A newsletter dedicated to Cross Connection Control and Backflow Prevention www.abpa-sa.org

October Vol. 30 Issue 10

IMPORTANT MEMBERSHIP NOTICE

Due to COVID-19 we are all experiencing various difficulties in our lives, as is the ABPA-SA Chapter. SAWS closed their conference room where we were having our meetings right after our March meeting. The Virus raised its ugly head to the point nobody was interested in mingling with other people anyway. The Chapter has been unable to conduct meetings since then and there are a number of members who need to renew their BPAT License, or will need to in the near future. Members were able to earn CEUs by attending the monthly meetings and BAC-FLO Unlimited provided the Free Hands-On eight (8) hour training to all those members who attended at least five (5) meetings per year and had earned sixteen (16) CEUs at Chapter meetings.

Since we are unable to satisfy the current rule to attend at least five (5) meetings per year, the new policy will be for all members who continue their membership without breaking their membership chain. They will be eligible to earn their Free Hands-On credit with BAC –FLO Unlimited in future years, as long as they earn their sixteen (16) hours CEUs from any source, including on-line classes. Carl and Bill are continuing to provide the monthly gauge testing, a $65 value per gauge, at no cost to the members.

To help our members during these difficult times, Chapter dues that are normally due between January 1, 2021 and December 31, 2021 will be lowered from $60 to $30 if you are a member in good standing throughout 2020. The $65 National dues will still be required for a total 2021 annual dues of $95.

Any member whose dues are delinquent and were due between January 1, 2020 and September 30, 2020 can still pay their dues in October 2020 to maintain their continuous membership chain. After October 31, 2020, they will have broken their membership chain for membership benefits.

Please keep in mind that maintaining your membership without breaking your membership chain is a requirement to be eligible for future eight (8) hour Free Hands-On classes with BAC-FLO Unlimited, currently a $300 value. Attending five (5) meetings per year is currently not a requirement until we are able to resume meetings after COVID-19 has passed.

Thank you for your ABPA-SA Chapter membership.

Chapter Gauge Testing During COVID-19

See Page (6) for Gauge Testing Rules

October Meeting - CANCELED

Meetings of the San Antonio Chapter ABPA are usually held the second Thursday of every month except December. Dinner and refreshments are served at 6:00 p.m. sharp with the meeting starting at 6:30. The next meeting is: Date: CANCELED Time: CANCELED

Location: CANCELED Program: CANCELED Meal Sponsor: CANCELED

No alcoholic beverages allowed

Next Meeting: UNKNOWN

Meeting September Agenda CANCELED 5:00 p.m. General discussion and quorum

confirmation 5:15 p.m. Call Meeting to order. 5:16 p.m. Secretary’s Report. Read and approve the

minutes of the previous meeting. 5:20 p.m. Treasurer’s Report. Discussion and

approval of the treasurer’s report. 5:25 p.m. Supply Officer’s Report 5:30 p.m. Vice President’s, Directors’, and any other

reports for the good of the chapter. Comments, new business, any discussion.

5:40 p.m. Training Report. Training & Meal Sponsors 5:45 p.m. Webmaster Report 5:50 p.m. President’s Report. New & old business 6:00 p.m. Meal is served. 6:30 p.m. General Membership Meeting

1. Gauges to be tested. Carl Michaud- Bill Hamrick 2. First time attendees or visitors (get w/Treasurer

for membership application / info) 3. Irrigator’s Report. Ron Renouf 4. Report from the Directors Meeting. President 5. October meeting election of Officers & Directors 6. City, regional, and national reports. James

Cantrell and any City personnel present 7. Supply Officer Report. Troy Baird 8. Training program for the evening. 9. Raffle prize drawing.

Ongoing Goals of ABPA-SA Chapter

1. Educational Outreach with public by

presenting at PHCC meetings, engineering firms, schools, and neighborhood associations. Continuing goal.

2. Greater use of TCEQ website. Tracking of CEUs, Services available. Personal education.

3. Increase member awareness of importance of chapter meetings. Increase attendance and public awareness.

4. Increase website resource information. More detailed links to more information like TCEQ, COSA, and any place that would be helpful to our members

Big Thanks to

Those who had their gauges tested in September for following the procedural instructions.

Everyone picked up their gauges on Friday without having to pay the $10 storage fee.

