RI AMTA BOARD MEETING
Meeting Location
Joanne Lozy’s House
Tuesday, January 3, 2017
MINUTES
MEMBERS PRESENT: Pat Bachus, Michaele Colizza, Debbie Kilty, Joanne Lozy, Kim Medeiros, Joan Tarter-Van Hees, Jen Wilkicki, Kenji Omori, Angela Perry-Place, Alda Corderio, Frank Rapone, Lynn Garvey, Kim Cook, Claudia Botthof, Marlo Lawrence, Suzanne Wilcox, Ellie Field
MEMBERS ABSENT: Lou Ann Botsford, Regina Cobb, Sean Duffy, Mark McCarthy
MEETING SCRIBE: Debbie Kilty
Meeting called to order at 7:05 pm.
Michaele wishes everyone a Happy New Year and thanks for braving the weather and coming to tonight’s meeting. This budget meeting sets the tone for the year ahead.
Call for New Business:
No new business
Approval of minutes from 11-15-16 Board Meeting: Joan motions to approve the minutes as written; Pat 2nds the motion; Michaele calls for any discussion of the minutes, there is no discussion. All in favor of approval of minutes as written; minutes passed.
Accounting of Actions from 11-15-16 BOD Meeting:
ACTION: Michaele to contact National to see it’s possible to get a free year’s membership to giveaway. RESULT: Michaele said the answer was no, national will not pay for us to give away a free membership. Deb K states that she thought there was something mentioned about this being a possibility at either the National board meeting or opening session at national convention.
NEW ACTION: Michaele will readdress this with National.
Result: Michaele sent email to Chris Voltarel and is waiting to hear back.
.
ACTION: Jennifer to pick randomly from all members to award two seats on the NYC bus
Results: Jennifer did, but member (Megan Giammarco) sent text that she couldn’t make it too late to find anyone else to take seats.
ACTION: Deb K will follow up with Regina to see if there are particular conventions or meetings that she feels we should have representation at. The following were found on the AMTA website: Federation of State Massage Therapy boards. AMTA 2017 Schools Summit. International Massage Therapy Research Conference.
Result: Regina was grateful for the follow-up and stressed that the Alliance for Education Conference was the most important according to have representation at. I let Regina know that Alda attends the Alliance and has attended for the past 8 years (4 conferences they take place every other year).
ACTION: any ideas for Advance please send to Michaele and Joanne via email
Result: nothing received via email. Tonight’s discussion: Brewed Awakenings per Jennifer has a room available. Ellie feels it was a great help to her as a new volunteering coming in to take part in this type of team building and informational meeting. Kenji also feels it’s important to have and Michaele agrees. Pot luck idea from Marlo. Most in attendance agreed this would be a fun idea. Paint activity (Jennifer) 4-part painting share idea from the “paint and dabble” night, each canvas is divided into four parts, one person paints one of the sections and then everyone switches canvas’ and someone else does another piece. We could do “RIAMTA” in the parts.
ACTION: Any questions on any of the announcements that came from the Opening Ceremonies at National Convention can be sent to Deb K and she will forward to Mark Tyle at National Office.
Result: Received nothing
ACTION: Email to Alda any additional ideas for Education topics at the March Election Meeting within the next two weeks.
Result: No emails were received, but Kenji suggested to contact Krissy Viccione for MFRM intro at our March meeting.
ACTION: Get any and all articles to Ellie for the last newsletter to be sent out prior to end of December 2016.
Result: Newsletter sent out December 31st
ACTION: Michaele would like there to be a survey in the newsletter for our members based on the importance of the convention to them. Please send anything you think should be a question on the survey to Michaele.
Result: Deb K to take over the survey and working with Ann Blair Kennedy, from the National Chapter Relations Committee, on questions and to get out on Survey Monkey
ACTION: Send any pictures from local RI and national conventions to Kim C & Ellie for the next newsletter and website.
Result: photos sent and Ellie says keep sending!
ACTION: If you have attended the National convention in Milwaukee please write about your experience and send in for newsletter.
Result: Done
Michaele asks if the action list is a good thing. Everyone in attendance agreed that doing this at the start of each meeting is a good idea.
Michaele suggests that the next president keep up with this.
2017 Fiscal Year Budget Discussion:
Joan Tarter-Van Hees, treasurer went over each line item of the 2016 budget, projected and actual. Since the National AMTA has taken over the accounting responsibilities things have been different and sometimes difficult for Joan to decipher which account line item some of our income and expenses have been put. Some of the line items have been utilized by Joan for some of our accounts that aren’t necessarily done by all chapters, i.e.: library, advance.
