August 2009 Board Meeting Summary

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SUMMARY OF MOTIONS
DETAILS

The meeting was called to order at 5:50 PM

Bev Anderson, president, Laura Niznik, vice-president, and Penni Smith, treasure-secretary/technology director, were present, constituing a quorum.  Director Mike Green was away on vacation.  Amy Considine, Administrative Director, was unable to attend.  Also present were Wayne Hewlett, Karen Polastri, and Casimir Sammanasu, candidates for the board.

M/S/C to approve July minutes.

Penni explained about the summary she does of the meetings for the website, and asked that everyone review it promptly when it is sent around so that she may post it.

No one had any questions about the president’s report.

Penni gave the treasurer’s report.  The Bank balance is $19,750.09.  Uncleared items total $900.96, making the actual balance $18,849.13.  Support group reserves, included in that balance, are $6,634.43.  Therefore, the total in the NCCNA general fund is $12,214.70. 

Penni gave an update on the fundraising campaign.  She has sent out specific details in e-mails as the mail has been opened, so this was just a supplement.  In general, the response has been very good, with quite a number of members contributing, and many associates--people connected to us in some way, but not yet members--joining.  The exact numbers will be available when everything is entered into MAMA.  We are awaiting a detailed bill from our mailer so we can compare the costs versus the response.

Penni has mapped all the budget items from Dick's categories to the more detailed classifications she will use.  She still needs to get all the payments entered into MAMA, and then she will be able to show a detailed look at the budget versus actual expenses.  She hopes to send this out by e-mail within a couple weeks.  The transition is coming along on schedule--Penni has all along estimated completion by October--but she wishes it were moving faster.

Bev explained what is going on with some of the groups she plans to travel to.  In Truckee, she needs a leadership team.  She has tried a few times to get things started, and the interest is there, but not anyone committed to doing the leadership.  She is visiting Truckee the day after the board meeting.  In Hayward, she had standing room only at her informational meeting, plus calls from people who were unable to attend.  Bev is therefore holding three meetings in San Leandro, Hayward, and Castro Valley in late August.  She thinks there will be at least one or two groups from the three.  In September, she plans extensive travel to visit many existing groups, as she does periodically to provide support and connection.  She is also holding five informational meetings.  She also has a couple trips planned for October.

M/S/C to approve Bev’s travel.

We went over the brochure.  Bev needs to print quite a number of them for Modesto's health fairs and for her travel.  The brochure needs at least some minor updates, but Laura would like to give it a completely fresh look.  After some discussion, we decided that Laura will make some quick changes to satisfy the immediate need of Modesto, particularly moving the form so that the contact information isn’t on the portion that gets sent in, and revising the group list.  Penni suggested we ask Diane, our newsletter editor, to look at the brochures and offer suggestions and bid the re-design, and all agreed.
 
Penni told about the idea she and Bev had about brochures to be given to guest speakers to encourage them to become professional members.  Bev has developed some good text, and Penni will design the brochures shortly.

We took another look at the draft financial policies.  There had been a question at the last meeting about whether it was legal to allow the groups to collect and spend money without having to document it.  Although it may be legally okay, we were still not fully comfortable with the idea.  We debated how much would be a "significant" amount as described in the policies.  Laura noted that if we have 48 groups, if each has $100 each year that is not accounted for, that's $4,800, a significant portion of our income.  We have fiduciary responsibility for the groups, and must report our income and expenses to the IRS, including group receipts and expenditures.  The policy as now written essentially says that no accounting is needed for non-tax-deductible receipts retained by the groups.  Karen contributed that if money could be received and spent without record, it was in essence creating a slush fund.  Furthermore, it gave an opportunity for temptation for someone to "borrow" funds. 

We also discussed about whether the petty cash was a separate fund, and whether two funds were needed.  We discussed the distinction of the documentation required for replenishing the petty cash.  We reviewed the policies--admittedly not final--that had already been sent out earlier.  The financial transition has been difficult for some of the groups, and we don't want to create a burden or add to the confusion.  We noted that this is a matter of protecting everyone involved.  Karen suggested that a conference call, rather than just an e-mail, to explain the new policies might help people accept them.

We decided that Penni would modify the policies to require that all funds be documented.  As she is eager to get them out, she may ask for approval via e-mail, depending on when she can get to them.  She will make an e-mail contact with the groups, as she had planned, but not include the policies at this time.  She will give them a head's up about them, however.

We then looked briefly at the standing rules.  Penni explained the changes to the standing rules and what each document that she had sent out prior to the meeting meant.  Due to time constraints, we did not look at the changes to the standing rules.

