I attended the 2026 NSSAR annual congress as our state’s National Trustee and as our only state delegate to the Congress. This year’s congress was in Greensboro, North Carolina, at the usual time in mid July.
In the past I have criticized the numerous rituals and activities at Congress as time consuming and perhaps detracting from the SAR’s true mission. I’ve personally preferred the twice-yearly leadership meetings at which major committees meet. As I recognize more compatriots from one meeting to the next, I find Congress rituals more interesting and engaging.
Major Topics Reviewed and Voted
- The Trustees approved spending more money on museum construction. There’s a specific fund of museum money, so we just approved its disbursement. The money does not impact regular SAR operations.
- There’s a push to create an “Executive Vice President General” position to handle the headquarters operations that currently fall on the President General (PG). The separate position would let the PG focus on his extensive ceremonial and PR duties, while the EVPG focuses on day-to-day operations. The same proposal came up last year and was voted down. This year the major provisions were voted down again. Each year the proposal is somewhat improved; the people behind it at the executive level clearly like it and want to find a formula that the membership will support.
- There was a proposal to propose redrawing district boundaries, which was voted down. The proposal contained no details or justifications aside from which states would move to which districts. None of the states in our district, North Central, were contacted for opinions or feedback before or during Congress. The proposal changes our district by adding Wisconsin and losing Nebraska. The consensus in our district is that Wisconsin is more of a Great Lakes state, and western Wisconsin is very different from the rest of the state. Moreover, the states in our district have agreed on how the district should be run and don’t want things changed unnecessarily.
I took part in follow-up discussions on this proposal, during and after Congress. So did Kevin Sullivan our President, and presidents from the other states in our district. There is no published reason for replacing Nebraska with Wisconsin, or for any other district realignments. One rumor attributes the proposal to a large state that wants more opportunities for their members to be eligible to serve as the District Vice President General (VPG). Typical districts rotate the VPG selection among the member states; districts with fewer member states can rotate the VPG selection more quickly. - A bylaws change will allow National SAR to handle annual renewals. National would send invoices to dues-paying members, collect National, state, and chapter dues, and forward the state and chapter dues to their treasurers. I discuss the renewal process in an earlier post.
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