TLA Annual Assembly

District 8 Meeting Minutes

July 8, 2013; 1 pm

Attendance

  • Amy Sutton; HISD – Chair
  • Lisa Loranc; BCLS
  • Treva Shawn Anderson; UHD
  • Alex Simons; UH
  • Billy Hoya; UHD – Councilor
  • Katy Cargill – Councilor Alternate
  • Kelsey Brett; UH– Secretary
  • Demetria Williams; HISD
  • Yvonne Chandler; UNT

Report from Board Liaison – Yvonne Chandler

  • The Board is continuing to work on the strategic plan – this year focusing on diversity;
  • They have accepted a diversity action plan including a diversity and inclusion committee that will develop and implement the action plan
  • There will be a diversity summit at the annual conference – a half day summit to have a conversation about diversity in TLA and our work places
  • TLA has been loosing money for the past 5 years. This is largely due to the consistent decrease in membership.
  • The board is proposing a dues increase (1st in 14 years – largest amount will be $20 for an individual)
  • There will be a special council meeting to vote on this proposal
  • Billy Hoya will represent D8 in this meeting
  • The Board is trying to encourage membership
  • Developing membership strategies
  • There is a new TLA membership officer
  • The board strongly encouragesmembers to recruit people they know
  • TLA currently has 5700 members and their goal is to reach 6400
  • MyTLA is going away because the company that provides it is discontinuing the software. The board is open to suggestions about how to replace it.
  • Theme for 2014 Annual Conference: “Lead Out Loud”
  • Yvonne Chandler strongly encourages those who can to make a donation to the legislative reserve fund
  • Alex Simons of D8 attended the TALL Texans in 2013

Old Business

  • We did not have a copy of last year’s minutes, so we will accept them at Annual
  • Amy gave a D8 financial report:
  • D8 ended FY 2011-2012 with a negative net income of $1,361.04
  • Beginning FY 2013-2014 with $3,114.76

New Business

  • D8 Annual Conference
  • Location is University of Houston Downtown
  • Registration opens by September 13
  • D8 members should send out registration info within their institutions
  • We will have a keynote speaker, Chitra Benerjee Divakaruni, we have to pay her an honorarium
  • We will also have to pay a room rental fee that we did not have last year
  • We may need to increase registration fees to cover additional costs and the decrease in membership
  • Registration costs are TBD
  • We are thinking of charging $40 for members and $65 for non-members to encourage membership
  • We are looking at using Adobe Connect to make D8 a virtual conference; this will cost $65/hour and TLA will do it for us
  • Registration costs are TBD but we are thinking $25 for members and $35-40 for non-members
  • Amy is working with vendors to sponsor the D8 conference – we will most likely break even on the conference
  • We still need a theme for the Fall Conference – one suggestion was “doing more with less”
  • Presenters must pay registration fee
  • Amy will send out a call for program committee members who will review program proposals

Nominating Committee

  • Head of the nominating committee is the current chair-elect, Jane Stimpson; Lisa and Kelsey volunteered to help and we will ask Janice Newsome as well
  • Nominating committee will have to develop a full slate for 2014

Other Business

  • There is a push to appoint a membership chair within d8 to increase attendance at Fall meeting
  • Billy and Shawn will compare 2012 to 2013 membership to reach out to people who did not renew before fall conference
  • If you would like to nominate someone for a SMARTy, the nomination for is available on the TLA website