MIDTESOL Board Meeting
June 16, 2007
Tan-Tar-A Resort
Attending: Jan Rodriguez, Mary Barratt, Dennis Muchisky, Barb Schwarte, Susan Schindler, Leslie Wolk, Roberta Morgan, Bill Trudeau, Jennifer Johnston, Margaret Silver, Barb Adelman
Call to Order 9:12 a.m.
Approval of Agenda
· Motion to approve-Barb A
· Second—Dennis
Motion Carried
Approval of Minutes
· Motion to approve-Mary
· Second-Susan
Motion Carried
President’s Report—Jan
· Attended TESOL 2007
· Attended Affiliate Assembly, President’s Reception, Annual TESOL Meeting and MIDTESOL Members Mtg.
· Since it’s getting harder to get funding from our own institutions, maybe we could establish a policy to totally fund Vice President
· Proposes: MIDTESOL shall provide 60% of registration, travel expenses, hotel costs for President, not to exceed $1000 and 80% of VP’s not to exceed $1000 to attend annual TESOL Conference
· Margaret—do we need to have some established outcomes for their attendance? A summary of what they attended?
· Barb A—maybe an article for the newsletter
· Mary—agrees they should
· Barb A—let’s discuss under New Business
· Jan—MIDTESOL members event at MIDTESOL—Seattle Highlights Supper Bus Tour—15 members and guests participated—expense of $470.70
· Thanks to Ron Long, we got our tax exemption updated—good until 2009
· We have binders—by October, get binders organized and updated—write down things that would be helpful for the next person coming in—put the tax exempt letter in
· Barb A—please ask Jane Robison to send the Past-President’s binder to her
· Bring binders with you in October
Vice-President’s Report—Mary
· Attended TESOL 2007 in Seattle
· Went to Affiliate’s meeting
· Brainstormed ideas about MIDTESOL
· Discussed how to use website better
· Looked at all other TESOL affiliate’s websites to see what we could use to make ours better
· Mary is in charge of MIDTESOL event in NY City—is looking into some type of tour
· IA is working with Kansas state for K-12 teachers to get ESL endorsement by attending two workshops during the year
Treasurer’s Report—Dennis
· Current balance of $19,200
· There has been miscommunication going on in the last year
· We shouldn’t do joint treasurers in the future
· Confusion about getting receipts to award winners
· Would like us to consider not asking for a receipt—we just present a whole award, instead of a reimbursement and we could give it out at conference
· Bill—how much are the Awards?
· 400, 150, 200
· Bill—thinks it’s a good idea
· Dennis—we present the awards at the conference
· Mary- it would be easier for the winners
· Passed out reimbursement forms for this meeting
·
Motion to accept report--Susan
Second-Mary
Motion carried
Past President’s Report—Barbara
· We have 3 positions to fill for October
· Conference Chair, Vice President and Missouri Member at Large
· Jennifer Johnston will be 2009 Conference Chair
· Need a secretary to replace Jennifer
· Mary Forest has agreed to be MO Rep.
· Need ideas for Vice President
· Checked when other positions will need to be filled
· Maybe Jane Robison as Conference Chair and Jennifer as Vice President?
· Maureen Templeman as Secretary?
· Barb—is trying to get more IA representation on the board
· Mary—suggested Shaylie Santiago
· Jan—suggested looking at the list of people who attended the Seattle MIDTESOL event for ideas
· Barb—wants to get nomination list out soon
· Mary—ICLC Conference in IA—we should recruit their members
Committee Reports
Conference Report 2007—Leslie
· Jan made the brochure, along with Margaret
· Keynote speaker Frank Sharry from National Immigration Reform
· Kay Dickerson will do Pre-Conference workshop
· Leslie—had trouble with printing off labels from membership database
· Bill—using the same form as before
· Bill—will send a set of instructions on how to print labels
· We need references for Tantara before October
· Bill—why do we need them?
· To verify that we are a reputable organization
· Jan—suggests that Tantara give us a letter of recommendation after the conference for the next time
· Leslie should put this letter into her binder for the next person
· Bertie--IA State’s conference center should be able to provide that for us
· They need a name of a person to contact for a reference, not an actual letter
· Dennis—maybe we could ask Lee’s Summit to be a reference
· Cheryl sent a letter that says that Dennis and Don can sign checks for the conference
· Dennis—just leave his name on the letter
· We need to start thinking about door prizes or drawings
· Susan—we usually get things from publishers
· Mary—do we purchase or get donations?
· Jan—we should do a raffle—it could help replenish our funds—we could have drawings throughout the conference
· We can get gift certificates for local restaurants or chain restaurants—Maybe Awards Chair could be responsible for helping out with getting door prizes for the conference
· Barb S—the tickets would include the publisher’s awards and other gift certificates, etc.
· Jan—maybe a prize could be free registration to the next MIDTESOL Conference
· Birdie—do you have groups other than publishers in the exhibitor area?
