwhile, the ONLY "planning" I would do in terms of expansion would be to avoid calling your organization the "Pensacola <anything>" or including specific references to Pensacola in your mission statement, etc. Choose a name that would have more universal applicability so you don't have to change the organization's stationery and file new articles of incorporation or name change notices in the newspaper someday down the line when you open a branch in Okeechobee.

[davis002]

SecTrainer has the right idea!

If I were to start a local (which I have thought about lately), that's exactly what I would like to see happen.