2nd Annual "Walk It Off" Tour of NoHo: Sat. 11/28

From the Museum of the San Fernando Valley...

We are pleased to extend an invitation to another North Hollywood “NoHo” historic walking tour.

2nd Annual NoHo Historic “Walk It Off” Tour
Saturday, November 28th 10:00 a.m. – 12:30 p.m.

Tour attendees will learn about real cowboys, pioneer families, movie television and recording stars, the Spanish conquest, Mexican ranchos, great steam trains, vast ranches and orchards, land barons, wars, architecture, and much more! Additional tour highlights include:
-Amelia Earhart Statue
-Security Trust and Savings Bank (1924)
-Amelia Earhart Library (1928)
-El Portal Theatre (1926)
-St. Paul’s First Lutheran Church
-NoHo Arts District
-NoHo Fire Station #60
-Lankershim Arts Center (1939) (S. Charles Lee, architect)
-So. Pacific Railroad Depot (1896)
-Commonwealth Savings & Loan Building
-Weddington Family History
-North Hollywood Masonic Temple Lodge 542
-Lankershim Elementary School (Marilyn Monroe attended)

RSVP: 1-818-347-9665 or email at TheMuseumSFV@gmail.com
Please leave name, address and phone number (walk-ups welcome too!)
Cost: $10 per person suggested donation
Parking: Street and metered parking in area

Sponsored by the Universal City/North Hollywood Chamber of Commerce.

Reservations for the tour are on a first-come, first-served basis. Tour meets at Amelia Earhart Statue; NW corner of Tujunga St. & Magnolia Blvd.

Updated IRS Form 990 Training

NONPROFIT GOVERNANCE & THE REVISED IRS FORM 990 - A SERIES OF FIVE WEBINARS DESIGNED TO HELP YOU FILL IN THE BLANKS.

Your organization’s Form 990 is one of your most important documents. It is the world’s window into your organization. The IRS, donors, funders and the press review your Form 990 to determine such information as:

-Do you have an independent board of directors overseeing your operations?
-Does your organization maintain high ethical standards and a culture of transparency for your donors, volunteers, clients and employees?
-How much of each donation does your organization pay its outside fundraisers and how much does it keep for its mission?
-Is your executive compensation in line with organizations in your area of similar size and with a similar mission?

In recent years the IRS has adopted a specific focus on nonprofit governance as part of its oversight of nonprofits exempt under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code. The revised Form 990 requires nonprofits to describe in detail their governance practices, including such issues as how the nonprofits manage conflicts of interest and set executive compensation.

The five-part webinar series is designed to help you understand and comply with the new disclosure requirements. Each webinar in this series will discuss in-depth one of the new disclosure requirements. It will assist you in developing policies and procedures that will allow your organization to follow best practices and help inspire confidence in your funders and the general public that your organization is well run.

This series is designed for members of the board of directors and senior executives of nonprofits, as well as attorneys that counsel nonprofit organizations on governance matters.

The webinars are held once a month. They begin at 9 am and last approximately 60 minutes – and you never have to leave your office! Please feel free to forward this invitation to your nonprofit partners. For more details, please click here. To register, please click here.

Free Lunch: Oral History as Research and Archives

ICW "In Conversation" series presents:

Telling Stories: Oral History as Research and Archives
Friday, December 4, 2009
Noon to 1pm

The Overseers’ Room, Huntington Library

A conversation between historian David Igler of UC Irvine and:
-Lisa Rubens, Historian and Academic Specialist at the Regional Oral History Office, a research unit of The Bancroft Library, UC Berkeley
-Ana Elizabeth Rosas, a Postdoctoral Ford Foundation Fellow in the department of Black Studies at UC Santa Barbara
-Natalie Fousekis, Director of Cal State Fullerton’s Center for Oral and Public History (COPH) and an Associate Professor in the History Department

This seminar will explore the use of oral history as a research method and the basis of many recent path-breaking historical studies. How and when should scholars conduct oral histories? What are the limitations of oral histories as source material? What are the best oral history archives in California? Three scholars will discuss the possibilities and problems associated with oral history.

This conversation is part of a brown bag luncheon series sponsored by ICW.

The event is open to any who wish to attend, and a limited number of lunches will be available upon a first come/first served basis. To reserve a seat, please respond to Kim Matsunaga at kmatsuna@usc.edu by November 30.

Final LAHA meeting of 2009: November 7

The final LA Heritage Alliance meeting for 2009 will be held on Saturday, November 7 at the Pico House at
El Pueblo (at the southern end of Olvera Street and the plaza) in Downtown LA. The meeting will begin at 10am and will be completed by 12noon so you can enjoy a lunch or a tour on your own at Olvera Street. (A special thanks
goes to El Pueblo and the City of Los Angeles for hosting our meeting.)

The topics we will cover include:

-an update on the online calendar and LA Heritage Day 2010,

-a discussion and creation of an action plan addressing the structure of the LA Heritage Alliance and its future

-county-wide preservation alerts,
- a short workshop on effective outreach techniques

This meeting will be full of useful information for your organization, so make sure you take the train or Metro or drive bike or walk to the heart of the City to participate.

