November 2009 Board Meeting Summary

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SUMMARY OF MOTIONS
DETAILS

The meeting was called to order at 5:45 PM.

Present were Bev Anderson, Penni Smith, Wayne Hewlett, and Karen Polastri.  Mike Green called in from Monterey.  A quorum existed.  Laura Niznik, Amy Considine, and Cas Sammanasu were not in attendance. 

M/S/C to approve the September & October minutes.

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

Penni gave the treasurer’s report.  The bank balance is $ 26,111.46.  Uncleared items total $1,647.36, making the actual balance $ 24,464.10.  Support group reserves, included in that balance, are $ $7,715.84.  Therefore, the total in the NCCNA general fund is $ $16,748.26.  She explained that she will need to do rebate credits soon.  She is going to program MAMA to credit the rebates immediately, but had held off with the coding changes pending last month’s rebate decision.  With it postponed, she continued to wait.

She also gave an update on the July fundraising campaign results.  We received one more member since the last board meeting, and we received the $5,000 contribution from Origin.

Contributions  11,104.50
Dues 2009 General  1,185.00  (79 new members!)
Dues 2010 General  1,410.00  (47 of them also paying for the next year)
TOTAL RECEIPTS  13,699.50

The costs of the campaign (printing, handling, postage) totaled $2,079.81, making the net receipts $11,619.69.  253 people responded out of 2,739 letters mailed, giving us an incredible 9% response rate.  (That does not include those who responded by asking to be removed from the mailing list.)  Although we may still receive additional responses, Penni will not give any further updates for this campaign.

Back on fundraising, Penni reported that the diabetes letter went out the last week of October.  So far, we have had only two new members, but both gave beyond the dues, enough to almost pay a third member.  There were some negative responses as well, and it may be that the list was not what it purported to be.

The November fundraising letter went to the mailer the morning of the meeting.  There were just some very minor changes made from what was sent for review. 

Penni gave the membership update.  Currently, we have 844 members.  771 of them still need to renew for 2010.  Last year at the end of October we had 674, so we are up 25%.  In early October 2007 (the closest 2007 date), we had 429, so we have almost doubled in two years.

Bev gave a strategic planning update.  Penni will pull the survey data off the database after returning from her vacation.  Bev has paired up people for each subject.  The pair will have all the information from the strategic planning day, and the survey data.  They will come up with goals and objectives based on what they have.  Bev will be consulting with health care people to get ideas for the health care community outreach section.

On Saturday, December 5, there will be an extended meeting at Sandra Vinson’s house to put everything together.  Sandra will also serve lunch.   

We discussed sending the $3,000 that was budgeted for research to the Mary Ann Donovan Research Fund at TNA.  We have discussed this periodically in the past.  We want to support research, and are unable to fund projects directly, so contributing through TNA seems one way we can do that.  We have not done so previously due to a variety of concerns. 

We looked again at the budget, especially the projected end of year income and expenses.  The projections Penni made show that we will have $6,500 more in expenses this year than income.  The projection does include sending the $3,000, but our budget may not support that amount.  We decided that we will revisit the subject at the next meeting.

The topic of the Neuropathy Awareness Week in May was mentioned briefly.  We need to have a committee on publicity and promotion to consider ways to promote the week.

Wayne talked about a grant he was working on an application for.  He explained that he was trying to create a template of basic data and information that he could use for any grant.  There was an extensive discussion about grants and what we might do to get them.

We brought up the proposal to hire part time help.  This time of year—with membership renewals coming in—there will be a lot of data entry needed, but other times there is hardly any.  We could not promise someone a certain number of hours a week or have a set schedule.  Still, there might be someone willing to be an independent contractor on an as-needed basis.  We discussed how much time might be involved, and debated whether we could afford it.  M/S/C to hire part time help to do data entry during renewal period up to 20 hours at $10 an hour. 

Penni reviewed the change made to the Support Group Financial Policy per the comments received.  This was a change to the section about how cash payment for a membership is handled at the support group level.  The section now indicates that a member should pay by check or money order, and removes the directive that the support group leader take the cash and write a check to the organization.  That was considered an unfair request now that groups don’t have bank accounts, as it required that NCCNA funds be mingled with someone’s personal account.  Therefore, that section was changed.  This was a fairly minor change, so the policy could be adopted without a new comment period, or the board could elect to put it out for comment again.  M/S/C to adopt the policy with the revision.  M/S/C to adopt the reimbursement form procedures, which were not altered, nor had any comments been received.

We then discussed what to do with the rebates and some groups’ need for greater financial support.  After last month’s meeting, a new proposal for an activity supplement was sent around for consideration by the board members.  Under this proposal, the rebate would be left as is, so there is a base on which all groups are treated equally.  The activity supplement works the same way as the rebate, being a percentage of dues and applied as dues are received.  There is specific criteria to determine what level of supplement a group is eligible for.  We also examined continuing to offer help for specific needs, or opting to cover certain expenses.  We noted we could do the activity supplement for a year, and then see how it was working.  M/S/C to approve the activity supplement with some minor changes.

Penni & Bev will craft a letter to explain the activity supplement in detail, and will also make phone calls to the group leaders.

We postponed any discussion of other policies.

We passed out a draft of the professional membership brochure for people to review and comment. 

The meeting adjourned at 8:00 PM.