Sandy, I'll defer to the more experienced among the group to answer the initial question; however, I have a possible solution to the situation if the answer to the initial question is "it can't be done." Many organizations prohibit their branches to do a number of things: own property, have alcoholic beverages at official meeting locations, etc. A common practice to have ones cake and eat it at the same time is to set up "clubs" or other "companies" that own the property or host the social hour. At the risk of starting something else I wish I'd not brought up, when I was DEC/EC I agreed with setting up an "ARES club" which was not ARES and, therefore, was not part of ARRL. I then set up a regional council of clubs with each participating club sending representatives to occasional meetings. FYI, the council actually served as source of ARES membership and to strengthen Amateur Radio in the general community and ARRL in the amateur community.. FWIW if anything. 73 Jim Weaver, K8JE, Director, Great Lakes Division k8je@arrl.org - Tel. 513-459-0142 ARRL -- The reason Amateur Radio is! GREAT LAKES DIVISION CONVENTION, September 6, 2003: See http://greatlakes.arrl.org