Maine Association of Planners

Board Meeting Minutes

Friday, November 17, 2017 9:00 AM970 Baxter Blvd #201

GPCOG & TeleconferencePortland, Maine

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Attending: Carol, Lynne, Hugh, Carl, Amanda, Samantha, Jamel, Jim

Absent: Jamie, Tom, Anne, Ethan, Mark, Sarah

  1. Approve September 29, 2017 and October 20, 2017 minutes

Jamel made a motion to accept both the September 29, and October 20, 2017 meeting minutes. Lynne Seconds. Vote 8-0-0.

  1. Officer reports

President

  • Working on updating the MAP administrative paperwork to incorporate the new officers.
  • Also created a 2015-2018 budget to see where we are budget-wise compared to past years.
  • The Board then had a conversation about the annual dues for regular members. In 2017, we are up to $2,650 in dues, however, in the past years we have had at least $3,300 in dues. Jim noted that we currently have 64 paying members so we should have ~$3,200 in dues. The Board decided to set the budget at $3,000 for regular members for 2018.

Treasurer

  • Jane Lafleur is interested in being the MAP Treasurer.
  • Hugh made a motion to approve Jane Lafluer as the MAP Treasurer and member of the Executive Board. Samantha seconded. Vote 8-0-0.

Membership

  • Jim has been working hard on reorganizing the membership database and the Board thanked him for his hard work.
  • He has been reaching out to lapsed members to see if they want to rejoin MAP.
  • Carol asked Jim to check if all Board members are current on their dues – Jim noted that he would look into this.
  • The Board discussed if municipal staff would prefer to have an invoice to make the dues process easier. Jamel was in favor of this.
  • Jim noted that an invoice is possible now and would remind folks via email closer to when membership dues are due.
  • Amanda asked why there is a drop off of over 30 members this year. Jim noted that while there are folks who have not renewed, they continue to stay active with MAP and that people usually wait until the Spring Annual Meeting to renew their dues.
  • Jim noted that there are around 200 people in the membership database, but many of them are 1-2 years overdue.
  1. Committee reports

Conference Planning (Professional development)

  • NNECAPA 2018: October 24-26, 2018
  • The contract with Point Lookout for the 2018 NNECAPA Conference was voted on via email on 11/9/17. Anne moved to accept the contract. Jamel seconded. Vote 12-0-0.
  • Jim noted that the conference should be put on the NNECAPA website
  • Lynne noted that there is a $5,000 deposit needed to secure the venue and conference was going to cost just over $23,000 total.
  • Planning Committee: Amanda, Anne, Jane, Samantha, Jamel, Carl, Mark, Carol and Ben Smith (there are some additional people who are interested in helping with the MAP 50th anniversary piece specifically too).
  • Meeting on 11/17 at 11am
  • Meeting on 12/8, time TBD
  • Amanda noted that it would be good if a few non-Board members joined the planning committee and said folks should reach out to her with any specific questions about the conference.

Awards

  • MAP Awards will be held at the annual meeting during the spring. This years annual meeting will be minimal due to most of our effort / $ going into the NNECAPA conference in October.
  • Amanda noted that the Build Maine Conference would be a good venue to have the annual meeting this year. Build Maine is being held on June 14-15, 2018. Amanda will reach out to the conference organizers to see if MAP can have their annual meeting during the conference. Carol noted that it would be good if we did another “trade” with Build Maine (MAP gets a free booth at Build Maine and Build Maine gets a free booth at NNECAPA).
  • Jim will send an email out to see if other folks are interested in reviewing award proposals and that we will continue on with the annual award categories. He also noted that it has been difficult to get more than a few proposals and that we should start looking at other groups for awards.
  • MMA website
  • Maine Townsman magazine
  • County Commissioners Association
  • NGO’s
  • Jim and Lynne will brainstorm some good contacts to announce the award applications over the next few months.
  • Hugh will send Lynne a few ideas about NGO’s to reach out to for award proposals

Communications

  • Lynne reported on the communications reports she sent out via email prior to the meeting (Caitlyn puts these together)
  • The group really likes these reports
  • The Planner Profile continues to be the most popular article
  • Sarah Cushman’s TDM article was very interesting and well-written
  • The Board thinks the analytics that Caitlyn runs / provides are very interesting.
  • The Listserv continues to be a great resource for Maine planners
  • The group agreed that the Maine Newsletter should continue as is if the NNECAPA merger occurs next year.
  • The next newsletter will go out sometime in late January / early February. Lynne asked Board members to send her any articles for the next newsletter.

Legislative and Policy

  • No update.
  1. NNECAPA / State Association Reorganization
  • The Board’s discussion focused on several questions:
  • How will we keep our “Maine identity?”
  • Will the MAP website still exist?
  • How will the Chapter dues work?
  • Will we still hire Caitlyn?
  • Carol noted that the goal of the merger is to have NNECAPA take care of the administrative tasks and to have MAP focus on workshops, Maine-specific content and other local planning issues.
  • The Board agreed that we do not want to lose our “Maine focus” with the reorganization and that we should definitely keep Caitlyn on as staff moving forward. The Board would like MAP to keep doing:
  • State legislation issues
  • Newsletter
  • Annual Meeting
  • The Board decided it would be a good idea to start a subcommittee to start sorting out these issues / questions. The subcommittee will include:
  • Lynne, Amanda, Carol and Jane
  • Jim will contribute as needed with the membership perspective
  1. Next Meeting Date –January 26, 2018, 9a – 1p, including the General Membership meeting. Location: Hopefully at the Gardiner Public Library. Snow date of 2/9/18

6. Adjourn – The meeting adjourned at 11:00am

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