Pat stated that she went through the numbers and the actual expenses vs. projected budget were a net loss of only 3.22%, which she feels that all that we had done for the first-time RI convention in 2016 this was not an overwhelming loss.
2017 fiscal year budget recommendations for projected incomes and expenses were gone over. Please see budget attachment.
Jennifer mentions that now that students will receive free AMTA membership does that mean we will stop receiving any chapter membership dues % for students and how will that effect our chapter dues income line item? Joan mentions that even though our chapter membership has been rising the chapter dues income has been decreasing because of the change to the chapter contributions and the different levels of membership i.e. professional, graduate, student, franchisee employees.
Kenji wonders if with the change to the student memberships being free will the chapter benefit from the “AMTA Schools” in a chapter’s state?
ACTION: The students being free and AMTA schools, how will this affect the chapter income via dues. Deb K/Michaele to check with National office on this.
It was decided during the budget discussion that two alternative conferences each year the chapter will send potentially send representation to. The Alliance for Education is every other year so based on this, and the fact that there are 4 conferences that the chapter is considering having representation at in 2017 Alda will be representative at the Education Alliance and the chapter will see if someone is interested in attending the International Massage Therapy Research Conference. (Deb K checked on the internet and the International Massage Therapy Research Conference is only held once every 3 years and there was one 2016 so the next will not be held until 2019).
ACTION: Email to be sent out to see if there is an interested person to attend the International Massage Therapy Research Conference.
Deb K suggests that if someone from a local school were to be attending the AMTA 2017 Schools Summit, that we could ask if they would be willing to be a guest speaker at an upcoming meeting to relay important information from the conference. Also, if someone from the RI State board were attending the Federation of State Massage Therapy boards conference that we could see if they would also be a guest speaker.
ACTION: Lynn Garvey will check with the State Board to see if anyone is planning on attending the Federation of State Massage Therapy Boards Conference.
Old Business: Kim M is making calls to some of the older, longtime members of the RI Chapter to check in with them and let them know what is going on with the chapter and if there is anything we can do for them. Per Kim, generally people don’t answer their phones so Kim is filling up voicemails with info, not hearing back from anyone, she is wondering if she should leave it vague and see if they call back?
Lynn suggested email or texting because more people may be apt to respond rather than calling backing. Kim M. mentioned that yes, if she left a voicemail message and then sent a follow-up email she did get a response to the email. Per Michaele: whatever works best for Kim, Michaele is just concerned with the contacting of the members.
Kim started collecting some new chapter information from those present for her calls.
Some of those present stated that there have been new issues with Yahoo email server, some of the yahoo email groups that we have set up have not been showing up when typing in email addresses.
ACTION: Kenji will investigate alternative group email servers for the chapter to utilize. Will have information at the next board meeting February 7, 2017.
New Business:
SAMA Massage School has relocated to East Providence from Newport.
Donna Gaudette (Massage Therapy head from Riddley Lowell) contacted Michaele and Joanne regarding “Rub Clubs” businesses by Chiropractors. Membership based business asking for massage therapy students to interview to work for them. Inappropriate conversation with interviewer? Michaele sending info to the National level for advice. Payment $9 to therapist for ½ hours session and billing through insurance and insurance pays $23 per quarter hour. Donna approached chiro office via letter or phone and told them using the term Rub Club was inappropriate and she was told she was a prude. These “businesses” are across the country but this conversation was to one particular Chiropractor in our state.
Per Lynn a complaint can be submitted to the state chiropractic board.
Michaele wanted to let the board know that this is being informed to the National office and any information that anyone can glean could help but tread carefully. Please keep this information within the chapter/board meetings at this point.
Committee Updates:
Video Library: Claudia asks if the library survey from the convention that was in each attendee bags anyone have? Michaele will check in her stuff, survey was dropped off at hospitality table.
Membership: Jennifer the NYC bus trip was a success.
Education: Alda working on setting up new workshops for 2017. Pregnancy and target the one day seminars they are more successful.
Convention Committee: contract has been signed with Crowne Plaza for 2017, October 27-29, 2017. Other venues were checked into, the Radisson and the Marriott in Providence and both agreed that our convention was too large for their accommodations.
Michaele asks for a moment to share thoughts and thank yous with and for Pat Bachus and Joan Tarter-Van Hees! They will both be retiring from the AMTA RI Chapter after the March elections.
Pat motions for adjournment at 9:30, Joan seconds Meeting Adjourned