Please share this information with other staff and/or board members and leaders of your organization.

We look forward to your input and collaboration as we set a direction for the future as we celebrate our past.

Please make sure you RSVP by November 5th at 5pm by emailing laheritage[at]gmail[dot]com.

“DIA de LOS MUERTOS" at the Andres Pico Adobe

From the San Fernando Historical Society:

SAN FERNANDO VALLEY HISTORICAL SOCIETY

&

CULTUAZTLAN

INVITE YOU TO

CELEBRATE

“DIA de LOS MUERTOS"

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 1, 2009

11:00 AM – 5:00 PM

ANDRES PICO ADOBE PARK

10940 SEPULVEDA BLVD. (AT BRAND BLVD.)

SPECIAL GUESTS

MARIACHI AZTLAN * VIOLETA QUINTERO

ALEJANDRO MOLINA * BALLET OLLIN

DANZA AZTECA CUAUHTEMOC

EL MAESTRO DEL CABALLO ROSENDO SOLIS

DANZA AZTECA MICTLANTECUHTLI

CITY OF SAN FERNANDO MARIACHI TESORO

CONJUNTO TENOCELOMEH

FOR MORE INFORMATION OR TO RESERVE ALTAR SPACE

818.257.4072 OR 818.448.0511

Tour Sixties Sites in the South Bay on November 8

From the Los Angeles Conservancy...

"It's a Mod, Mod, Mod, Mod City"
Sunday, November 8, 10 a.m. - 4 p.m.
$30 ($25 L.A. Conservancy members; $10 kids 12 and under)
Click here for details and tickets

Join the L.A. Conservancy and our Modern Committee on a "magical history tour" of unique sites from the sixties! This one-time-only event offers a rare chance to visit 1960s gems that helped fuel Los Angeles’ growth into a modern metropolis.

You'll drive yourself to each of the official tour stops (carpooling encouraged), at your convenience and armed with a booklet full of interesting sites to see along the way. When you get to an official stop, you'll receive a docent-led tour of the site.

Focused on the South Bay area of Los Angeles, the tour includes:

• The iconic LAX Theme Building, with access to its observation deck for the first time since 2001
• Flight Path Learning Center and Museum at LAX, with a special display of '60s airline uniforms just for tour day
• The former IBM Aerospace Headquarters, designed to resemble a 1960s computer punch card
• St. Jerome Catholic Church, a remarkably intact example of sixties religious architecture
• The Proud Bird Restaurant, a first-rate example of the "destination restaurant" fad popular in the sixties and seventies

The tour is part of The Sixties Turn 50, the Conservancy and ModCom's nine-month program celebrating Greater L.A.'s rich legacy of 1960s architecture. If your organization is holding a sixties-related event between now and June 2010, let us know and we'll add it to our calendar! (E-mail Cindy Olnick at colnick@laconservancy.org).

Click here for tour details and tickets. Hope to see you there!

Free Training for Non-Profits to File New IRS - 10/22/09

From Public Counsel's Community Development Project...

Revised form 990 Seminar offered October 22, 2009

Public Counsel’s Community Development Project is co-sponsoring a free seminar, called “The Revised Form 990 – Preparing For A New World,” on October 22, 2009 from 7:30 AM – 12:30 PM. The seminar will be hosted at the offices of DLA Piper LLP in Los Angeles, 550 South Hope Street, Suite 2300, Los Angeles, CA 90071. As you know, the redesigned IRS Form 990 significantly changes the reporting requirements for many nonprofit organizations. Now, the IRS wants to know in more detail how your organization sets executive compensation and how much it is paying its executives; how it handles potential conflicts of interest; and whether it has a record retention policy, independent directors and a whistleblower policy. This seminar is designed to walk you through all the new requirements so you will be prepared when you have to file the revised form. Please click here for more details, including RSVP information.

*****

SAMPLE FORM 990 POLICIES NOW AVAILABLE

Through the release of the revised Form 990, the IRS indicated its intent to continue its scrutiny of the corporate governance policies and procedures of nonprofit organizations. One of the changes to the new Form 990 is that it includes a new section on corporate governance which asks, among other things, whether the organization has adopted a written conflict of interest policy, a whistleblower policy and a document retention policy. Although not required by tax law, the IRS increasingly views such policies and good governance practices as a means to establishing transparency and ensuring compliance.

Public Counsel’s Community Development Project, with the support of the Annenberg Foundation, has designed a sample conflict of interest policy, whistleblower policy and document retention policy for nonprofit organizations seeking to adopt or amend such policies and the pro bono attorneys who represent them. These samples are annotated with explanatory endnotes, including citations to applicable laws, alternatives and recommended practices. To access these sample policies, please click on the links below.

Conflict of Interest Policy – www.publiccounsel.org/cdp/coi_policy.pdf
Whistleblower Policy – www.publiccounsel.org/cdp/wb_policy.pdf
Records Management and Retention Policy – www.publiccounsel.org/cdp/records_policy.pdf