May 2010 Board Meeting Summary

A PDF copy of this summary is available.  Find out more about using PDF files.

NCCNA Board Meeting Summary for May 25, 2010, which was held at 950 Glenn Dr., Suite 150, Folsom, CA.

SUMMARY OF MOTIONS
DETAILS

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

Present were Bev Anderson, Karen Polastri, Penni Smith, Wayne Hewlett, Katri Kehraevuo, and Arvin Magusara were present, as was candidate Yuliana Wiseman. 

Bev Anderson introduced Yuliana Wiseman, who gave us a little background about herself.

M/S/C to approve April 6 report.

Omar MoheyEldin, accepted as a board member at the last meeting, reconsidered his ability to give us sufficient attention, and elected not to remain on our board.  M/S/C to accept Omar’s resignation.

Amy Considine has also been unable to participate as a board member.  She did not formally resign.  M/S/C to accept a tacit resignation from Amy and remove her from the board.

Bev discussed the president’s report.  She had an item in it that needed board attention.  One of the speakers at the upcoming NAAD will be mentioning three books in his talk.  He wanted them to be available for people to purchase that day, should they desire.  He is providing us with the books at no charge, and we can sell them and keep the proceeds.  The books have publishers’ prices ranging from $13-20, and are available from Amazon from $11.35 to $14.36.  We discussed various pricing options, and decided to have one price for every book.  M/S/C to sell each book for $12. 

We discussed Anodyne and Healthlight.  Bev has been talking with representatives from both companies.  They are discussing offering a discount.  Penni and Bev explained to the other board members what the devices do and how they work.  Some people are helped by the treatment, and some aren’t.  Those that are need ongoing treatment.  Bev will continue working to secure a discount.  Penni asked that all models be involved.

Penni gave the account balances.  On May 24, the bank balance was $33,603.77.  There were eleven checks outstanding, totaling $2,729.96, so the actual balance was $30,873.81.  The support group sub-accounts totaled $12,888.92, so the NCCNA general fund had $17,984.89.  There are no outstanding bills to pay or any deposits pending.

Someone asked some questions about the balancing report.  Penni uses this worksheet as her scratch pad to compute the account balances for the meeting.  A meeting or two ago, she offered to send this report out in conjunction with the meeting if anyone wanted to see it, and a couple board members ask that she do so.  This was never intended to be any sort of report—it’s only a worksheet to compute the balances.  Penni has continued to report the balances in the manner that Dick had.

The conclusion from the discussion was that the board wanted to see more complete financial reports for each meeting.  Penni agreed to produce the workbook she has put out before for each meeting now, until people can get the reports themselves from MAMA.

President Bev Anderson left the room.  Penni submitted a proposal regarding groups led by Bev Anderson. M/S/C to approve transfering the specified contributions from the Bev-led groups.

Bev Anderson returned to the room.

Penni shared that there are currently 757 members, over 100 more than last meeting.
 
Penni explained that she had not been able to draft the letter to the support groups about their excess funds yet.  She is unsure how soon she can get to it, as June will be very busy.  She will do it as soon as she can and send it around for review.

Penni also talked about the fundraising letter.  She has not been able to get to this either, and is having a hard time coming up with ideas.  Bev is going to assist her.  We will be using a slightly different format in order to reduce costs.

Penni had an extensive technology update to provide the board.  She discussed the video program first.  All our existing video is edited except the recordings from the 2008 Neuropathy Action Awareness Day.  This video will probably be edited eventually, but it is not a priority.  We will have the video from the 2010 NAAD to attend to soon.  DVDs have been selling fairly regularly, and we sold about three dozen at the annual meeting.

For a couple years, the board has discussed having online donations, and last year approved setting up an account with PayPal.  Penni has been unable to pursue that due to other priorities.  She now has the account established, and has been working to figure out the best approach to using PayPal.  We aren’t just seeking donations—we want to have online membership, both new and renewal, and online ordering of the DVDs and possibly other material.  She has been exploring the best way to interact with PayPal, whether through their buttons and code or a third party shopping cart.  She had hoped to have this all functional by mid-May, but it didn’t happen.  This has proved to be a very extensive undertaking.  She still needs to add the controls to the appropriate web pages and test everything.  She hopes to have it up shortly.

Penni explained that last year, when she became treasurer, she signed up with an online fax service.  People fax items to the provided number, and Penni receives a PDF file by e-mail of the fax.  The service will expire sometime this summer.  Although the service is reasonably priced on a monthly basis, the reality is that the fax number has hardly been used, and if the price is figured per fax, it is rather expensive.  Someone pointed out that getting something faxed at a store is rather pricey as well.  The fax number does appear on the purchase reimbursement form, and there is no reasonable alternative, so the board decided that Penni should renew the service when it comes up.

Finally, Penni reviewed our e-mail procedure.  If something needs a response from people, the subject line is supposed to say PLEASE RESOND or RESPONSE NEEDED or something like that, and early in the e-mail, the deadline for the response should be listed.  When a response is required, everyone should respond, even if just to say that they don’t have time to review it now or don’t have an opinion.  There should be some response.  In general, when a response is required, a minimum of a week should be provided for the review.

If a quicker response is needed, the subject line needs to say URGENT or ATTENTION.  The e-mail still needs to indicate when a response is due, and everyone should make a response by the deadline.

We recognize that sometimes there can be a lot of e-mail coming through, and people don’t always have the opportunity to read them all.  Having the note in the subject line for items needing a response, especially those that are urgent, allows people to focus their attention on those items first, and save the rest of the items, which may just be information, until later.

Bev shared the survey results from the annual meeting evaluations, which were mostly positive and high scoring.  Then we read through the comments that were given.  Penni asked how we can find the time and energy to get people involved.  It’s not just a matter of getting volunteers.  They have to be contacted, coordinated, and trained.

Penni asked for the impressions of our board members who hadn’t been to one of our annual meetings before.  Arvin said he thought the annual meeting was a great experience.  He would like to see us do more for next year.  He thought the speakers were amazing.  Kat said she got the impression that several people expressed their interest in being more active.  Karen thought the content of the meeting was really good.  She was pleasantly surprised at how people spoke up and that folks seemed to think that NCCNA is a viable organization and don’t want it to go away.

We discussed a little bit about what will be going on at the upcoming NAAD.  We will be selling our DVDs and the donated books.  Karen is already registered.  Wayne and Kat are planning to register, as is Penni.  Bev will coordinate staffing for our table.  TNA is not expected to be involved at all this year.

We discussed the status of the situation with TNA.  Bev passed out a new version of her letter.  We noted several punctuation problems, then made a few suggestions of wording changes.  It finally became to difficult to follow.  Bev will make the suggested changes and send the letter around again before sending it to TNA.

We asked Yuliana if she had any questions, then asked her to leave the room while we discussed her candidacy.  M/S/C to invite her to join the board, which she accepted.

Penni passed out a new copy of the board CD and gave a brief overview of what was on it.  The new board members, including those added last month, needed it, and Bev and Karen would benefit from an updated copy.

Penni asked for a bio and photo from Kat and Yuliana.  She took a photo of Arvin.

We were again unable to work on the strategic plan.  The task to look at it and determine areas to work on remains as an assignment.

The meeting adjourned at 8:00 PM.