Arizona AER Board of Directors Meeting

Arizona AER Board of Directors Meeting

Monday, January 12, 2015 4:30 p.m.

MINUTES

Attendance: Becky, Christine, Ruth, Sandra, Diane, Jenny, Anna

Absent: Rajiv, Sunggye, Tamara, Joanne

1.Call to Order: 4:36

2.a. Approval of Minutes from September 15, 2014 - approved

b. approval of October 20, 2014 minutes - approved

3.President's Report

There have been several board members who have mentioned the overabundance of emails. It's important that we operate as an efficient board by using our committees and doing our duties as outlined in our bylaws and Policies and Procedures manual. The budget we approve dries the work the committees do. Not every decision needs to be a complete board decision. If the committees do the work they are assigned to do they can communicate to the board their progress in a concise manner and if there is something that needs to be voted on they can prepare a precise argument and voting is streamlined.

a. Bylaws - look to the bylaws first to know your responsibilities then go to the PPM for details. If you are doing someone else's job, develop a plan to smoothly transition that to the person whose responsibility it is.

b. Policy and Procedures Manual - Jenny will send one she has begun working on. Each person will go through their section and make recommended changes. These changes need to be sent to Diane for compilation by January 31. She will then send the complete proposed revised manual to the board in time for voting at our February meeting.

c. Committees - Everyone will send two choices for committees to Sandra. She will then make the appointments to those committees. The goal is to have no more than 5 people on any one committee. Vacancies will be filled by the general membership to get them more involved in the organization. You do not have to be on a committee to assist in the work of that committee. You might be assigned a job by the committee but are not required to attend every committee meeting. If you are assigned to committee in the bylaws then you must choose those first. Sandra will resend the list and ask that people get their choices to her by Jan 31 so she can complete the appointments before the February meeting.

d. Meeting schedule - in general this time frame seems to be good for people but Sandra will send out a survey for meetings in general to confirm and include a question specific for Feb since there are some known conflicts with Feb 9th already.

4.Vice President's Report - none

5. Secretary's Report - Diane Shifflett

a. Website has been updated to reflect AFB conference including a link to reservations. It can be added to. The current board, Low Vision position paper and resolution are also on the website in the "about us" section.

b. Newsletter - we had talked about a January newsletter but since it hasn't gone out we can just roll it into March. Sandra requested that we send out a scholarship email blast by the beginning of February. For the newsletter we need to have a thank-you section for people who donated for raffle and door prizes. Also need to include Bluhm award call out. Send all your submissions to Diane by February 1 for March 1 distribution

6. Treasurer's Report - Jenny Wheeler

a. End of 2014 we have a small profit (~$2000)

b. Will be sending out draft budget and year end numbers

c. Year-end reports need to be sent to IRS and then we are up to date

7. Past President's Report - AFB Leadership Conference—Rajiv

a. Volunteers -committee will create a blast email for membership. Board members do not need to be there all three days. We will have you volunteer on the days you can come.

b.50th Anniversary Reception - drink tickets will cost $10 each. food can be expect to be $5000 or more. Entertainment can be another $800-1000. Board is very concerned about spending most if not all budget on drinks. Would like the committee to consider either no drinks or 1 drink. AZAER will get up to $5000 in profit sharing from AFB for assisting in the conference.

Motion entertained by Anna and seconded by Becky to authorize $5000 from AZ AER savings be contributed for a total budget of $10,000 for the budget for the 50th anniversary reception. Motion Passed (the board hoped the committee spends less than allocated!)

c.Pre-conference bag stuffing - concentrate on Phoenix people to get that done so people out of town do not ave to pay for an extra hotel night.

8. Committee Reports

Program Committee - Conference Wrap-Up & Fall 2015: Sandra sent out final conference evaluation. Diane made a case for Tucson so that school personal who did not funding for overnight travel would be able to attend a conference. Sandra pointed out that that same argument could be used in every city. She also reminded the board of the long-standing tradition of having the SPRING conference rotate between Phoenix and Tucson. This year it will be in Phoenix in the form of the AFB leadership conference. Spring of 2016 it would be in Tucson. Sandra will send to AER list of possible locations based on the feedback and give them a range of dates to take advantage of off-peak pricing. It is too early to make a final determination since the pricing we received in November may not be valid. We can also use these results to help us plan future locations even into 2017.

9. Old Business - who has the photos from the conference? Becky may have. Diane also mentioned she may have. AER Report deadline is Jan 15 so please send to Sandra by the 14th pictures of Bluhm recipient and any other conference photos we want to include.

10. New Business - none

11. Announcements - March 9 Regional Braille Challenge on ASDB campus. Registration will be going out. At apprentice level they will have option of UEB or EBNAE (contracted or uncontracted). At other levels it will all be in EBNAE

Adjournment: 5:59

Submitted by Sandra Stirnweis, President Arizona AER