OPEG Meeting Minutes

Minutes General Membership Meeting, Evaluators’ Exchange 6/4/04 at the Fawcett Center, Columbus.

President Steve Albanese convened the 2004 annual General Membership meeting at 12:45pm. He introduced the member of the Board of Trustees and former trustees who were in attendance. The past year had been a good one for OPEG, thanks largely to the hard work of the Board. The organization is growing again and offering high quality programming. We are also making better use of our website to communicate with the membership. At the conclusion of his remarks, Steve introduced Deb Wasserman, Director of Evaluation Services for Community Research Partners (CRP). Steve thanked CRP for having donated $500 towards the travel expenses of our Exchange Keynote Speaker, Dow Wieman.

Treasurer’s report: Steve introduced Treasurer Sandy Lock and thanked her for doing a very professional job keeping OPEG’s funds and accounts in order. Sandy Lock provided a financial report showing OPEG’s greatly improving financial status due to new membership and the turnout for the Exchange.

Membership report: Steve introduced Trustee Debbie Crawford who chairs the Membership Committee and has brought to it a strong sense of service to OPEG members. Debbie Crawford reported on growth in membership and outreach strategies,and encouraged members to recruit other individuals to OPEG who have an interest in evaluation. Debbie also encouraged attendees who are not members to join OPEG, and also encouraged members to get involved in OPEG activities.

Program committee report: Steve introduced Tim Champney, Vice President and Program Chair and commended him for his excellent work with the Program Committee, including planning and implementing the Evaluators’ Exchange.

Tim provided updates on program plans for the fall basics workshop and website development. In the past year, there have been several additions to the OPEG website: a members’ section with a membership directory, hot news items, more up-to-date meeting minutes, more information about programs including downloadable registration and brochures, and a jobs section.

 Nominating committee: Steve reported election results on behalf of Nominating committee chair Bob Fine, who was unable to attend. Results of the 2004 election were: Sandy was re-elected as treasurer, Rosemary Chaudry was elected secretary. Robin Fenn and Debbie Crawford were re-elected as Members-at-Large, and Mina Chang was elected to a first term as Member-at-Large. Steve thanked outgoing Trustee Tom Archer for setting up the website so we could conduct the election electronically.

Other business: OPEG is a statewide affiliate of the American Evaluation Association. Rob Fischer reported on the upcoming meeting of all the AEA affiliates to be held in Atlanta June 25 through 27 that Rob and Tim will be attending. This meeting was made possible by a grant from the Kellogg Foundation.

Steve presented two awards. Mina Chang received the Evaluation Recognition Award for outstanding achievement in the field of evaluation. This award was first given our in 1985 to Dee Roth, Chief of the Office of Program Evaluation and Research of ODMH. Shelly Brazier (Sandy Lock’s Administrative Assistant) received the Roberta O’Keefe Award for Outstanding Contributions to OPEG.

Steve entertained a motion and the Annual Meeting was adjourned at 1:20pm.