NAI Region VI Board of Directors Meeting Minutes

March 20, 2007, 9 a.m. CDT

Conference call

 

 

Welcome, roll call

“Present” were:

Dana Hoisington, Kelly Farrell, Cyndi Cogbill, Tara Tucker, Jay Schneider, Sara Keating, John Miller, Teresa Randall webmaster Lisa Cole, Laura Motley, Don Simons, Neil Garrison,

Jay Miller.

 

Some noted it was their first conference call. To help those individuals and to keep order with such a large group, Kelly reviewed conference call procedures:

·         Listen and let others talk,

·         Try to avoid repeating comments others have already said,

·         ID yourself every time you talk,

·         Keep on agenda (which was emailed ahead of time).

 

 

Reports:

 

Officers:

·         Director (Kelly Farrell)

o        Welcome new members of board (Cyndi Cogbill – membership, Teresa Randall – webmaster)

o        Reminder top view/use “leadership resources” on www.InterpNet.com

o        Region remains in good standing. Report card shows no red flags. Last year we had two yellows, those have been corrected by having 2 board meetings per year and updating our strategic plan.

o        National board update: Attended national board meetings in Albuquerque, NM (November) and Golden, CO (February). NAI finished last year in the black as an organization. There have been business changes in how we balance credit and revenue during the year. Contact Tim Merriman if you have questions.

o        Regional Leadership Council (RLC) update: Kelly attended an RLC conference call last week. Noted some regions are really struggling with conference attendance.

o        National workshop update: Reminder, to be held in Wichita November 6-10, 2007. Call for papers deadline is April 3. Good showing expected. Teresa asked about content and categories as for papers Kelly explained the different tracks. Committee in place including Pat Silovsky, Shea Lewis, Amber Mascuilli, and Jim Mason. Committee made site visit in February; looks ideal for workshop.

o        National strategic plan: In Colorado, national board worked on list of visions and directions for interpretation. Task force in place to move forward to work on the plan drafts.

o        Reminder, international NAI workshop in Vancouver next week. Jay Miller attending and presenting. Check out NAI websites.

 

·         Deputy Director (Sarah Keating)

o        Gathering photos for the R6 exhibit update. Still needs more photos of interpretation in action, regional awards, etc. Send to Sarah. Deadline end of April. Don’t compress jpegs. The higher the resolution the better.

 

·         Treasurer (Jay Schneider)

o        End of 06 newsletter rebate should be about $3000.  $17,542.78 checking; is down. Janus fund $19,542.11. Kelly noted there are not many expenditures or revenue coming in this time of year, Jay agreed. What we get from NAI for the National Conference will be $2000 or 10% of net profit, whichever is greater.

 

·         Secretary (Dana Hoisington)--Nothing to report.

 

State coordinators:

·         Arkansas (Jay Miller)

    • Not much new to report since AR news is in upcoming VIsions.

 

·         Kansas (Brian Underwood) – absent.

 

·         Louisiana (Dave Latona) – absent.

 

·         Missouri (John Miller)

    • Biggest thing is that MO will be having their state Association of Missouri Interpreters conference in August in the Joplin area. AMI is a Chapter of NAI. Chanda Regier is the committee chair.
    • John remains national awards chair. National awards nominations are due by May 31. Nominate fellow region 6ers. Kelly mentioned that we have had several winners from Region 6 in past few years.

 

·         Oklahoma (Neil Garrison)

    • As state coordinator, hard to get busy people to send stuff in. Neil wrote fake stuff up and told them not to worry about it. He wrote articles relating bigfoot sightings on night hikes, and other nonsense stuff, and sent those to the people to edit. He got lots of responses after that.
    • Neil recently received an email from mayor of OKC, challenging all city employees to be more physically fit, It asked them to commit to do more walking. Free pedometers were given out for month of Feb. He entered and he won! Yeah Neil!!! Neil walked 144 miles in February and won a free dinner with the mayor.

 

·         Texas (Tara Tucker)

    • Liked Neil’s idea about getting articles submitting,
    • Wrote new folks letters to get them involved, getting more info for VIsions. Contacted national office to get list of new member’s names. Kelly noted she’s heard from others on RLC that many state coordinators find it hard to get information from their state.

 

 

Chairs:

·         Membership (Cyndi Cogbill)

o        Thanks for having her in the position.

o        Working with Jamie King so that new members get a letter from her and from Kelly. Trying to use information in the letter that is not on the web. Has not worked on renewing members yet, most renew anyway without reminder.

