Minutes of North Country Chapter Board – 12/15/2016

10:00am – 2:30pm

Southview Country Club – West Saint Paul, MN

Attendees: See attendance sheet

Absent:See attendance sheet

Item / Discussion/Action
1 / Call to Order, Welcome and approve previous minutes.
Note time quorum achieved:
  • John Adams called the meeting to order once quorum was achieved at 10am.
  • Previous minutes were distributed by David Pauna to all board members via email and print. Jeff Fischer motioned to approve, Conrad 2nd, minutes were approved.

2 / Membership/Recruitment/Outreach
  • Kristopher Bellmont was appointed to be the “Director of Membership”. John Adams motioned, David Pauna 2nd, board approved.

3 / Certification
  • SCTE Certification Days – Open discussion on how other MSOs are doing their SCTE certifications and how we advertise these within Midco as Certification Days to all members.

4 / General Meetings- Training sessions
  • Focus for 2017 will turn to more live training events instead of webinars. We have created a Planning Committee with the following members to help oversee all training events for 2017: Dan Shea, Kristopher Bellmont, Conrad Bombardier (Chair), Ray Gratke and Bill Davis. We are creating a survey to send out to our members to help us plan our events based off of our membership’s needs. Once we have the results, we will send out “Save the Dates”. Conrad will send out info for a conference call during December for all of the members of the planning committee to help build this survey.
  • Vendor Day/Cable Games – Jeff Fischer has been working with the venue and there were some issues with the original date. Date was moved to July 12-13th, National was informed of the date change. As a board, we agreed that we would follow the same format and use the same venue, however, having congruent training sessions was not beneficial and we would go back to 1 room, 2 topics. Committee of the following members was formed to help coordinate this event: Rick Sullivan, Jeff Fischer, John Adams, Cherri Olson and the members of the planning committee.

5 / Web Site or Social Media Update
  • Ray Gratke will continue to run the Website
  • David Pauna will add Ray to the Facebook page as an Administrator, Ray will take over the social media posts for Facebook.
  • Tom Heier mentioned that National was creating “Community Sites” for each chapter that could help supplement our website or maybe replace it altogether, more info to come.

6 / Strategic Plan Review and Action Items
  • Strategic planning for 2017 was completed by the board and submitted to National.
  • Year-end evaluation was completed by the board and submitted to National.

7 / Committee Reports
  • Mark Daniels left the chapter due to a job relocation so we are currently asking for a volunteer to be the “Director of Matrix”.

8 / Election Results
  • The membership voting process was not needed this year as we had equal nominees as we had vacancies. All open Director positions were filled without any additional nominees.
  • Terry motioned to remove Sarah Dezell from the board for lack of involvement and fill this position with Patrick Galazen, Kristopher 2nd, board approved.
  • Officer Elections were held and each Officer retained their role as follows: David Pauna – Secretary, John Adams – President, Jeff Fischer – Vice President. Terry Manselle holds his position as Treasurer for 1 more year. This will be the second term for all Officers so next year we will have some mandatory changes due to term limits.
  • Ray Gratke will start to mentor with Terry Manselle for the Treasurer position. No other interest at this time for assistant officers.
  • Meeting was motioned to Adjourn by John Adams at 11:15am, Jeff Fischer 2nd, board approved.
  • Meeting was called to order by John Adams under the new elections at 11:30am, David Pauna 2nd, board approved.

9 / Regional Report – Tom Heier
  • Quarterly Regional conference calls will be held starting in 2017. Dates will be decided during the Regional meeting.
  • Membership dues will be increasing from $75 to $85 for 2017.
  • All board members will be required to sign Nondisclosure Agreements.
  • National is looking for an Energy 2020 Liaison – Conrad Bombardier volunteered.
  • Tom is now a National Board Member and also on the Learning and Development Subcommittee.

10 / New Business
  • Annual Chapter Sponsorships – Open discussion was had on if we need to pursue this. Given our current financial status, as a chapter we felt that this was not necessary at this time.
  • Jimmy Schulz Golf Tournament – Bill Davis is in charge of this charity event. Looking for donations, participation and support from the chapter and all MSOs. This is a great industry-related event for a good cause to show our involvement in the community. Price reduction was mentioned for sending multiple teams. Jason Plouff stated that moving the event to a Thursday would be best for vendors if possible.
  • Minnesota Broadband Conference – Bill Davis brought this topic up. This event will be in February in downtown St. Paul. Currently looking for sponsors, possible sponsorship from the North Country. This was tabled for the next meeting.

11 / Next Board Meeting
  • Conference call scheduled for January 25th, 2017 @ 8:30am.

12 / Adjournment
  • Bill Davis motioned to adjourn, Steve Carlson 2nd, board approved. Meeting adjourned at 2:30pm.

Page 1 of 3