Minutes of NWSSA BOD Meeting 7-16-2014

Minutes NWSSA of July 16th, 2014

Board of Directors meeting at Camp Brotherhood Symposium

BoD meeting began at 8:30 pm

present:

• Carl Nelson, president
• Michael Yeaman, vice president
• Ken Barnes, treasurer
• Ben Mefford, director of symposium
• Pat Barton, field director
• Verena Schwippert, secretary and
• Steve Sandry, newly elected board member

absent:

• Gerda Lattey and
• Rick Johnson, newly elected to the board

Board Officers Elections

The 4 officers of the board resigned and were newly elected at this meeting.

Namely: Carl Nelson, president; Michael Yeaman, vice president;

Ken Barnes, treasurer; Verena Schwippert, secretary.

Minutes from previous meeting.
The minutes from the last BoD meeting in were approved by all.

Finances. Ken Barnes’ financial report from the General meeting was briefly discussed. The balance for the year 2013 is minus $ 5200, an acceptable amount given NWSSA’s current reserves.

Support for NWSSA Office tasks.
A discussion was held about Renee duties, responsibilities, and performance. It was agreed that she has been effective and beneficial to the overall functioning of the organization. In Carl’s discussion with her about how the year has gone for her, there was note of occasions when it was difficult to meet deadlines due to conflict with her job. It was agreed to look at finding someone who could also do those tasks with deadlines to work with the board and Renee to assure fewer deadlines slip. Cyra Jane Hobson was suggested and contacted as a person help out when Renee gets very busy and overloaded. Cyra can also take over some duties as more tasks become apparent, for instance the work on the symposium brochures. All were in favor of continuing with Renee and to begin training Cyra.

Bank fees.
Michael Yeaman brought up the subject of Bank fees and observed that they might be waived for Charities and Non-profits at US Bank.

Ken will check on Bank fees and states the possibility to cancel NWSSA’s merchant account, which costs $ 70 per month.

Symposium finances estimates.
Ben Mefford reports circa 70 participants in this year’s – 2014 – Symposium
The rough numbers estimates are:
$ 41,500 Income
$ 7,500 Auction and Donations
$ 49,000 TOTAL INCOME
$ 40,100 EXPENSE Costs for the lodge, food etc and payments to instructors etc.
$ 8,900 EST NET INCOME [yeay]

Give Big.
Carl Nelson reports that this year’s ‘Give Big’ event, brought us an extra donation income of circa $2 700, with one member donating $1000. Carl will work with Ken to get a ‘Thank You’ letter to each donor.

Safety.
It appears very important to send safety policies and procedures with each registration package. Pat Barton suggests to bring back the safety talks at the beginning of the symposiums. Invisible dust, respirators, grinder safety are but a few of the topics. (A compromise has to be found for the angle grinder guards.)
Michael Yeaman observed that it is imperative for each participant to sign a liability waiver.
Bill Weissinger, member and attorney might be asked for his advice in this matter.
A motion was made by Ken for:
Pat Barton to formulate a safety policy that includes procedures and safety instructions as necessary to safeguard and educate the participants and bring it back to the board for adoption.
Motion for this was seconded by Verena and accepted by all.

Workshops.
Some of the workshop have additional costs for space rental, food, and sometimes instructor and material fees. With a few exceptions, the fees for workshops participants have generally covered these direct expenses. What has not been covered are the Facebook advertising costs. Facebook seems a good venue to advertise for the workshops, at $10-$50 for several days of posting. Now that we have experience with the workshops, it seems prudent to adjust fees for workshops to cover these costs. It is likely fees will increase $2-15 per workshop.
Workshops survey for coming year will be conducted in late August – early September. A call for topics will go out in the Journal.

Website.
To get acceptable performance on our web site, total costs for webhosting and listserve-email service are running about $180/yr. A search for a lower cost website host and mail service will occur in Sept/Oct and if a lower cost provider is found we will switch. Also, concurrent with a possible hosting provider change, will be an upgrade of our web software (Joomla, subscription. Event management and various support modules and components) from version 2.5 to 3.3. It is anticipated to occur in October/November.

Old business:
Coordinating a show in Botanical Garden, this was arranged by Carl at Kruckeberg Botanical gardens with good success for all involved. Other will be explored.
Ken is still working on a policy to handle inheritances in kind, stone, and tools, from our members and other friends of stone.

The Bod meeting was adjourned at 21:48h , or 9:48pm.