ALA Region 6 Council Meeting
Thursday, October 23, 2008
Hilton Austin, Austin, Texas
Attendees
Region 6 Officers:
Doris Alexander, Education Officer; Timora Cereghino, Communications Officer; Jerri Schloss, Projects Officer; Marc Upchurch, At-Large Director
Not in attendance: Judy Hissong, Director
Headquarters
Susan French Koran, President-Elect
Region 6 Chapter Representatives:
Central Valley: not present
EastBay: Linda Brady
Golden Gate: Matthew Ogden (President)
Greater Los Angeles: Maureen Varnes (President), Robert Santos (President-Elect), Mary McDonnell (Vice President)
Las Vegas: Marilyn Goforth (President)
New Zealand: not present
OrangeCounty: Janel Ozar (President), Pamela Kuckelman (President-Elect), Nathan Levoit (Vice President), Dorothy Rausa (Past President)
SacramentoValley: Shauna Manner (President-Elect)
San Diego: Monica Menzer (Director), Jennifer Severson
Silicon Valley: Helen Ferentinos (President),Debbie Sanders
Old Pueblo: Tracy Bigelow
Valley of theSun: Pam Molnar (President), Chris Proctor (President-Elect)
Welcome and Introduction of the Region 6 Management Team
Marc Upchurch, Region 6 At-Large Director, welcomed everyone to the meeting and advised that Judy Hissong, Region 6 Director, was not able to attend the Region 4/6 conference. The Region 6 Team members introduced themselves and explained their role on the management team. Marc Upchurch, CLM, is the At-large Director serving Region 6. Also in attendance was Susan French Koran, President-Elect of the Association of Legal Administrators.
Chapter Representatives Introduction
Attendees introduced themselves and a representative from each Chapter shared Chapter successes in the areas of Community Challenge Weekend, Recruiting and Activating Members, and vendor relations. Vendor partnership activities were a common theme.
Review and Approval of May 4, 2008 Region 6 Council Meeting Minutes
Prior to the council meeting, a copy of the minutes of the May 4, 2008 council meeting held at the International conference in Seattle, Washington was emailed to Chapter Presidents and President-Elects for final review and approval. There being no changes or objections, the minutes were ratified today by all representatives.
Conference Overview
Jerri Schloss gave an overview of the exhibit hall (73 vendors) and prizes to be awarded during the conference. Jerri encouraged everyone to talk up the vendor hall with their Chapter members.
Doris Alexander gave an overview of the education sessions being offered during the conference. Blaine Prescott has changed his topic to the declining economy and its impact on the legal profession. CPE and HR credit are being offered this conference; attendees must sign in and out of their sessions.
Timi Cereghino communicated the planned and unplanned social opportunities for the weekend. The welcome reception is Thursday night and Friday night has been left open for attendees to enjoy Austin. There are some vendor-planned events on Friday night.
Regional Management Team Update
Marc Upchurch spoke about the role of the regional management team,the Regional Nominating Committee and Association Nominating Committee. Everyone is encouraged to participate in a regional or association nominating committee. Marc also spoke about the responsibilities of a regional council representative, which is to take information back to their chapters about what is going on around the region and in other chapters. Marc mentioned the President’s Award of Excellence which will be discussed in the breakout session.
Communications
Minutes
Timi Cereghino, CLM, is the Communications Officer and is affiliated with the Las Vegas Chapter. Timi is responsible for gathering and tracking the minutes for both Board and Chapter meetings. As they are received the minutes will be sent to the Region 6 Team to keep them apprised of what is going on in the region. Timi reminded everyone that submission of minutes is a requirement for the President’s Award of Excellence. Chapters have the option of posting minutes on their chapter website. Those chapters posting minutes should notify Timi.
Newsletter Submissions
The next issue of the Region 6 Newsletter will be published toward the end of the year and will contain articles regarding national and regional activities. Chapters were encouraged to provide pictures and/or articles about their chapters or chapter members.
ALA News
Timi thanked everyone for submitting their chapter reports for ALA News. The next deadline for Region 6 will be the end of February 2009, and Timi explained that she will be sending a reminder email to the Chapter presidents with a sample report early next year.
Education
Educational Programs
Doris Alexander, CLM, is the Education Officer and is affiliated with the Golden Gate Chapter. Doris explained she is available to help the Chapter promote educational programs in the Chapters and help Chapters find speakers, etc. Doris reminded everyone to submit their education summaries from their monthly educational sessions which she forwards to headquarters. This information helps create a database of speakers and topics for Chapters to use. Doris presented an overview of the education database on the ALA website.
At-Large Director
Marc Upchurch is the Region 6 At-large Director. His role is to support Judy in her capacity as Regional Director.
ALA Update– Susan French Koran – Expanding the Globe
Susan French Koran presented information on ALA activities around the globe. There are 33 countries represented in ALA membership. Being global means some of the leaders are traveling the globe.
- Wendy Rice Isaacs was recently in London at a managing partner conference.
- Patti Groff was recently in Brazil, which has the largest number of lawyers per capita next to the United States. Brazil was represented at CLI this year.
ALA is looking for ways to be more accessible around the world. ALA will have key portions of the ALAwebsite translated into French Canadian, followed by Portuguese, Mandarin, and Spanish. ALA is also working with the Lagos School of Business developing a legal management course. The primary mission of the education, charitable, and research affiliate of ALA, The Foundation of the Association of Legal Administrators (FALA), is to provide grants for education, and FALA has provided a grant to the LagosSchool to develop courses for its legal management course. FALA also provides grants to chapters, such as Valley of the Sun, which prepared CLM in a Flash flash cards. If chapters are interested in developing educational programs, keep in mind that FALA does provide grants.
Susan reminded everyone that this is our tenth year to host Community Challenge Weekend (CCW). The Association wanted to recognize CCW in a special way this year and selected Smile Train as an association-wide charity. Smile Train is an international charity dedicated to providing free surgery to needy children who suffer from cleft lips and palates. Two hundred fifty dollars and a 45 minute surgery can change a life. Ninety-six out of 100 chapters are participating in Smile Train.
Many still have questions about Professional Legal Management Week (PLMW). Susan explained that PLMW is not about patting ourselves on the back. It is about promoting the profession. There are 12 organizations in addition to ALA promoting PLMW.
At-large Director
Marc Upchurch noted that Region 4/6 will be promoting the Smile Train fund raiser during the weekend. Attendees will have an opportunity to donate this weekend.
Chapter Breakouts
The Chapter representatives broke into small groups by Chapter size to discuss areas of common interest. The President’s Award of Excellence was reviewed and ideas exchanged about membership recruitment and participation and vendor partnering.
Future Conferences
Marc Upchurch encouraged everyone to get involved in some way with ALA. The Region 6 Conference next year will be in Rohnert Park (SonomaCounty), CA September 25-26, 2009. The 2009 Annual Conference will be held inNew Orleans, LA May 18-21, 2009 at the ErnestN.MorialConvention Center.
Scholarships
Doris advised that Region 6 had two scholarships to award for next year’s annual conference. The winning Chapters were Las Vegas and Tucson.
The meeting adjourned at 3:00 p.m.
Respectfully submitted,
Timora A. Cereghino, CLM
Region 6 Communications Officer