YWCA Pacific Region Board of Directors’ Meeting

October 21, 2008

10:00 A.M. - 4:00 P.M.

Long Beach, CA

MINUTES

MEMBERS ATTENDING: Sharon Bettinelli, Michele LeProhn, Gabrielle Hass, Loretta Morris, Nancy Atkinson, Carol Ann Burton, Richard Burrell, Elaine Moore, Silissa Uriarte Smith, Dana Campbell-Saylor, Donna Audette, Bobbi Hayes, Marisa Elliot, Diane Masseth Jones, Peggi Ridgway, Tamika Farr, Margaret Checca, Samantha Patterson, Debra Zanders-Wills, Judy Case, Linda Wagner, Mary Douglas, Helene Des Ruisseaux, Helen Hayashi, Keri McLain, Janet Marcotte, Loyce Holt

STAFF: Kay Kelley

GUESTS: Kay Philips, Sitara Harvey-Cook, Pat Wiedhopf, Mary Plock, Barbara Flammarey, Lisa Brabo, Hilary Bettinelli-Olpin, Toby Osos, Jennifer Quintana, Carmen Vargas, Ebony Wilson, Phoebe Watts, Muriel Smalheiser, Marsha Vacca, Karen-Jeffrey Anthony, Jennifer White, Gloria Lau

