Serving O'Brien & Clay Counties
Serving O'Brien & Clay Counties
Dissolution meeting planned today at library
Children decorate Christmas crafts during the Festival of Trees sponsored by the Everly Commercial Club in 2018.
Remaining members of the Everly Commercial Club plan to pound the final nail in the coffin on the community service group today.
In an email to members, former president Chris Dodd outlined plans for the dissolution meeting scheduled today at the Everly Public Library at 2 p.m. The club has been looking to officially disband for the better part of a year due to dwindling membership and interest, but legal hurdles prevented it.
"The purpose of this meeting is to properly approve to dissolve the Everly Commercial Club and transfer assets to other nonprofit organizations like the Everly Commercial Club," Dodd explained.
The Commercial Club members had originally hoped to distribute all remaining funds to the city to help finance future annual events like Everly Community Day. However, City Attorney Dennis Cmelik discovered that legally, all money must be given to a charitable or educational organization similar to the Commercial Club that is designated as a 501(c)(3) non-profit group.
According to Cmelik, the Commercial Club's incorporators must adopt a plan of dissolution at the meeting and identify to whom the corporate assets will be distributed after all creditors have been paid. In this case, the incorporators are Janice Thompson, Kathy Wright and Pamela Johnson.
Remaining Commercial Club members had originally hoped to dissolve the group in March. Only around 20 members existed back then, and interest and participation had dwindled.
According to information in Everly's centennial book, the Commerical Club got its start in January of 1914. Back then it was called the Booster Club, but changed its name two months later.
The group held its first community picnic in August of 1921. After more than a decade of limited activity, a meeting was called in 1938 with 22 businessmen present. The Commercial Club had remained active on the local scene until recently.
The group was best known for its free community meal in the summer, but it also helped with a variety of other events in town like Everly Community Day, holiday activities and free giveaways. Additionally, the group helped local 4-H children in the past by purchasing livestock at the Clay County Fair each fall, according to the centennial book excerpt.
