OPEG Meeting Minutes

Minutes for meeting of OPEG Board of Trustees 2-12-10 Conference Call

Rob Fischer, Shon Bunkley, Karen Shaner, Jan Upton, Jerry Bean, and Rachel Holbert attended. Mark Carrozza, Ann O'Connell, and Julianne Manchester were not able to attend.

Review of Minutes - Jan Upton: A minor edit was made to the December minutes and then they were approved. The October minutes, which needed approval from one more member, were also approved.

Treasurer's Report - Karen Shaner:

Review of February 10, 2010 Financial Statement - With respect to our revenue to date ($6,535), we are at 43% of that budgeted (Membership is 44%, conference fees are 41%, CEUs are 70%, and interest is at 20%). On the expense side ($5,776), we have only spent 38% of what was budgeted. For the Fall Workshop, our cost was lower than projected. Our year ends on August 31, so we are doing fine on the budget. The only expense that was higher than expected was the service fees for the Fall Workshop ($879 and we budgeted $800). Karen explained that Quest has an interesting way of handling room costs. They charge $1,100 for the room, but then they refund a $1,000 credit. Consequently, the room cost was only $100. We had budgeted $6,080 for the Fall Workshop and only spent $4,431 (73%). There was some discussion about the PayPal cost and the affect of that on our membership projection. Karen said that she would check on this.

Following the board meeting, Karen sent the latest membership list to Rachel and Jan. Jan needed this before she could have Chip send out member announcements, which will include a reminder about membership renewal, change of the member password, the call for papers, the board openings, and the awards. She noted that one reason for changing the password more regularly is to encourage members to keep their dues up-to-date. Rachel wondered if we should add a membership list to the non-Members Only web area. However, once we have the new Membership data page up, members will be able to more readily access and update their information. One problem with PayPal is that the e-mail address is associated with the payment address, and people may not want to use that e-mail publicly. Fortunately, people often send an e-mail to Karen following payment with the contact information that they want her to use.

Program Committee Report - Shon Bunkley:

Spring Exchange (5/14/10 at Quest) Update - Donna Mertens http://edf.gallaudet.edu/x3771.xml has agreed to be the keynote. She offered to stay with a host family (Nancy Hood's parents). However, since we have more funds than expected in the budget due to savings on the Fall Workshop, Shon is going to ask Donna if she would like to stay at a hotel. Nancy Hood succeeded in getting Sage to donate six books for the conference, which includes books from Donna Martens and Jim Altschuld. The Program Committee will be meeting soon and will discuss the end of the day speaker. We also will likely need to add food to the end of the day. There was also the recommendation that the start time be later to accommodate people coming in from outside of Columbus. The board agreed to move the start time to 9:30 a.m. The actual start for the last Fall Workshop was 9 a.m. and we finished at about 3 p.m. Ending at 4 p.m. is reasonable, so the later start time makes sense.

The Program Committee also discussed the idea of merging the Summer and Fall Workshops, as Chip and Jerry may no longer be able to lead the Summer Workshop. Jerry explained that this was a good idea that just took off. Chip took the lead on the one this year with Ann. Jerry offered to be the steward for future summer sessions. Rob suggested that we plan to offer a summer statistics session every other year, and if it happens every year, that would be great. Adding this task to the Program Committee's responsibilities would be too much, as planning the Spring Exchange and Fall Workshop are ongoing and time consuming.

The Call for Papers materials are ready. Responses are due March 22. Shon will send those to the board and Jan will put on the web site. [Follow-up: We realized that the presentation submission survey link had not been updated, so there was a delay on getting the Call for Papers distributed. As of February 24th, all the materials are online. Chip also e-mailed the announcement to members and non-members.]

Fall Workshop - Program Committee discussed moving the date up, given the conflict with the American Evaluation Association (the AEA Annual Meeting is November 10-13). October 8th is available at Quest. Recommendation was made for Shon to lock in this date.