10:06

ITEM / DISCUSSION / ACTION / FURTHER ACTION REQUIRED
Welcome / President Sharon Bettinelli opened the meeting at 10:06 A.M. welcoming everyone and introductions were made.
A quorum was established.
Agenda approval / Add a report from the World Service Committee. / Motion by Keri McLain to approved the agenda as amended.
Second by SilissaUriarte Smith.
Motion approved
Minutes of 4/7/08 / Add Samantha Patterson from Riverside who was not listed as member in attendance. / Motion by Michelle LeProhn to approve the minutes as amended.
Second by SilissaUriarte Smith.
Motion approved.
President’s Report
Sharon Bettinelli / The Executive Committee researched the legality of email voting by the Region between the bi-annual meetings of the board. Four attorneys were consulted and it is clear that email voting is legal for our corporation. In order to implement the process however, a 100% affirmative vote is required by the board. To ensure a paper trail of the votes, email votes could be ratified by the board at the next board meeting.
The Executive Committee also recommends moving ourRegional Manager position from contract to an employee position and from a manager to an Executive Director. The Vice President of the Region (Sally Young) is charged with coordinating the review of the Regional Manager annually. Sally looked at other regions that have executive directors and created a job description. Kay embraced the new title and way of work.
The advantage to move to a staff position allows the Region to grow by bringing on other staff to assist with our work perhaps in advocacy and regional fund raising. It also allows us to re-enroll Kay in the YWCA Retirement Fund, a move consistent with the economic empowerment of women.
A vote to approve the budget includes approval for the revised expenses of an executive director. / Motion by Keri McLain to put a vote to the full board regarding voting by email.
Second by SilissaUriarte Smith.
Motion approved.
Motion by Dana to table the discussion on the posting of the position.
Second byBobbi Hayes. Motion approved. / Forward copy of the job description to the entire Board.
Develop personnel policies.
Check into whether for EEOC purposes the position need to be posted.
COMMITTEE
REPORTS
Treasurer’s Report
Keri McLain
08/09 Budget Revision / Keri reviewed the first quarter of ’09 and pointed out that the budget would balance if we had dues paid by all associations. Please send in your dues on time.
The revised budget was reviewed. It includes the adjusted half year salary for the Executive Director along with taxes and retirement. The question was raised how can we vote on a budget revision if we have not approved the position description? Keri suggested that weapprove budget in concept if everything else falls in place. / Motion by Janet Marcotte to adopt the revised budget as presented.
Second by Judy Pasquale Case.
Motion approved.
Advocacy Report
Silissa Uriarte Smith / The Committee, including Silissa, Muriel Smallheiser and Kay Kelley met in Sacramento with Brenda Alcott from Hawaii and Kay Philips on the phone. They covered information from the National Advocacy Committee. The YWCA USA website includes the Committee report. Upcoming is a session on voter protection. The committee shared the guidelines for the Advocacy Committee’s work.
Kenya Revisited Action Group
Kay Philips / The Action Group startedin May with a conference in northern California. The question was what to do about Kenya now? A second meeting was held in southern California. Fro both sessions the morning was information sharing and the afternoon consisted of action planning. The group had garage sales and raised $3k to send to the world. Hilary and Jenny presented their program on HIV AIDS and are available to go to any YWCA to talk about this issue. Known as the “lunch bunch” the group will meet monthly and get action items out to everyone in the Region. The web domain is Resources available are links to the League of Women Voters and your legislators. The group is asking each association to appoint a person to receive the emails and get the information out to the entire agency. This is different from the Advocacy Committee as it links the world with regional and local associations to follow up on action. If an association is thinking about lobbying they need to apply for a 501c.4 / Motion by Silissa Uriarte that the Region members support the work of the Action Group.
Second by Elaine Moore.
Motion approved.
World Council Muriel Smalheiser / The World Relations Council has put into place action to meet the strategic plan #7 which links us to the World. Muriel requested that anyone who is raising money for the World to have it sent through the YWCA USA through Muriel. She is keeping the master list for the YWCA USA.
The World Council board met 10/6-10/2008. They renewed their commitment to HIVAIDS and violence against women and girls as another issue to support and be spokespersons against violence world wide.
The UN Commission on CEDAW will be meeting right after the US elections. They are asking that we contact our national reps to approve and ratify CEDAW, and asking all Regions to pass the resolution.
Janet Marcotte suggested that local associations get persons involved who actually have existing relationships with their congresspersons.
YWCA USA is not focused on the World Council and the board’s job is to get the priority back on the national agenda. The new Director of Advocacy for the YWCA USA is one of the co-chairs one of the UN committees on CEDAW. / Motion by Loretta Morristo support the CEDAW resolution.
Second by Nancy Atkinson.
Motion Approved. / The Council is seeking the names of those who attended world conferences in Uganda, and South Africa.
Sharon will appoint a person from Berkeley.
Assoc. Services
Pat Wiedhopf / Since the last board meeting the committee met once. For Peer Review, the ASC has 13 completed, 3 are scheduled and the remaining 9 will be done by June 2009. The Committee requests that for a Peer Review it is best for both the President and CEO to be available.
Pat reported on an “Affiliation Agreement” proposed by the RLC. The original affiliation agreement signed in 2002 includes 12 items of compliance. The Committee recommends to the Pacific Region not approving the RLC proposal because the core of the work we do (items 4,5,6) are not addressed in the new recommendation.