Let’s all practice social distancing so we can get back to some kind of normal.

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Matt will be adding a website header for “Events” to display activities such as the home and garden show, clay shoot, STILE, fishing trip, or the ABPA conference. Pictures are more informative than a description.

To renew your National ABPA Membership, Bill said to go to our website, pull up Forms and Reports, and then select Membership Application. Select the link for joining as a new member if you have never been a member or the link for renewing your ABPA-SA membership if you are a member or have been a member in the past. This will take you directly to the proper function on the National website. The membership application has been updated to show that the two Canadian Regions 8 and 9 and the North Central Region 10 are now inactive. Several Chapters in Regions 11 and 12 have been dissolved. The next newsletter will have the corrected Regions posted on the included membership application.

The Cast ‘n Stay October Fishing Trip has been cancelled because of the COVID restrictions and the end of the pier had collapsed. Fred was able to reserve the same weekend in 2021.

The directors voted and passed a motion that all 2020 raffle tickets will roll over to 2021 since we will not have a November physical chapter meeting.

Officers and Directors will remain the same until we are able to resume physical meetings. Presidential Award for Chapter Excellence Part Quarto. This is the fourth article on our 2020 submission. Membership is our “most important service.” The first paragraph has been in the newsletter, but it is important that the PACE reviewers also know it. The numbers in parenthesis are last year’s numbers so they can see the trend.

The calculated cost benefit for ABPA-SA members to attend our meetings to receive all the required CEUs, the annual gauge testing, and the free meals is about $390 per year above their National and Local dues. That is only for their backflow license. There are the intangibles like the opportunity to ask questions, being able to discuss problems with others, and hearing it directly from the City of San Antonio and SAWS inspectors and enforcement personnel who have vast amounts of knowledge.

I.C. Evidences of innovative membership development regardless of whether net growth has occurred. We have an executive and directors meeting that starts at 5:15 PM. Many other members show up early for our 6:00 PM general membership meeting. Our president makes it a priority to solicit their opinions to encourage more leadership and retain current members. Additionally, our president writes a “Direct Talk” article for the monthly newsletter regarding need-to-know information and monthly meeting reminders. The goal is to also encourage members to become directors – the lifeblood for new officers and chapter survival. This year we had one new volunteer to serve as an officer but we lost one to being our current president and another resigned. He was hired by SAWS who considered it a conflict of interest. Our annual Nightmare Award is a $200 prize for the worst backflow testing experience. There was one 2019 submission. We continue our strong relationship with the San Antonio Plumbing, Heating, and Cooling Contractors (PHCC) by co-sponsoring their clay shoot, and BBQ at a local gun club with about 100 attending. We are more actively involved with the San Antonio Irrigation Association (SAIA) by sponsoring a backflow awareness booth at their annual South Texas Irrigation Association Expo. We have a display showing how an irrigation system can contaminate a residential water system. We currently have two chapter-elected members who will hold the position of ABPA-San Antonio Chapter Liaison and prior Contractor Representative.

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We have at least two chapter representatives at the monthly PHCC and four at the SAIA meetings and they provide a summary of these meetings to our members. We encourage and continue to gain support from the engineering community by way of engineers attending many of our monthly chapter meetings. The San Antonio Chapter has several members from other cities that are interested in the knowledge gained from attending our Chapter Meetings. They are being attracted by word of mouth and our website. II Service to Chapter Members  

II.A. Number of members attending meetings. We had between 41 (48) and 58 (60) active ABPA members, who signed up for CEU credit, at our monthly meetings. This is an average of 52 per meeting. With the membership increase, the 2019 average membership attending the monthly meeting was 41% compared to 40% for 2018. Only the Board of Directors meets during December to recap and plan for the coming year. We use pre-printed ABPA-SA member sign-in sheets at the end of our meeting and training sessions to record attendance and recognition for CEU credits. A meal is provided along with free gauge testing. An open forum is offered to all members to bring specific problems to the Board and the membership to help resolve a member’s problem. Repair parts and tools can be networked through the membership. Copies of the gauge testing reports are sent to the enforcement agencies for the members at no charge. The website provides downloads for the membership at no additional charge. A monthly newsletter, discussed below in paragraph C, is published and is available on the chapter website, www.abpa-sa.org for anyone to read. Due to COVID-19 canceled meetings, there are no Meeting Minutes to report.