We turned our attention to the Strategic Plan Planning Day.  We looked at the schedule Bev had proposed.  We decided that membership and fundraising needed to be separate topics.  Penni compared the list of topics to the general groups in the existing strategic plan.  Everything seems to be covered.  We discussed whether the general session that starts things out might be too long, and the brainstorming session too short.  Karen has done this sort of thing many times, and had some helpful advice, such as how groups might develop ideas and then everyone vote on priorities.  Penni said the schedule for implementation was too aggressive.

We would like to have one board member in each of the breakout groups.  They will be able to provide guidance and information as needed.  Each board member will decide what topic group he or she would like to be in.  Bev will take support groups.  Bev will clarify the topics, adding a description and 3-5 sentences.  Penni and Bev will develop a one page background on each topic that the groups will use.

Laura volunteered to handle the catering.  We will have deli trays with bread and condiments, napkins, utensils, and sodas.  Shriner's is charging $1.60 per person for coffee and water that will be available.  Now that we have a general schedule and plan, Laura will contact facilitators for quotes.

We discussed whether to provide mileage reimbursement for the meeting.  We talked of reimbursing one car per group.  After computing it out, we decided it was not in our budget to do it.  We talked about allowing the groups to offer reimbursement from their accounts.  M/S/C that groups may reimburse their mileage from their own sub-accounts at the rate of 20 cents a mile.

We talked a bit about the drawing we had for memberships at the Neuropathy Action Awareness Day.  We had offered it as a way to get contact information, but it seems that we only had existing members enter the drawing.  All who won were existing members.  We agreed that it was not an effective tool to use at an event heavily attended by our members.  We discussed whether it would be appropriate for the health fairs Modesto is attending.  We agreed they need a drawing of some sort to get contact information, but that most people probably wouldn't be interested in a free membership, so a more attractive offering for the drawing needs to be found.  We are not authorizing gift membership for the Modesto health fairs.

Penni insisted that we review a couple items on the standing rules.  She wanted approval of the definition, particularly of treating each standing rule as an individual item, rather than the collection as a set.  She also wanted approval of the automatic adding proposal.  She had followed these as she prepared the document for the website, and wanted them formally approved.

M/S/C to approve the definition and overview of the standing rules: 

Standing rules are board-approved motions dealing with ongoing matters and which are too small for a full-blown policy or procedure (some may become a complete policy later). Each standing rule is its own item, with its own adoption date. Revisions, additions, and deletions to the standing rules are subject to the procedure for implementing policies, but only for the specific item being revised, added, or deleted.  The standing rules are organized into general categories solely for convenience.

M/S/C to approve this addition:

All approved board motions that pertain to ongoing operations shall be automatically considered part of the standing rules, and will be added according to the procedure for implementing policies.

We then considered the candidates for the board.  Each appeared before the board separately for a brief interview.  Bev and Penni had already met with the candidates.  They had then been invited to attend the board meeting to see how we work and decide whether they would be interested in being a part of us.

Karen Polastri serves as the Executive Director for the Occupational Therapy Association of California.  She has served on a number of boards with various associations, and has a background in marketing, management, and public relations.  Her broad range of experience could really help us as we grow through the next stage in our development.  She does not have neuropathy herself, but is interested in healthcare issues.

Casimir Sammanasu was born in India and received degrees in chemistry and education there.  Since moving to the US, he has lived in Chicago, Texas, and California's bay area before moving to Lincoln.  He does not have neuropathy, but he is diabetic and concerned about the possibility.  He has much project management experience and has done a lot of corporate training.  He may be able to develop training modules for our groups.

Wayne Hewlett has worked almost all his professional life as an engineer with Hewlett-Packard (no relation).  He has masters degrees in finance and computer engineering, and has done most of his work on procurement issues.  He has optical neuropathy, an area we don't know much about.  Wayne was involved in a fundraising effort for Harvard Optical Neuropathy Organization to Restore Sight (HONORs), and personally raised more than $5,300 in pledges by running the Boston Marathon in April 2009.

After the interviews were complete, Penni, Bev, and Laura briefly discussed the candidates, then had M/S/C to accept them all.

All the candidates were available to take the Board Essentials training offered by the Nonprofit Resource Center on August 19.  Penni will also take it, as she has not previously had the opportunity.  Amy Considine will attend another time.  Everyone completed their registration forms and submitted them to Penni to send in.

Penni took photos of Cas and Wayne for the website.  Karen will provide one of her own.

The meeting was adjourned at 8:40 PM.