April 25th, 2024
Attendees: Andrew Kalloch (President), Kathryn Adair (Treasurer), Sandy Smalley (Secretary), Thomas Hiura, Marilyn Milne, Ralph Pledger, Josh Pugh (intern) Absent: Sally Bell, Miles Pendleton, Marti Ravits
Minutes from the last meeting approved.
President’s Report: Andrew
A recommendation was made to change our bylaws re: Board member numbers. Currently the bylaws state that we have at least 9 members and a maximum of 11 members. A motion was made to reduce the minimum number of Board members to 7 and eliminate the maximum number. Motion was passed unanimously. Andrew led a discussion of the University of Oregon Nonprofit Clinic assessment report. Implementation of recommendations was tabled for now. We need our nominations for new Board members as soon as possible. All Board members should reach out to potential nominees now.
Finance Committee Report: Kathryn
She has changed the finance report to add operating expenses and the percentage of our budget for each item. We are rebuilding our cash cushion and are in the black this month. AARP sponsored two fora. Our insurance has lapsed. Sandy has contacted the manager of the Inn at the 5th re: their coverage for our fora, but has not heard from him. In last month’s minutes, it was reported that PeaceHealth has renewed their sponsorship. This is not the case.
Membership Committee: Ralph
We have 107 current members. Josh and Ralph are going through previous membership lists, and requests to renew are going out soon. Program Committee: Andrew CCE had a second joint meeting with City Club of Springfield. A partnership with them would have mutual benefits and would take some pressure off our Program Committee.
Media Committee: Marilyn
I am struggling with the changes to the Program Committee’s system for producing news releases as well as programs. Lately, we haven’t had content for the website about programs that are less than a week away. That makes it fairly impossible to generate the program’s web page, initiate the social media, write the livestream description for YouTube, spread the word to local media, and develop the weekly program email to our mailing list. I’ll continue to urge the Program Committee to get their content to me several weeks – or more – in advance. Because of the board’s policy decision last month, I do not receive clean news releases. I’ve asked Joel Korin, chair of the Program Committee, to urge the program coordinators to provide clean copy – and to know that whatever they write is what will appear, whether or not it makes sense or is spelled correctly. I have begun adding the caveat about biographies to each speaker’s bio online and on the news release itself. The Chamber of Commerce has been running our ads in their publications. We’ve had good media coverage for our election season programs. I finally got the form software updated on our website. We bought another block of tech time, which is part of our approved yearly budget. I gave the Program Committee Paul Thompson’s checklist for coordinating a remote meeting location. He is definite that he’s ending his role at the end of the program year. The live stream has not been working recently, but our fora are available on YouTube within 24 hours. The advantage of the live stream is that it allows callers to submit questions during the fora. Ralph will look into this. Do we need a third person, and if so, who will it be?
Development Committee: Josh
He is reaching out to our sponsors with both a thank you and a request to renew. He is reviewing our membership lists back to 2022 for renewals. He will present an annual report at the end of May, and is hoping to launch our Annual Campaign July 1. Video testimonials may make a compelling argument for support.
Respectfully submitted,
Sandy Smalley, Secretary