At the April meeting a revision of the application for technical supportwas completed. The revision needs to be sent to the Region for review. The ASC will present the revised and reviewed formto the next board meeting. / Motion by Pat Wiedhopf to reaffirm the YWCA USAaffiliation agreement of 2002 and to vote against the RLC proposal of only 7 items required for association compliance with the bylaws of the YWCA USA.
Second by Keri McLain.
Motion approved. / Send out the request form for technical assistance for review and input by local associations.
Bylaws
Mary Douglas / Article 7, Section 7.3 allows for the Nominating Committee Chair to be an ex officio member of the Executive Committee. The current committee chair, Cynthia Albers attested that being an ex-officio member of the Executive Committee was not effective nor a good use of time. / Motion by Mary Douglasto revise Article 7 section 7.3 of the bylaws to delete the Nominating Committee Chair as an ex officio member of the Executive Committee.
Second by Keri McLain.
Motion approved.
Leadership Develop-ment Committee
Elaine Moore / Elaine Moore announced this is the best committee in the Region. Webinar trainings have started and will continue quarterly. Kay is willing to provide the Introduction to the YWCA regularly as a webinar for new employees at all associations. There will be no spring training because of the conference in 2009. All associations are asked to consider having money available for sending staff to the conference in October.
The young women’s survey will be sent to young womenat all associations if their emails can be forwarded.
The 2009 conference is scheduled at Asilimar in California on October 5, 6, 7, 2009. The first face-to-face meeting of the committee is scheduled for 11/17 in Santa Monica. / Need associations to send emails of young women in their associations who are under 30.
Please send information to Elaine about what the conference should include.
NCB Report
Sitara Harvey-Cook
Gloria Lau / Gloria Lau walked us through the two real estate decisions facing the NCB.
1-Purchase office space in a brand new facility being built in downtown DC. This will provide good visibility for YWCA and adequate office space for staff. Ground has been broken on the building.
2-In order to finance the purchase of the new space, the YWCA will sell the training center in Phoenixand it will go on the market sometime in 2010.
The National office has requested information on Hallmark programs that local associations can submit for consideration to be adopted as model programs.
“America the Beautiful” can be available to any association for $2400.
The 2009 national meeting and conference is scheduled for Washington, DC 4/30-5/3/09.
Nominating
Cynthia Albers / Cynthia thanked the committee members and Kay for assisting with the development of this year’s slate.
The Committee worked diligently to get the best leadership for the Region, taking into account talent, demography and geography. Cynthia the asked the Board to weigh in on having two executive committee members from the same association.
Comments included:
-It’s more of a concern that there are only 2 volunteers—need more volunteers.
-Nominating committee also doesn’t have enough volunteers—need people to step up.
-We need to reach out because having 2 people from the same area limits diversity.
-Skill sets are important and why leave a position open if there is someone qualified willing to fill it?
-When an officer is eligible for a second term that we have a standardized process in place for determining whether a person is willing to continue.
-As it is hard to recruit volunteers Mary Douglas noted that “something is missing in the giddy-up”.
-The pool for volunteers has been lessened and it’s tough to get women under 30. Also, the nominating committee is seen as a once per year activity. Information could be sent out frequently to boards reminding them of potential opportunities to serve the Region.
The ballots were collected by the committee.
Sharon thanked Cynthia for her 2 years’ of work.
Nominating Committee report on the ballot results:
18 assoc voted
Board members 27 voted in total
Nom 27
Exec 27
NCB 16 ballots
Congratulations to everyone! / Requested that the Nominating Committee consider not having a single slate ballot. Also, consider longer than 1 year terms, and review the bylaws to see if that can happen.
Regional Consultant
Kay Kelley / The SE Region put together a PSA that we could purchase for $40 for each association to put on our local cable company. Consensus was it was a good ad and that Kay should pursue it.
Neale Godfrey has offered an incredible resource in the“Life Inc.” curriculum available to the YWCA free of charge. 20,000 free copies are available for the YWCA. Neale will be here (LA) on January 26th for a training on the curriculum. Neale has written a financial literacy piece for the financial pilot. We also got copies of a book on generational differences provided by Deloitte. Kay has copies; if you want one just let her know.
Packard Foundation supports financial literacy, and Musimbi told us we need to go the Packard Foundation to support the financial literacy piece.
Deloitte also is committed to be truly involved in the community and may provide volunteers or board members.
Kay also reminded the group that we met with a lobbyist while we were in DC for the 2008 national meeting. She works for the appropriation of dollars for our Region or for associations in the Region. The GLA has worked with them and to date they have gotten $5,020,000 into the GLA so far in about 2.5 years. The cost for us would be about $5000/month. Perhaps the region could match some funds for locals or groups of locals. All earmarks could not possibly go away.
Is this something we could pursue?
“Go To Webinar” is what we are going to use as our webinar provider and it costs $900 per year with unlimited usage. / Kay Phillips volunteered to work with Kay Kelley to put together a proposal for the Packard Foundation to fund the financial literacy education curriculum.
Old Business
Next Meeting / It was suggested that the next regional meeting be held in Albuquerque on April 28th, just before the national meeting in DC. Albuquerque may not have the best access for flights to DC. Northern California was suggested.
There was consensus that there should be two meetings at least two weeks apart, instead of trying to tie the regional meeting closely to the national meeting. / Exec committee will meet after this meeting to plan a date for the next regional meeting.
Adjourned / 3:20 P.M.