Membership Committee Report - Rachel Holbert: Rachel provided an update of the Membership Committee's latest activities. The committee is working on establishing an OPEG presence on LinkedIn. In addition, the group is planning to do phone follow-up with people who were members over the past few years but who did not renew their membership. The objective is to learn more about why people leave OPEG and to do some outreach to prospective members.

There is also the situation of agencies that sent a number of employees but then no longer sent anyone. There are also instances where organizations that have been dissolved. Rachel suggested working with Chip to cull such defunct members from the list and determine if these people may be still working in evaluation but are in other jobs. We need to track these people.

The Membership Committee has also discussed ways of encouraging people to renew. Another idea is have a membership drive for the Fall Workshop. This timeframe would correspond to the fiscal year. Jan noted that this is something that we should be encouraging year-round-typing it to both events. This once again raised the question about the period covered by membership dues. Jan emphasized that the standard for all other organizations is 12 months. The new membership system that Chip is setting up should fix this problem, as the member date will be known and we can automatically send out membership renewal reminders. We could also add a line encouraging membership renewal to the Spring Exchange event card. Karen also noted that someone recently contacted her from out of state about participating in OPEG. She recommended making it clear in all our materials that we are open to non-Ohio-based members.

Rachel also asked about the status of the newsletter. Rob said that he would follow-up with Julianne. [UPDATE: Julianne requested that board members submit announcements and other information for the newsletter by February 25.]

Other Business - Rob Fischer:

Board Elections - Rob noted that we could appoint a replacement for Susan English (term ends in 2011). Chip has the election results from last year, so we could offer it to the next person with the highest votes. Other possibilities mentioned were Tucker Handley, Thom Craig, and Brenda Peters. Another option is to include her position as an opening in the upcoming elections. Rob said he would send out a note about the replacement if one of the possible people agrees to fill the remainder of her term.

Elections - Terms ending in 2010: Treasurer (Karen), Secretary (Jan), and three At-Large positions (Mark, Rachel, and Julianne). Rachel will run for Secretary if no one else is willing to do it, but if she does this, we will need to find a replacement for the Membership Committee Chair. Karen agreed to run for one of the At-Large positions. We are probably going to have to recruit someone for Treasurer. Karen recommended having this person in place before the Spring Exchange so that she could provide some training. The Treasurer and Secretary are working positions that require a high level of commitment. However, these positions are an "easy" way to get on the board, as any nominees usually run unopposed.

Awards - There was a brief discussion about possible nominees for the Robert O'Keefe Award for Outstanding Service to OPEG and the OPEG Evaluation Recognition Award. Since there will likely be only a handful of submissions, Rob will distribute those to the board. Rob reminded everyone to verify that he remembered to notify award winners.

By-laws Update - Rachel provided a brief update. She and Ann were working with Susan on the by-laws. Rachel e-mailed Susan prior to her resignation. There has not been any further progress on the by-laws. She explained that she and Ann need help with this task. Board members agreed that it is not realistic for us to have this ready for members to vote on the changes at the Spring Exchange. Rob said that he could give it more attention after the Spring Exchange. Jan also agreed to help with the review of the by-laws after her term as Secretary ends.

Community Research Partners Event - Shon mentioned that Community Research Partners is offering a "data-driven" conference on May 13-the day before the OPEG Spring Exchange. She wanted to know if there had been a precedent for OPEG advertising such non-affiliated events. Jan explained that OPEG maintains a "non-OPEG" list of opportunities on the OPEG web site that includes links to Community Research Partners, so yes, we regularly promote local events that may be relevant to members. In addition, since both events are at Quest, evaluators and others may want to take advantage of the opportunity to participate in two days of professional development. [UPDATE: Jan posted this information in the "Hot Items" on the web page and included this in the e-mail/newsletter announcements respectively to Chip and Julianne.]

Upcoming Meeting: Friday, April 16, 2010 via conference call at 10 a.m.

Submitted by: Jan Upton