OPEG Meeting Minutes

OPEG minutes for Board of Trustees meeting at Maryhaven, Columbus Ohio 10/29/04

President Steve Albanese called the meeting to order at 10:10 a.m.

Present: Steve, Tim Champney, Mina Chang, Rosemary Chaudry, Debbie Crawford, Robin Fenn, Sandy Lock. Not present: Bob Fine, Rob Fischer, Jennie Nickel

Review of minutes from 10/1/04: Motion to approve the minutes was made by Debbie, seconded by Sandy; approved. Minutes have been posted to the web page.

Treasurer’s report: Sandy presented the budget for the coming year. The budget was created with estimates of membership at 120. Monies for the Spring Exchange have been increased, based on Tim’s estimate of 75 attendees. Budgeted total revenue and total expenses are each $13,763.00.

Sandy presented the account balances as of September 30, 2004. Balance in checking $3,785.95, savings $0.00, balance in CD $6,877.61, for total of $10,663.56. For the month, income was $3.67, expense was $121.95, for a net loss of $118.28. There has been an slight increase in interest income. Several new memberships have been received with registrations for the upcoming fall workshop; these will constitute reserves to offset the September net loss of $118.28. Expenses for the month are ribbons that say “OPEG” for distribution to Ohio members of AEA at the upcoming AEA meeting this month, and for the web page maintenance.

Membership Committee report- Debbie encouraged board members to recruit new OPEG members, including having OPEG brochures available at any meetings, etc. that members attend. Sandy reported that Child Focus will update the membership file with new memberships obtained through registrations for the fall workshop and will forward the updated list to all Board members.

There was discussion about the January mailing. One suggestion was to have an electronic mailing to current members, and delete respondents who submit their membership from the full regular mailing, which would be sent later in the month. It was also discussed to not extend the mailing to the ODMH list, but to focus on Ohio AEA members who are not OPEG members and ADAMH list. Rosemary will check on using the OPHA listserve to announce the membership drive.

Program Committee report-Tim reported that the registrations for the fall workshop have been good. Break even was anticipated to be reached with six more registrants, and there is capacity for 14 more registrants. However, break-even may already have been met or will be met with fewer additional registrations due to lower food costs than budgeted. Rob is handling CEU and evaluations. There will be a meeting at HPIO on Nov. 11 at 3 P.M. to assemble the binder notebooks for the workshop. A demo of the OPEG website will be available at the social hour; meeting attendees can gather at the social hour.

Tim presented information about the spring Evaluator Exchange. He has a contract with the Fawcett Center for $1100 for May 20. Fawcett Center will allow use of the ballroom at no extra cost because of the commitment to have a continental breakfast. Four breakout rooms will be used, each with capacity for 40, at $275 per room. Keynote and panel will be 9-10:30, session 1 10:30 to lunch. We may opt for a boxed lunch. A motion to accept the contract at the stated specifications was made by Rosemary, seconded by Debbie, approved.

Things to do for the workshop: include an announcement and call for papers in the January membership mailing. We need to identify a theme and keynote speaker, panel members. It is important to feature diverse offerings to reflect the variety of members’ interests. The Program Committee will have a conference call on Tuesday Nov. 30 to review the fall workshop and to discuss the upcoming Exchange.

Tim also noted that there is potential for OPEG to offer additional workshops in the SW and NE areas. The Greater Cincinnati Health Foundation would offer a room, with capacity of up to 70, if the workshop is held in the Cincinnati area. The Columbus Foundation may be wiling to co-sponsor if the workshop is offered in the Cleveland area. Robin noted that NEOUCOM has a conference center that might be available. Debbie and Tim will each obtain estimates from outside organizers to handle arrangements, registrations. Robin will explore support from the Sisters of Charity Foundation. Mina reported that her organization could handle registrations. 

Communications report- Rosemary reported that Randal, the web master , has responded to queries about using the web page for email communications and for members’ mini-websites:  1) Setting up the emails through the OPEG.ORG domain name and extension is fairly easy and can be done within the 3 hours per month monthly maintenance contract. Rosemary will check if this feature can be set up in time for early January, for possible mailing of membership materials. 2) Creating mini-websites is much more complex and would require time outside of regular maintenance hours unless it could be done over slowly over several months. It would be necessary to define what the sites would be comprised of, create a database allowing users to input and manage their own information, and create user roles and permissions. Because the database is already in place, it would just be an expansion of current tables. The time-consuming piece is writing code-allowing users to manage their data and ensuring that pages providing functionality are secure. Randal has asked us to let him know how we want him to proceed. Members elected to have him begin work on the email feature, and to provide a cost estimate for the second task. There is a possibility that we would have it done slowly over several months. Rosemary will report back to Randal and ask for the estimate and an estimate for on-going maintenance for this.

AEA report- Tabled for next meeting.

Other business. Steve reminded the Board that OPEG is not a 501-C-3 and may want to move in that direction. Sandy will gather information on this process and related costs and report at the January meeting. 

Next meeting date: Two potential dates were selected, and Steve will send an email to check on Board members’ availability: Wednesday Dec. 15 10-12, and Wed. Dec. 15 12-2.

A motion to adjourn the meeting at 12 P.M. was made by Robin, seconded by Debbie, approved.

Respectfully submitted-Rosemary Chaudry, secretary.