ANREP Executive Committee
Meeting
April 22, 2014
3:00 PM – 4:30 PM EDT
Minutes (DRAFT)
Attending: Dana Rizzo (Secretary), Greg Frey (Treasurer), William Hubbard (Executive Secretary), Amy Rowe (Northeast Regional Rep), Sanford Smith (Past President), Peter Warren (Western Region Representative), Kris Tiles (North Central Region Rep.)
Not Attending:Lara Miller (Southern Region Representative), Dean Solomon (President-Elect),Robert Bardon (President), Mindy Habecker (Strategic Planning), Eli Sagor, ANREP rep to the EJI Board, Eric Norland (NIFA Liaison), James Henderson (2014 ANREP Conference Chairman),
Guests: None
Proofreaders: Peter Warren, Kris Tiles
Agenda
1- Roll Call/Introductions - Completed
2 - Additions to the Agenda - None
3 - Approval of April and May 2014 Board Meeting Minutes
Motion by Frey to approve April 22, 2014 Minutes.Second by Warren. Motion approved.
Motion by Frey May 18, 2014 Minutes.Second by Tiles. Motion approved.
4 - Updates
•Treasurer's Report- Greg Frey
Balance sheets are posted on the Wiki 2014 Financial page. This can be accessed at any time in order to determine the status of the budget. Balance is down a little bit from before the conference. Checking has $31,200.01. Conference Checking has $6,933.26. Escrow Savings has $31,405.95. And the CD has $17,350.75 for a total of $86,889.97.
JCEP will be sending approximately $13,000 as a follow-up from the Galaxy conference. The reason we didn’t get as much from Galaxy is because they changed the formula. It is based upon membership attending the meeting. They are also looking into an alternative to Galaxy for the future.
The silent auction grossed about $978. This is about the same as the conference in North Carolina. After PayPal took their share the net is $960.
The finance committee needs one more person. There needs to be a total of three people according to the bylaws. There are two people so far. Tiles fulfills the requirement of having a board member on the committee. Frey hopes to have the committee in place for July to begin work on the budget.
•Executive Secretary’s Report - Bill Hubbard
Hubbard received a letter in the mail that was dated early May that the IRS has reinstated ANREP’s non-profit status and was retroactive to the date we lost it two years ago. We need to have a CPA/tax accountant in the budget for each year to be sure we are up-to-date on everything. Hubbard is willing to accept suggestions for other CPA’s/tax accountants that might be more responsive than the one that we are currently using.
Smith – Question about new members as a result of the meeting in California. Hubbard is unsure. Frey indicated there were a couple of new student members and some folks renewing.
•NIFA Update - Eric Norland
Not in attendance.
•Biennial Conference - James Henderson
Not in attendance.
•Strategic Planning – Mindy Habecker
Not in attendance.
Frey – 80 out of 300 members responded to the original survey.
Regional reps received a request to prod the members in their region to participate in the follow-up survey. The regional reps requested the number of folks, by region, that responded.
•Professional Development – Lara Miller
Not in attendance. (See her update under Regional Rep Update).
•2016 ANREP/NACDEP Conference - Sandy Smith/Dean Solomon
(Solomon not in attendance, report sent via email)
Solomon currently attending the NACDEP conference representing JCEP in Grand Rapids.
Good conference so far, quite similar to the way we do ours. Late this afternoon they broke into regional meetings - looked like a good way to solicit input from members (they also do regional awards). Regional meetings might be something to consider for the 2016 conference.
Discussions are going well with NACDEP for the 2016 conference. Solomon will be meeting with their board Wednesday afternoon to get to know them and talk about the conference. He would like to get a better feel for how we might organize the conference planning committee - a bit trickier with two organizations. Right now we are waiting for a draft conference facility contract that we (ANREP, NACDEP, UVM) are getting help with from a Burlington conference planner to negotiate. The idea will be for both organizations to jointly sign the document once we are satisfied with it. Our next scheduled conference call with NACDEP and UVM is on July 15.
