TCS Board of Directors Meeting
November 4, 2015
Draft Minutes
Attending:President Tom Bigford, President-Elect Matt Nixon, Treasurer Mo Lynch; Directors Paul Hindsley, Steve MacLeod, Brian Smith; Executive Director Judy Tucker; Student Chapter Liaisons Rebecca Cope (Duke University) and Emily Patrolia (University of Rhode Island)
Not Attending: Secretary Susannah Sheldon, DirectorsChris Ellis, Susan Farady,and Erika Washburn
Quorum: none was established at the time a vote would be taken due to late arrivals to and early departures from the call.
President’s Report:
New TCS Chapter Liaisons welcomed to the board. However, they need to be officially appointed.
ACTION: Bigford: Electronic vote needed to appoint the two new chapter liaisons.
TCS Executive Committee (officers and ED) are meeting every other week to keep action items moving toward the next board meeting.
Secretary’s Report:
The draft minutes of the September 15, 2015 board meeting were not available.
ACTION: Sheldon: send draft minutes to the board for review ASAP as a reminder of needed actions
ACTION: Bigford: Electronic vote needed to approve draft minutes of the 9/15/15 board meeting.
Treasurer’s Report:
Net Assets Report and Revenue and Expense Report were distributed. TCS is doing better than the projected year-end position for 12/31/15 of $6,980; $21,000 is a more likely starting position. This is due to the increased dues amount and unspent expenditures such as the TCS Bulletin and the Taylor & Francis event seed money.
The TCS Board needs to decide whether to spend the remaining $3,000 of T&F funding to hire someone to write an outcome report from the jointly planned meeting with the Coastal States Organization this December in WA. It was agreed that this was an appropriate use of the funds, but that only a moderate amount would be needed if a coastal fellow was found whose fellowship could cover travel to the meeting.
2016 Draft Budget:
The Treasurer reported that if the unspent T&F funds were allowed to be carried over, and expenses were kept the same, that a conservative estimate without the guaranteed $8,000 from the 2016 Summit, would be sufficient to operate throughout 2016.
The following detail has been added post-meeting:
If revenue is kept the same, and the AGC revenue is included, and an estimate for several coastal career events is included, revenue would be $16,800.
Annual Giving Campaign$2,500($2947 in 2014)
Dues$11,000 ($11, 290 in 2015 so far)
Event/Program: Taylor & Francis 2016$2,500($5,000/year split with Summit)
Coastal Career Day$ 800(two @ $400 registration revenue)
Total revenue$16,800
1/1/16 estimated assets$21,000
Total revenue 2016$37,800
If expenses are the same, with the removal of the TCS Bulletin expense, expenses would total $34,242.
Therefore, without any funds from the 2016 Summit, TCS will have approximately $3,600 for 2017.
ACTION: Lynch: to submit 2016 budget to board for adoption at the December board meeting.
ACTION: Board: decide whether to host an annual meeting at 2016 Summit and add that cost.
ACTION: Board to vote on the draft contract with Tucker for services from 1/1/16 – 6/30/16.
Communications Committee Report:
ACTION: Board: Board members areexpected to sign up for at least one blog contribution – see editorial calendar distributed prior to the meeting.
Tucker signed up for December for an article on Coastal Career Day.
Committees Update:
Committee leadership positions are all filled, but need a board vote to appoint Hindsley.
ACTION: Bigford: Electronic vote needed to appoint Paul Hindsley as Chair of the University/Chapter Relations Subcommittee.
ACTION: Bigford: to report results of earlier electronic vote to appoint Jill Meyer as Chair of the Development Committee.
A committee leadership orientation call was held October 13. The committees requested a follow up call for each committee to get more specific direction from the TCS Board. Three calls were held led by Nixon (on all 3), plus Bigford and Tucker (on 2). All agreed that a formal system of communications to transmit information between the board and committees was essential to making the committees productive and to accomplishing the direction of the board. Bigford asked for board members to volunteer to be a liaison to each committee, if not each subcommittee. The liaison would be responsible for communicating relevant information after each board meeting to the committee, and for reporting on each committee at the board meeting. The following will serve as liaisons:
Program Initiatives – Steve MacLeod
Career Development – Paul Hindsley
Development – Tom Bigford
ACTION: Board members: to consider serving as liaison to a subcommittee.
Another call for volunteers was sent to the membership, but with no response.
As soon as subcommittee chairs submit their requests for appointment of volunteers, the committee listings on the web site will be filled out.
Elections:
The Board decided in the interest of time to leave the position of President-Elect off the ballot and deal with filling it by appointment sometime in 2016. Jolvan Morris will be slated for Secretary. Caitlyn McCrary, Tiffany Smythe, and Michelle Lennox will run for the three open Director positions.
Tucker suggested that the board should be concerned with a lack of board interest in aspiring to run for the Executive Committee, in particular the President-Elect. Bigford requested that individual board members let him know what needs to be changed to encourage directors to run for office.
ACTION: Bigford: need electronic vote to approve the slate of candidates for election.
Revenue Generation:
Membership efforts: no new reinstatement of 2014 members, three new members from the coastal career day event registration
Coastal Career Day: November 14 in Williamsburg. Sponsorships will provide a net revenue of $325, with additional revenue from registration currently at $500.
RAE-TCS sponsorships:
ACTION: Board members: to go to their employer for a main conference sponsorship by year end. Sponsors also needed for TCS Day on Sunday prior to the conference.
Annual Giving Campaign:Bigford will chair, and work with Communications Subcommittee to draft a series of promotional messages. Coastal States Organization to contribute messages and images for the #GivingTuesday campaign that will evoke an emotional response to a problem caused by lack of funding for coastal zone management.
ACTION: Board members: need to make their annual donation before the campaign can open.
Logo Merchandise: TCS “store” on Zazzle is almost ready. Potential revenue can come from royalty income (a percent of sales) and from referral income (a URL link).Zazzle will notify TCS when revenue is approaching $600 which is the threshold before possibly becoming taxable income.
ACTION: MacLeod: send board the link to the Zazzle site to view possible items for sale and to suggest types of items to include in the TCS store.
Other activities:
CSO/TCS/NERRA will be hosting a Coastal Connections meeting in WA – planning continues. For future events in the Coastal Connections series TCS may get a role that could be funded by an outside sponsor.
SOCIAL COAST FORUM: no revenue from event. Need an editor for the CMJ special issue in order to apply Taylor & Francis funds.
ACTION: Nixon: solicit for editor, possibly from list of abstract submissions
WORKING WATERFRONTS FORUM: Nixon to attend and distribute TCS materials
CERF 2015: Bigford to attend and distribute TCS materials
LIVING SHORELINES MEETING: MacLeod to attend and distribute TCS materials
NATIONAL FORUM ON SOCIOECONOMICS RESEARCH AT LSU: Hindsley to attend and distribute TCS materials
Adjournment:
The next call will be one of December 15, 16, or 17.
The meeting was adjourned at 3:35PM ET.
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