ent001406-004

% % 4. as quickly as possible. We have been paying off between $26,000 and $30,000 each year, and we should retire this note a year earlier than it is due, at our present rate of payment. The point was brought up about spreading the proceeds of the Tournaments to other charities, such as a "Religious Building Fund", which was started by the Foundation several years ago. It is a matter of record that $5,000 was put into the Religious Building Fund and that we had hoped to add to it each year and to spread this money out among local organizations which were building houses of worship. However, it is also a matter of record that it was later decided that although it is important that the broad base of the Foundation for Las Vegas Charities be the distribu- tion of money to many charities of all faiths and creeds, we could never reach that position unless we paid off this first big obstacle - the bank note. It is very important for this Foundation in its efforts to have a Tax-Exempt Foundation Certificate from the U.S. Treasury, to go on record as granting requests from diversified charities and I have stressed this repeatedly, based on many meetings with Mr. Alvord, Mr. Apt and Mr. Keleher. However, in 9 years we have awarded more than $509,000 in prizes - we have paid more than a quarter of a million dollars towards the note - and I believe that we have operated the Tournaments very frugally - and have done our best to pay off this note quickly. As urgent as it is to diversify our contributions, we just do not have enough money left each year to do more than pay off a portion of the note. It has been suggested that the members get together and "chip in" to pay the note off at once, and then start spreading the Tournament profits immediately, but it has been voted down several times in favor of the more orderly process of paying the note off along the lines by which it was planned originally. Your Director was among the proponents of the $200,000 loan to the Temple in exchange for the use of the Tournament idea, and I feel that we are on the right path in paying off the note yearly out of the Tournament, rather than besiege the hotels again with another request