Committee Chairs Conference Call Notes

Committee Chairs Conference Call Notes

Committee Chairs Conference Call Notes

Monday, February 28, 2011

12:00pm – 1:30pm

Dial In: 1-800-250-2600 Pass code: 8845867#

Committee Chair webpage: / Committee / Present / Absent
Jeff Beck / Affiliates, NPGAW / X
Tom Broffman / Bylaws / X
Tim Christensen / Federal Affairs / X
Caleb Cooley / Finance / X
Mary Drexler / Nominations and Elections / X
Don Feeney / Communications / X
Maureen Greeley / Membership / X
Colleen Leonard / Helpline / X
Chuck Maurer / NCPG Board / X
Dennis McNeilly / Research / X
Lori Rugle / Military
Charles Vorkoper / Education / X
Rachel Volberg / Personnel / X
Marlene Warner / Conference / X
N/A / Development
Linda Abonyo / NCPG Staff / X
Barbara Rollins / NCPG Staff / X
Keith Whyte / NCPG Staff / X

  1. General Business
  2. NCPG Staff recently hired Barbara Rollins for newly created position of Director of Development. Barbara started on February 22nd and comes to us with a background in development and fundraising in the Arts.
  1. Committee Chairs Manual
  • Keith had requested feedback from Chairs regarding the latest draft of the Committee Chairs manual. Some suggestions include.
  • Providing set schedule for meetings in advance
  • Enforcing committee deadlines. Some committees must abide by deadlines written in the bylaws. For those that are not we must make sure that traditional deadlines are followed and documented.
  • All feedback is appreciated, and additional extensive comments can be emailed directly to Keith. He would like to get out a final version within the next few months and make this available for new chairs appointed at thenext annual meeting.
  • The term for all current committee chairs will expire in June during the annual meeting at which point new chairs will be appointed by the next president.
  • Jeff Beck expressed some concerns that many of the guidelines are not being placed in practice i.e. publicizing minutes of meetings. He cannot recall seeing minutes of meetings with the exception of committee chairs or board meeting minutes posted to the website. This needs to be formalized.
  • The Education committeepreviously proposed a process for selecting subsequent chairs.According to the bylaws, the NCPG Board President is required to appoint all committee chairs. Chuck Maurer added that thepresident should solicit committee input when appointing chairs andsuggests including this inputwith the committee reports for the annual meeting.
  • Chairs are reminded to provide staff with an updated list of current members. Colleen Leonard (Helpline) will notify staff of new members. Tim Christensen (Federal Affairs) has provided Keith with some edits via email.
  • Maureen Greely proposes 2 year terms for committee chairs with half of the chairs alternating off every other year. Changing all members every year could be chaotic. The authority of committee chairs needs to be better defined. Each should know what autonomy they have and what they are permitted to do on behalf of the NCPG. Keithadds that Washington, DC laws for non-profit organizations state that only the board of directors can make major governing decisions, not committees. Some laws are restrictive as to what committees cannot do, however it's been difficult to define what they can do. In regards to term limits, there currently is no limit for committee chairs.
  • Rachel Volberg (Personnel) stated that it is difficult for her committee to maintain official minutes as most of their discussions take place viaemail. She would prefer to provide two written reports per year rather than individual email exchanges in place of minutes. She would also like to see more consistency in terms of promptly providing minutes and meeting schedules.
  • The language regarding standing committees is going to have to be amended in the bylaws as there are committees that are no longer defined as standing. Carol O'Hare is working with the bylaws committee on making these updates.
  • Since the goal of the research committee is to select awardsit may make sense to permanently suspend the committee.Chuck suggests reclassifying the committee as a consultant group instead and solicit their continued involvement when needed.
  • Keith will draft a template for chairs to develop their reports.
  • Interest groups and tasks forces were initially developed to capture the interest of specific groups. While they have been successful in someways, we should reconsider whether or not we need a second level of committees. If a group or task force feels they should have committee status, we should consider asking them to petition the board. Jeff Beck adds that he supports the current structure of 15 committees to coincide with each individual boardliaison.
  1. GoalsProgress
  • National Problem Gambling Awareness Week: NPGAW is one week away. The npgaw.org website has been updated with information to distribute and tasks have been completed.