· Margaret—in addition to publishers, we could invite local vendors interested in selling their products
· The giveaway takes a lot of management
· Jan—if we pass this to the Awards chair, they could be in charge of the raffle event and should work with Leslie to coordinate
· Margaret—we need to watch the timing—the drawing had to be shortened last time
· How much time do we need to allow for the drawings?
· Barb S—we need to let the publishers be aware that it is a raffle, not a giveaway since it is different
· Barb S—we should send out an e-mail in advance asking for donations
· Margaret—it’s on the registration form
· Leslie—we will have tickets for lunch to ensure only registrants will enter
· Margaret—has had an inquiry for an alternate hotel for conference
· Susan—we have to book so many rooms at the event for us to be able to the free conference facilities
· We shouldn’t mention alternatives
· Barb S—how many rooms need to be booked to get our facilities free?
· Bill—it would be helpful to have a way to find a roommate
· Leslie—William could put something on the web to help people connect to find roommates
· Bill—do you think we can have childcare available?
· Barb S—what about the legal issues?
· Jan—suggested asking Tantara about daycare
· Margaret—approached Frank Sharry to participate in order to appeal to a broader audience
Conference Report 2008—Katya
· Not attending
· E-mailed report to Jan
· Jan encouraged Katya to invite Jon Segota or Jim Cummins as a guest speaker
· Barb A—we need to change the date of our conference-
· Dates: Oct. 24-25, 2008
· Barb S.--Jim Cummins will be at IA conference in Feb. and he is difficult to get in touch with
· Margaret—Jon Segota is good about corresponding so he would be good
· Mary—will contact Katya about getting Jon Segota to come
· Mary—should we invite Minnesota TESOL since it is so far north
· Conference at Buena Vista University in Spirit Lake, IA in Northwest IA
· Theme is Bright Futures, which is also the motto of the university
· We will get on-campus rates
· Jan—Leslie has helped a lot with the conference
Membership—Bill
· Currently 350 members
· Get between 10-15 returned newsletters for inactive addresses
· Haven’t done anything yet with interest groups
· At last board meeting, we decided to put people into interest groups
· The new membership form does not match the database that we currently have, so we need to redo it
· Database only has one mailing address—needs a backup address
· Recommends redesigning the membership form
· Currently on database there is an original date and date of renewal, but every time someone renews, their original date disappears, so would like to change database to see how long people have been members
· Dennis--thinks that Bill should redo the membership form and present it to the board
· Barb A—suggests that people choose one primary interest group
· Barb S—let’s have primary and secondary interest groups
· TESOL has a way for people to update membership information on the web—wants to know if people can use our website to update information—needs to ask William
· Jan—even now there isn’t an on-line application
· Bill—are we technically able to do that?
· Jan—please contact William about the possibility of using the web for membership application/updates
· Margaret—could we approach TESOL for help?
· Jan—some of the forms we’ve had in the past have asked if people are interested in becoming a board member
· Bill—would like to send out a mailing and ask people to update/correct it? Do we have money to do that?
· Jan—update information before conference with a disclaimer—this has been updated until Sep. 30
· Bill—the information collected from registrations at last conference didn’t match the information needed for the membership database—suggests having people fill out a whole membership form at the conference
· Bill—would like to do a directory to hand out at the conference
· Bill—asks approval for doing a membership update mailing—everyone agrees
· Birdie—it would be nice to have an electronic membership directory if we can do it by password protection
Awards--Stuart
· Not attending
Publishers Liaison—Margaret
· 5 inquiries from outside the ESL field for exhibitors
· Wants to verify the same rates as last time--$95 per table; $75 for additional tables; $50 for extra exhibit space
· Last year we offered to sell space in the conference program
· Jan—at TESOL they have Gold, Silver, etc. supporters—then we can have a Power Point streaming presentation advertising the exhibitors
· Dennis-what’s the problem with people putting ads in? If they want to advertise something additionally, we should be able to charge—we would have to decide on rates
· Margaret—do the exhibitors get free meals?
· Barb S-they get up to two per table
· Margaret—is the price of the table o.k.? Should we go ahead and let them know they can buy space?
· Jan—prices remain the same and each exhibitor gets two luncheon tickets
· Leslie—how many extra lunches do we budget in?
Webmaster—William
· Not attending
Newsletter—Jennifer M
· Not attending
Rules and Resolutions—Roberta
· Distributed an amendment to the constitution that says that three executive board members must be members of TESOL
· Barb—not sure it’ll work because how do we decide which three?
· Jan—someone would need to be in charge of making sure that we have at least 3 members—probably President or Vice President
· Barb A—VP has to be a member because he/she is the liaison
· Dennis—you can say 3 members, including President and Vice-President
· Mary—is there a way of offering financial support for this?
