Principles:
Lone Star Santas (LSS) is for men and women who live in Texas, and portray Santa Claus, Mrs. Claus, Elves and helpers. We believe in the Santa Claus Oath.
Our Mission:
It is the mission of Lone Star Santas to spread Love, Hope, Joy, and the Spirit of Christmas throughout the world, and to thereby enrich the Santa experiences of children of all ages, faith traditions, and ethnic origin.
Our Core Values:
Enhancing the spirit of Santa Claus and Christmas through training, guiding, and otherwise mentoring the ladies and gentlemen that preserve and advance this spirit; Our major value is for Lone Star Santas to conduct themselves in a manner that brings honor and respect to the persona of Santa, Mrs. Claus, Elves and helpers.
Our Goal:
Lone Star Santas strives to provide a forum of fellowship for the exchange of ideas, networking, helping each other, and for just general camaraderie. Our plan is to get together a few times a year to meet and greet and break bread with each other. As part of this, a repository of contact and personal information will be maintained to help fellow Santas to locate each other, to fulfill Santa gig requests, and to communicate LSS information to all members.
Our Organization:
Our original intent was to have neither officers nor dues. However, for a volunteer and fraternal and charitable [501(c)(3)] organization to survive and function; we found that there needed to be some form of leadership and some form of maintaining a small coffer to help defray the expenses that might occur (web-site, name-tags, membership cards, meeting room rental, postage and paper).
Therefore:
Management of Lone Star Santas is accomplished by a Board of Directors and Officers. The Board is all-volunteers, originally elected by a quorum of members. The Board may include any Santa, Mrs. Claus, or Elf in good standing. Ideally, the Board will have members from North Texas and from South Texas. The Board’s Executive Director may nominate members or outside people (to expand the scope) to be on the Board. The Board will then vote on these nominations. Additionally, as a Board member can be elected by fellow Board members, he/she may be removed by a quorum at any time.
The Board of Directors will be responsible for the following:
(1) The Board will assume and share in the typical organizational type functions of President, Vice-President, Secretary, and Treasurer.
(2) The primary responsibility of the Board is to plan and set up the various get-togethers, known as an Eatin’ Meetn’, major functions such as Statewide Santa Roundup’s at least once a year, and coordinate LSS presence at national Santa Conventions. Moneys collected, through either dues or the passing of the hat, will be used only for supporting these meetings. Moneys will not be used to defray travel expenses nor room and board for any member.
(3) Since Lone Star Santas has become a 501(c)(3) and is officially known as Lone Star Santas Charities, Inc. and since our charitable mission is known as ‘Convoy of Toys’®; the Board’s secondary responsibility is to coordinate and execute the collection and distribution of toys and monetary donations to support our Mission of providing Love, Hope, Joy, and Toys all Wrapped Up in a BIG Santa Hug directly to Children and Families affected by natural disasters in and around the State of Texas.
(4) The Board will maintain a Website/Database. The Board will be available and on call to the membership to share this information. None of this information will be sold or distributed to sources outside of the membership of the LSS. All members of the LSS will abide by this one rule.
(5) The Website/Database will provide a Find-A-Santa webpage that may be used to list Santas in good standing available for an appearance. LSS will promote the Find-A-Santa page to the general public. This Find-A-Santa webpage is designed to provide potential clients a means to locate a Santa for their event. Each of our professional Santas is an independent contractor for hire. Lone Star Santas, Inc. or Lone Star Santas Charities, Inc. organization does not act as an agent and does not accept agent commissions. Santas within LSS will not use this list to act as a paid agent for another Santa … but, will only provide a potential client the name, phone number, and/or email address of a Santa(s) to allow the potential client to pick and choose the Santa of his/her choice.
(6) The Board will provide some type of periodic communication to the membership. This may be in the form of email, our LSS interactive web-site, or newsletter. All members are encouraged to use this site and to complete the information requested on the website. Unfortunately, our communication will only be via electronic means as regular mail is time-consuming and expensive. So, we encourage and expect members to at least have access to an email account.
Membership to Lone Star Santas:
1) Membership Application is available here.
2) $50 per year covers the whole family … payable through our website.
3) Annual Background Check: Available on our website for $9.95
Why join LSS or any Santa Claus Membership Organization?
The principle reason for joining a fraternal Santa organization is to share experiences with your brother Santas, Mrs. Claus’, Elves and anyone seeking the Spirit of Christmas. It is in coming together as brothers and sisters that we can truly begin to know the real “Heart of Santa”. Within this heart lies one of the world’s most beloved characters, full of wit and wisdom, and Love. Through one another we can learn to understand the unbridled kindness, generosity and unconditional Love that Santa Claus personifies. Love is the essence of Santa and it does not flourish in isolation.