 

·         Elections (Don Simons)

o        Due to staggering of officer terms, elections will be every year.

o        This will be our first year to do electronic elections, right now it’s looking like $.59 per member via email. Non-email users will receive paper ballot.

o        Kelly brought up an issue about staggered elections. Initially, Jay and Kelly volunteered to take 3 year term to keep longevity of leadership and start the stagger elections. Turns out that was bad—there is a national elections policy indicating that certain regions elect director in certain years.  Need to change to put director back on 2 year term and extend three year terms to deputy and secretary. Sarah noted that she attended the RLC with Kelly as an observer and heard all this. She advised we bring this back up in new business and correct it.

 

·         Awards (Laura Motley)

o        Deadline extended to May 15. Originally 3 nominations. A few more have come in. Most are from a couple of states. Considering going electronic in future. Thinks we can allow for hard copy to come in as well. We will recognize winners at Tulsa, Wichita and in Visions. Laura encouraged people to nominate people and send in the nominations.

o        Lisa commented that it’s hard to nominate because there are no other NA members at her site. Can we amend it so recipients don’t need to be an NAI member? Kelly will look into that, we may make a new category or discuss. There are pros and cons both ways.

o        Cyndi noted that when she was awards chair, she tried to do them electronically as much as possible, but had trouble and some need to have hard copy. Don said the nomination form is not very user friendly--hard to fill in electronically. Kelly thought we could go to a web form that will have fields to fill in instead of a form to fill out. Teresa agreed that with some time she could probably do that.

 

·         Scholarships (Amy Stephens—absent)

o        Kelly gave report since Amy is in Africa due to winning a contest for zoo fundraising for rhino protection. “Bowling for Rhinos.”

o        There were 7 applicants to committee this spring. In addition to the scholarship they get their registration paid to attend.

o        Someone asked do students need to be an NAI member to apply? No

 

·         Newsletter (Lisa Cole)

o        Chugging along, she does layout and Pam does mailout.

o        Will work with officers to put together special issue on the values of NAI membership.

o        Spring issue at the printer now.

 

·         Website (Teresa Randall)

o        If anyone has photo of Brian Underwood or Dave Latona email to her for the website board contact page.

o        Do we want to show the strength of our network in the form of a map or roster of members?

o        To make it easier for people to submit information to state coordinators she could develop an online form to fill out that would go straight to the state coordinators and they get a little reward for their submission. Tara mentioned what John Miller does with the AMIgo newsletter, where there is a mystery person in the lead article and prizes are awarded for the first responses on identifying the mystery person.

 

·         2008 regional workshop (Neil Garrison, Laura Motley)

o        2008 in Tulsa last weekend in Feb. Workshop dates are Feb. 24-27, 2008.

o        Need strong involvement from Tulsa area and Eddie Reese for one is stepping up. After the holidays Neil went to Tulsa to check things out and see facilities. Good feeling about the way the conference is coming about. Now where in Tulsa? Neil tried to keep it central and sexy to grab people’s attention. The hotel near airport has bad conference facilities but is close for air travel, the zoo, and Oxley Nature Center. We could transport with busses/vans to the Education Center at the zoo and have the sessions there. Air and space museum nearby. Coming together well. Laura Motley is a co-chair.

o        Teresa asked about how many come to workshops, generally around 100-120. 

 

 

 

 

New business:

 

Elections:

·         Sarah proposes switching 3-year term to secretary and deputy instead of treasurer and director.

·         Sarah Keating makes a motion to elect director and treasure in the 2007 election. Seconded by John Miller. No further discussion. Question called.

·         Motion passes. Officially we are back in good standing with national elections policy.

 

2009 regional workshop:

·         Kelly tried to contact Dave Latona for discussion, was unsuccessful. 2008 is actually the year for Louisiana to host, but was switched with OK due to last year’s hurricanes and low membership in LA. Kelly’s heard that Dave has been working with Gay Brantley (USF&W) and is still planning on having it in Louisiana in 2009. If LA can’t put the workshop on, it will move to MO for 2009. Deputy director’s responsibility is to monitor workshops--Sarah will get with them and get a decision soon. Past Louisiana workshop was in Baton Rouge and was successful.

·         The director can give out two free memberships per year and may do so in LA this year to allow more people from Louisiana to put on workshop and/or attend.

 

 

Closing:

 

Kelly thanked Paul Caputo for arriving early in the national office to initiate our conference call. Thanked everyone for their time and participation and asked for a motion to adjourn.

 

Motion to adjourn by Teresa Randall, Lisa Cole seconded. Motion carried.

 

Meeting adjourned at 10:10 a.m.