· Jan—we have to make sure that Pres and VP have to be members in advance to get the TESOL discounted rate
· Barb S—we know that the VP and Pres need to be members anyway, so let’s specify the two
· Mary—how are you going to enforce this?
· Barb A—you have to send in a report to TESOL stating which 3 members are members of TESOL
· Birdie—do we have a headcount of who currently is a member
· Bill—we shouldn’t specify who
· Barb S—I don’t think we’ve ever had a problem with having 3
· Birdie—do we want to put this requirement in the constitution or as a job requirement?
· Barb A—in the job description of VP, it needs to say be a member of TESOL
· Jan—we do have a free membership available for a person who has never been a member of TESOL
· Mary—we can offer a free membership of TESOL
· Birdie—we should change the by-laws to reflect these changes
· Barb A—we need to request that our board members be a member of TESOL
· Barb A—we will need to amend the by-laws so that the description of the Vice President includes being a TESOL member
· Jan—we have to vote on this at the membership meeting
Motion to accept the proposed changes to the constitution as written in Birdie’s report—Dennis
Second—Barb A
Motion carried
· Birdie—the amendment changes in the past haven’t been clearly marked
· Jan—amend your job description so that it includes this
Sociopolitical Concerns—Barb S
· Has some student projects to give William to put on the website
· Hopes to do a session about advocacy but not sure exactly what yet
· Jan—has policy statements from TESOL and thinks we should look them over and possibly adopt them
· Barb S—let’s look at them at the next board meeting
· Jan—they might be good to put on our website after we adopt them
Historian—Susan
· Has looked through all of the past information and sorted through it and weeded things out
· Minutes, financial reports, etc., are already kept by secretary and treasurer, so do we need to keep these?
· Jan—are we going to have a display of photos at the conference?
· Birdie—used to work in an archive—maybe we could store it in a university archive just in case
· Susan—should I go through it again and get rid of the personal notes, but keep everything else?
· Needs to get photos back to get them organized and will bring them to the conference
· Barb S—2008 is our anniversary so we need to publicize it
· Conference chair should work with historian on publicizing this
· Margaret—has some other historical documents to add; wonders how other organizations keep their historical documents together
· Barb A—it would be interesting to pull out the Pat on the Back winners from the past
· Jan—it might be fun to have a membership campaign for our anniversary year
Iowa Report—Sarah
· Not attending
Missouri Report—Sheila
· Not attending
Interest Section Chairs—Cathy (K-12), Suzanne (IEP), Sandy (Adult Ed/CC), Francie (Higher Ed/TT)
· Not attending
Old business
a. Letterhead
· Jan—passed it out; we can use it for documents we need to send out
b. Promotional Brochure
· Jan—we’ve been working on it for a few years
· Susan—it has stalled; Jane Robison has the information
· Jan—would be willing to work on a publication that we could have ready for the conference—Mary will help out
· Bill—did we decide not to include the Membership chair on the letterhead?
New Business
· Jan—Don has resigned—he sent it by e-mail; a record of the e-mail went to the Historian
· Jan—in Seattle, met with OKTESOL representative; he informed us that their conference will be the weekend before ours—would like to trade announcements in each of our newsletters
· Mary—we should work together with all neighboring states to help advertise each others conferences
· Jan—Bill can put those on our labels so that they get sent out automatically
· Barb A—we should contact their webmasters
· Jan—OKTESOL has requested this, but we should also correspond with all other neighboring states
· Mary—we should go through the President first
· Jan—as President, will contact the neighboring states to see if they want to work together more
· Leslie—board meeting in October will be on Oct. 19 9-11:30
· Jan—we reimburse for Thursday night’s stay
Motion that we not require receipts for awards and we just hand out an award check at the conference--Dennis
Second—Bill
Motion carried
· Jan—in the application for the award, we have to ask them to write a newsletter article
· Jan—do we want to support President and Vice-President to attend TESOL
· Barb S—we should definitely support them
· Barb A—can we ask TESOL for support?
· Jan—asked before, but we are not considered in great need by TESOL
· Dennis—we paid $350 last year to support Pres and Vice Pres
· Jan—says we should do it on a percentage basis
· Dennis—last board meeting we agreed to support the interest section leaders to come to the board meeting—we are already spending a lot of money to support the board
· Barb S—it is hard to get board members if you can’t support them to come
· Margaret—should we be looking at what percentage of our income we are using to support the executive board?
· Dennis—we should look at that before our next meeting
· Dennis—we need to make sure we are getting enough income from publishers, memberships, etc.
· Jan—we charge less than most other affiliates do
· Dennis—proposes we look at the figures at the next board meeting to decide if we want to provide support for the Pres and Vice Pres.
· Jan--Last year we didn’t give a Pat on the Back award
· Jan—we should give it to William Eubank
· Everyone agreed
· Stuart needs to set that up
Adjournment
Motion to adjourn--Dennis
Second—Barb A
Motion carried