Region 9 Regional Meeting at the Spring Workshop 2008

March 07, 2008

Eureka, CA

 

The regional business meeting was called to order by Director Alan Kaplan on March 7th, 2008. In attendance were the Regional Board Members: Alan Kaplan, Director, Frank Binney, Deputy Director, Marianne Emmendorfer, Treasurer, Sara M. Skinner, Secretary, Cam Wolff, Scholarship Chair, and Robin Joy, Webmaster/Historian. Also in attendance were the Spring Workshop Chair Carolyn Widner Ward and most of the committee. NAI Executive Director Tim Merriman and NAI President Jim Covel were also in attendance.

 

Items on the agenda (did not get addressed in exact order):

1.      Introduction of Officers

2.      Workshop Committee gratitude

3.      Store Items for Sale

4.      Treasurer’s Report

5.      Scholarship Report, Auction

6.      Next Workshop Locale Discussion

7.      Website/Historian

 

·        Alan Kaplan introduced himself and the other board members that were in attendance. We had 110 registered for last years spring workshop, this year there are 117 on the meal list.

·        Portland, OR is the site of the NAI National Workshop (note name change it is no longer called the National Interpreters Workshop). Please try to nominate Region 9 members for the National awards; we want to have a strong presence at awards night.

·        Alan introduced his membership drive, “Each One Reach One”. Set the goal to get one new person enrolled this year. The membership benefits and categories have been changed; please see the new version in the next issue of Westwinds. We have about 140 members and with a region as large as ours, we really should be much higher. Everyone who gets a new member in the next year does get a $5 break on their membership fees.

·        Election committee needs to be formed by the end of the month. Soliciting officers for all four positions in 2009. Each position needs to have two members running on the ballot, need a slate of candidates, the electronic ballet should be ready to go by August. Nancy Rogers volunteered to be the Election Chair with a committee of Lester Hodgins and Rick Parmer.

·        You need to make sure that the National office has the right email for you; if you checked “do not send emails” then you won’t receive ballots or important information.

·        In 2013 the NAI National Workshop will return to Region 9. Deb Tewell, Events Manager for NAI, is working on locations that can accommodate 800-1600 people. The ideas of San Francisco, Sacramento, and Reno have been put on the table. Please contact her if you have some ideas that can accommodate that large of a group and is in close proximity to an International (or large) airport. Ideas were: Santa Barbara, Visalia, Santa Rosa, Redding, and Oakland.

·        The Spring Workshop for next year is starting to be planned with ideas of: Chico, Marconi Conference Center, Point Reyes, Camp Arroyo

·        Jim talked about the new strategic plan that was adopted by the board in January. You can view and read them on the NAI website. Carolyn suggested the vision that includes supporting and utilizing vigorous research; focusing on using evaluation and management input in the interpretive plans as a key role. Branding interpretation needs to occur, know what we do but not what it is called.  

·        There was a question about the direction of NAI in terms of advocacy since interpretive places seem to be disappearing. How can we work internally to build skills to promote interpretation in organizations?  This requires a different skill set than many of us are used to utilizing. We need to get message out to local groups, what is legal/appropriate without lobbying?  NAI is moving to help state park interpretive associations to advocate.

·        Tim discussed the change in membership levels a bit more. NAI is losing members due to money. So, they restructured a simpler grid so that everyone will get the Interpreter. They are moving the Interpretive News to ecopy. The main things that are driving up prices are postage and insurance. The grid is fairer, so that the Prof/Institutional memberships are subsidizing as much. NAI is looking at markets for the Legacy magazine so that the number of requests can get up to 100,000 copies to attract large advertisers.

·        Auction-Marianne mentioned that the auction gained about $2000 for the fund. Cam stated that the scholarship fund sits at about $4200. There may be 2-3 scholarships given for Portland.

·        Mary Loan is doing an excellent job with Westwinds. She extended deadline to April 1st to accommodate information regarding the spring workshop.

·        Robin-Webmaster-please take some time to review the website. She still wants pictures, please mail them to her on a cd, DO NOT EMAIL THEM. Historian-she showed the box of historical records that she has archived and organized. If you have items please contact her. She needs history from the elders; these files date to 1982.

·        Ideas for nominations for the complimentary memberships.  Region 9 gives to of these a year to members.

·        Frank Binney-mentioned that we want to try to more one day workshops or site visits. Learn what parks do, behind the scenes, etc.

·        A large thank you to the workshop committee for this workshop, Humboldt State University, California State Parks, National Park Service, Redwood Chapter of Interpreters, and Redwood National and State Parks.

 

·        Meeting adjourned at 11:45 a.m.

 

Minutes respectfully submitted by Sara M. Skinner, March 29th, 2008.