  • Affiliates: The goals of the Affiliates committeeare ongoing. There has been some discussion with one state and a couple of applicants looking to become NCPG Affiliate members. We would like to begin looking at areas where we donot have coverage and consider a regional model rather than state.
  • Finance: Caleb Cooley hopes with the help of the new development director that between now and June 30th thefinance committee along with development can develop a program to fund the NCPG over the next 15 - 20 years. Part of that plan involves creating a reserve fund and an endowment fund. This will involve some brainstorming with committee members and fine tuning of current ideas.
  • Nominations and Elections: Mary Drexler is working onupdating the form for nominations and changing dates. She has sent information to Melissa Martin at the national office and hopes to get out information to nominating committee members. There need to be some changes to the member letter regarding eligibility. The committee is currentlyon track to distribute information. Chuck hopes the committee will be looking within the pool of prospective board members for more diversity.
  • Education: Chares Vorkoper is following through with the new CEU process where affiliates can obtain annual CEU approval at no charge. The chair is working on the draft and once approved by the committee, this will be placed in motion.
  • Helpline: Colleen Leonard is trying to get more affiliates to submit their information regarding the minimum data set. There are plans to target staff within organizations other than the Executive Directors who are not always the one conducting Helpline activities. The committee will also review what type of training is being conducted with helpline specialists and see if they would be interested in a standardized training that would give the helpline counselors some sort of certification. They would also like to assess from the board and affiliates in regards to text message and chat access which is becoming popular as an alternative form for providing help as this is becoming a growing demographic. If endorsed by the committee, there would need to be a confidentiality agreement in place. Mary Drexler has some information that she can share with Colleen regarding legality.Charles Vorkoper has worked with the American Organization of Suicidology and they have an existing certification in place for their helpline operators. While this may be more stringent of a requirement than what the committee is considering, Colleen would like to review some criteria for comparison.
  • Federal Affairs: Tim Christensen is continuing to work with Keith and original sponsors on strategizing on best way to introduce CPG and build up support. Once bill numbers are obtained and they have specific things to rally around they will make a big push. This will be largely a continuation of prior efforts. Sponsorship has increased over the years with 6sponsors in 2008, 10 sponsors in 2009, 78 in 2010. The committee anticipates support will continue to increase. The bill may need to tweaked based on the economy and some other factors, but we aredefinitely making progress.
  • Membership: Maureen Greely and the membership committee have been doing good work. A survey was sent out to members asking about their interests and good responseswere received. Barbara Rollins will participate in the next committee call. The committee will work on targeting three areas:
  • Individual –have identified a number of different target audiences with different needs. The committee is breaking those down and figuring out how to reach them and what benefits would they most desire out of membership. On target to have print and electronic materials prior to the conference for distribution.
  • Affiliates – Washington State and the OklahomaCouncils have been successful in the joint membership program in terms of drawing new members to their state and National. Would like to be placed on the agenda for Affiliate development day to discuss implementing turnkey membership processes.
  • Corporate - Keith has been working on new corporate members and believes we will meet goals so far.
  • Personnel: Rachel Volberghas reviewed the goals and mission statement. More recently the committee conducted a review of the NCPG employee benefits manual and put together a series of recommendations for the Board to consider. The board discussed during the last meeting and will move forward based on recommendations personnel committee made.
  1. Future Meetings
  • Reminder: June 1, 2011 is the deadline for Committee reports to be submitted for the annual meeting in Boston, MA.
  • Committee meetings will take place during the annual conference on Thursday, June 30th.Hour long meetings will be scheduled in the morning from 9am– 12pm. All committees are encouraged committees to meet on site. Please be aware that committee meetings will coincide with Pre-Conference Workshops. Affiliates will be meeting on Sun July 3rd.