(*Buy the popular ‘BAC-FLO-5’ test kit, see course schedule, and much more on our website. For gauge certifications, call 210-698-0411 for weekly test times in Boerne, TX!)

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ABPA-SA Board of Directors

2019 - 2020 1) President – Joe Fazekas 2) Vice President – Keith Waldrep 3) Treasurer – Jeff Hoffman 4) Secretary – Greg Shean 5) Immediate Past President – Brad Harrell Special Officers to the Association 6) SGT-AT-ARMS –Jeff Meeks 7) Liaison to SAWS – James Cantrell 8) Public Relations/ Speakers/ Program Topics – Manny Hernandez 9) Gauge Testing and Certification – Carl Michaud 10) Membership – Bill Hamrick 11) Supply Officer – Troy Baird 12) Webmaster – Matthew Wilgen

Directors at Large

Two-year term

1. Fred Baird 2. Timothy Sales 3. Robert Stricker

One year term remaining

4. Bruce Rathburn 5. Ron Renouf 6. Frank Snyder

NOTICE: Mail Address: ABPA-SA - P.O. Box 47820 - San Antonio, TX 78265

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“The Direct Connection” is published monthly and may be obtained from the www.abpa-sa.org website. Opinions or facts within “The Direct Connection” are not necessarily representative of the opinions of the American Backflow Prevention Association and may or may not represent an official policy. Additionally, the opinions or facts of contributors or advertisers may or may not represent an official policy.

Published by the ABPA-SA Chapter

Editor: Bill Hamrick

Assistant Editor: Bruce Rathburn

Additional Editors: The entire Membership

For further information about ABPA, contact:

Bruce Rathburn – Past ABPA President americanbackflowh2o@gmail.com

Troy Baird – ABPA Region 4 Director troybaird@gvtc.com

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APPLICATION FOR

MEMBERSHIP

US Membership $65 International Membership $79

Sustaining Membership $300.00 New Member

Renewal - Member #______________ To join the American Backflow Prevention Association, simply fill out the membership application form and mail it with your check to the address listed below, or if paying by credit card you may fax the completed form to 979.846.7607. Local chapters have additional fees. Below is a listing of chapters by region. To find out if there is a local chapter in your area, please review the chapter information on our website at abpa.org or call the National Office at 979.846.7606. Membership in the Association constitutes paying National dues.

Sustaining Member: • Must be a company or organization • Assign only one person as the member of ABPA • A Sustaining Member must submit a letter that

designates their Voting Representative.

Please Print Legibly or Type

Mr., Mrs., Ms., etc First Name MI Last Name (Include suffix)

Organization (Agency/Firm) Department/Division Title

Address:

City: State / Prov Zip + 4 Code/Postal Code Country

Daytime Phone Fax Email

ABPA-SA $ 60.00 Local Chapter (if joining a local chapter) Local Dues Amount

Method of Payment

Charge $ 125.00 to my Visa MasterCard American Express Discover Check Money Order Invoice Me

Credit Card Number Card Expires (MM/YYYY) CVC Number

Name as it appears on card Signature

Additional Information

How would you like to receive your Membership Renewal Invoice Notification? Email US Mail (Not available for International Membership)

Local Chapter Dues Listed by Region

REGION 1 New England Rhode Island

REGION 2 Virginia

REGION 3 Carolinas Florida Suncoast Peach State “1788” Tennessee

REGION 4 Arkansas Central Texas Corpus Christi Lower Rio Grande Valley North Texas San Antonio

$12.00 18.00

$25.00

$10.00 12.00 30.00 20.00

$10.00 20.00 23.00 25.00 23.0060.00

REGION 5 Colorado Utah

REGION 6 Arizona Central Coast Central Valley California Hawaii Silver State Southern California

REGION 7 Oregon SRC4

REGION 8 (USD)

$15.00 12.00

$20.00 10.00 10.00 23.00 23.00 15.00

$20.00 20.00

REGION 9 (USD)

REGION 10

REGION 11 Indiana BPA Michigan Northern Illinois

REGION 12 Eastern Nebraska

$25.00 40.00 23.00

$10.00

Please make checks payable to: ABPA 6672 S 1570 W, West Jordan, UT (801) 436-7238Email: membership@abpa.org

09.2020