•Regional Rep Update
Southern Regional Rep Update – Lara Miller
Below is Miller’s regionalupdate regarding her role as Southern Regional Rep and Chair of the Professional Development Committee submitted via email prior to the meeting:
Miller has been working to establish state champions for the 15 states/territories within her region. Below is the current list she has:
State / Contact / EmailAlabama
Arkansas
Florida / Ken Gioeli /
Georgia / Amanda Tedrow /
Kentucky
Lousiana
Mississippi / John Kushla /
North Carolina / Diana Rashash /
Oklahoma
Puerto Rico
South Carolina
Tennessee
Texas / Heather Wade /
Virgin Islands
Virginia / Jennifer Gagnon /
Virginia / Adam Downing /
She thinks these folks will play a critical role in the future of ANREP based on much of the discussion and ideas she heard at the Strategic Planning session. Many of these states/territories do not have any ANREP members or very few based on the list Bill Hubbard sent her at the beginning of this year. She reached out to the following states in hopes of recruiting new members: Arkansas (two members), Louisiana (one member), Oklahoma (no members), Puerto Rico (no members), Tennessee (no members), and the Virgin Islands (one member?). Miller began with Oklahoma and actually reached out to each county office, but that quickly became a tedious process so she found the Directory of State Extension Service Directors and Administrators online at: and sent the remaining states an email in hopes maybe one would actually be read/opened. Below is the email she sent:
Dear Dr. Tony E. Windham,
My name is Lara Miller and I am the Natural Resources Agent for UF/IFAS Extension in Pinellas County, Florida. I am also the Southern Regional Representative for the Association of Natural Resource Extension Professionals (ANREP). As the Southern Regional Representative, I represent 15 states in the southern portion of the United States. Part of my role as a member of the ANREP Executive Board is to recruit and retain ANREP members.
As I was reviewing my list of members in each state of the South Region, I noticed that we only have two members from the state of Arkansas. ANREP is a national association for Cooperative Extension Service (CES) professionals working in environmental education, fisheries, forestry, wood sciences, range, recreation, waste management, water, wildlife, and related disciplines. Members are active and retired CES employees at the county, area, state, or national level. I would encourage you to share this email with your Natural Resources Agents and support them in their consideration of becoming a member of our Association.
As an ANREP member Agents have many opportunities to assume leadership roles and at the same time interact with Extension peers working in the natural resources field from across the country. ANREP hosts biennial conferences in which members have an opportunity to showcase their work through the submission of abstracts and awards. Our annual membership is very affordable, only $45 and Agents can join ANREP online today:
If any of your agents have any questions about ANREP or becoming a member, please have them contact me via email or phone at my contact information below.
Thank you!
Northeast Region Update – Amy Rowe
She has been reaching out to folks and working to see that all states have champions. She is also working to get our representation up in the northeast and will keep us posted.
Western Region Update – Peter Warren
No update.
North Central Region Update – Kris Tiles
Tiles would like a spot on the next agenda to discuss the Communications Committee including who the members are, what their role is and to discuss the web site.
5 - Open Announcements / News Items
Smith – Joint Regional Meeting in 2015 - In PA we are still considering doing a joint regional meeting with NJ and NY next year.
Smith – Annual elections - The way the elections go in ANREP is that we get nominations in the summer and then have the ballot ready for the September/October timeframe. There will first be an opportunity for self-nominations and then we rely on the current and past board members to suggest folks. We need to be thinking about people for President Elect for 2015, a treasurer, a regional rep for North Central, and a regional rep for North East.
Warren – indicated that there was discussion about splitting the West in two sections.
Smith –Splitting the West regions would not be able to be done this year. At a future board meeting this needs to be discussed. This would need to be approved by the board and then put before the membership for a vote.
Motion made by Warren to have Bardon appoint a committee to look at the potential pros and cons of restructuring the ANREP regions.Second by Tiles. Discussion was had about reviewing how we created our regions in the beginning of the organization. Hubbard believes they are based upon the national extension director regions. Motion passed to have Bardon appoint a committee.
Smith – Asked for volunteers for this committee to get things started. Warren volunteered to be on committee but not to chair it.
6 –Adjourn – Motion to adjourn by Frey. Second by Tiles. Motion approved.
Next Meeting: July 22, 2014 3:00 – 4:30 EDT
Action Items
Name / ActionMembership / Need one more person for finance committee.
Hubbard/Board / Continued search for new CPA/tax accountant.
Bardon / Add Communications Committee discussion to July agenda.
Board/Membership / Need nominations for President Elect, treasurer, North Central rep, Northeast rep.
Bardon / Form a committee to look at potential pros and cons of restructuring ANREP regions, in particular the Western region