This January Meeting

At the Last Meeting

Special guests were Al Jones, Charles N. Wientjes Jr. and Joe Harry of the Washington Gas Company. Kara Priggon of Federated Insurance.

Chris Ashwood of Stansberry Plumbing, HTG & A/C won $68.00 from the 50/50 drawing.

Money collected over the past year from the 50/50 drawing by PHCC Ladies Auxiliary member Joan Blum, was donated to Children’s Hospital and Hospice in the memory of Dorothy Irving, wife of long time member Irving Sanborn. $350.00 went to each.

Outgoing president: "ME" was presented a plaque and some great words by Jim Muncy & standing ovation from all in attendance.

Come see what is new....

  Bell Atlantic

Effective January 1, 1998 residential customer will be billed an extra $1.50 per month per phone line for having two or more phone lines in one name at the same address.

Members attending the convention in Philadelphia voted overwhelmingly in support for the 10 percent special dues assessment to fund the fight against unfair utility competition. PHCC members heard from two of their own contractors on the urgency of this campaign and the support necessary to make it happen.

Charlie Gans of Charlie Gans Plumbing & Heating, Havertown, Pa., began by recounting the experiences of those contractors who attended the Minneapolis Forum on Unfair Utility Competition.

Mark Morgan of Fosters Heating & Air, Marion, Iowa, then took the stage and stole the show.

In a rousing speech he urged members to go on the offensive. After waiving utility advertisements in the air, Morgan then began to wave dollar bills and asked others to do the same. After the buckets had been passed around, an additional $1,600 was raised to be solely used for stopping unfair utility competition.

The members attending convention agreed with Morgan's philosophy that "we have heavy lifting to do, but as we who have carried bathtubs, hauled boilers and hoisted furnaces know, many hands make for a lighter load," and the members voted in support of the dues assessment of $30.00.

In an age when most associations are losing members at a rate of 10 to 15 percent a year, PHCC–National Association enters 1998 with a strong base of 98 percent of its membership.

First Place
Lyle Thomas Lindquist
California

Second Place
Fred Schnorrbusch
New Jersey

Third Place
Bill Mooney
Pennsylvania

PHCC of Northern Virginia

P.O. Box 307

We have been mailing nearly 1,000 copies of our newsletter every month for two years. Due to the cost of the mailing we decided to cut the amount of this mailing down to Government, Industry & Members only.

The December mailing to non-members had a red final notice label attached to it and instructions to fill out the enclosed card or you will be dropped from the mailing list.

The response was great. Over 100 cards were returned with requests to stay on the mailing list. Over 10 contractors have requested information about membership in the PHCC. Many sent a note, informing us that they enjoyed receiving the newsletters.

The PHCC BBS has been shut down.

BBS’s are pretty much a thing of the past. The phcc.org domain name has been moved to our web server.

PHCC members that would like free email,

PHCC members can get their own web page for as little as $10.00 per month & onetime $25.00 setup fee.

Your web page can include a service request form (customers can place a service call 24 hours a day over the Internet from their computer to you,) and the information can be faxed, e-mailed and/or sent to your alphanumeric pager. This is a big plus for those of you that do not have Internet access yet.

The American Plumber
A Tribute

This came from a publication called Carolina Plumbing.

I am compelled to share with you the Christmas Spirit of a fellow PHCC member, My Plumber

My Plumber is giving away thousands of dollars in the Spirit of Christmas!

This PHCC contractor member is truly conducting business in the spirit of Christmas.

My Plumber in Fairfax, Virginia, services about 100 customers per day and employs about 32 plumbers.

Wendell Presgrave, owner of My Plumber, requested from each of his 32 plumbers, that in the spirit of Christmas during the two weeks prior to Christmas Day, that they giveaway one job each per day.

While they were collecting payment for services from customers at their own discretion, if the customer showed signs of financial hardship they were allowed to write "Merry Christmas" on the invoice and collect no payment for the plumbing service performed.

The plumbers were told that the company would pay them for their labor on each job they gave away. However, some of the plumbers that collected no payment for services asked not to be paid by the company working totally for FREE.

This is the fifth year in a row that My Plumber has done this and should be commended.

My Letter from Santa

Saturday January 3, 1998 I was at a house in McLean where raw sewage was backing up through the basement toilet at an astronomical rate. Two or more inches deep of sewage in the entire basement, back door open raw sewage flowing into back yard into the rest of the neighborhood.

I had my office call Fx. Co. to report the EMERGENCY and have them dispatch a work crew to clear the stoppage of the main sewer in the street and to send a cleanup crew. They did not believe my office. So I called while onsite told them who I was and about the emergency that I had confirmed by pulling the manhole cover in the street.

The response I got was not good, "I will call someone at home and try to get them there sometime." I had to call a Captain at the Fire Dept. and ask them to call and express the emergency to the sewer Dept. and see if they could motivate them to get the main sewer in the street cleared that day!

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