OPEG Meeting Minutes

Minutes for meeting of OPEG Board of Trustees 4-20-07 Conference Call

Present: Rob Fischer, Rick George, Marsha Zabecki, Randy Leite, Kelly Burgess, Debbie Crawford, Sandy Locke, Nancy Hood, and Jan Upton.

Review of Minutes: December and February minutes approved. Permission given to post them on the web page.

Treasurer's Report - Randy Leite: Total revenue year-to-date through March is $8,556.85. Randy has since made another deposit for $1,391, which raises the revenue to over $9,900 for the year. In terms of overall spending, we are at $7,891.52. As of the end of March, we had a net profit of $665.33.

As of 4/20/07, we had 60 registrations for the Spring Exchange. Randy will deposit incoming registrations and e-mail an update out on the number. Randy will also send an updated membership database on people who have paid due through fall 2007.

Chip e-mailed the latest membership database with the most recent contact information (addresses and telephone numbers). Randy is taking care of the dues and Chip is handling updating contact information. Chip offered to cross-check Randy's list to ensure that the contact information was current on Randy's list.

Sandy noted that there is still an expense line for administrative services ($706.36) on the financial statement. That is for printing and supplies. Rob had requested that this expense be moved to Program Committee costs. Sandy just reiterated that this change should be made. Randy explained that he thinks he made the change on the Annual Report, but that he forgot to make the update on the Monthly Update document. He will check when he returns to the office.

Rob noted that one topic of e-mail discussion was the issue of a membership requirement for conference participants. In the past, the policy was to charge the membership fee to all participants. There are very few who do not want to be members. We need a standard response to, "Can people attend the Workshop/Exchange without joining OPEG?" Debbie explained that in the past, the issue was not that people could not attend, but if you were not a member, you would pay a premium (which is basically the membership fee added to conference fee). Thus, it does not make any sense for anyone not to become a member. Nancy said the revised conference form still does not make this clear. Retrospectively, perhaps it sounds better not to say "You have to pay a higher fee if you are not a member," rather than "You have to be a member."

Chip noted that he is a member of another professional organization that has dealt with this issue and provides a clearer explanation. He will send that out to everyone. We can look at Chip's example and see if we can make it clearer. Rob noted that we have always treated everyone that attended as a member. We automatically put them on the member database. Debbie indicated that the reason we went this route is that some organizations were not willing to pay for membership, but they did not problem with a higher conference fee. We need to make a decision about how to handle this. Maybe we'll do a pretest on the next iteration of the form. Perhaps we should emphasize that membership is automatic, and then they get a discount if they attend second conference within the year. We need a clear response to people who ask about it. Chip explained that he has been telling people that they paid $30 more last year because they were not members. Now they are again paying $30 more, but this time they become a member. Nancy asked if we should consider having 2-3 of us think through membership benefits, independent of the form, since these types of issues comes up regularly and we don't have a clear answer. Debbie offered to lead this ad hoc committee, and Kelly and Rick offered to assist here. We can look at the way other affiliates handle it and see if we can come up with more tangible understanding of benefits, besides just that the next workshop will be cheaper.

The Board approved the March Financial Report.

Program Committee Report - Marsha Zabecki:

Spring Exchange - There was discussion of the need for greater variety in the menu. We need a vegetarian option, but people say they are tired of lasagna. We chose Cheese filled Spinach Tortellini. For meat option, the choice was beef with noodles. We will continue to have pasta salad with no meat and dessert at the break.

Discussed break beginning at 10:30 a.m. Consensus was to allow some flexibility on the end time if Mary went longer. However, Marsha learned later that the Fawcett Center staff needed to begin breaking down the room for lunch no later than 10:30 a.m. Ending at 10:30 a.m. gives participants more time for networking, which is something they have asked for.

We scheduled a roundtable with Mary as one of the breakout sessions. We also scheduled a discussion at the end of the day. We want to encourage people to stay for the whole day.

Rob noted that we have been approved for 5.25 quarter hours of CEUs based on the published schedule. We've already got the certificate.

Marsha mentioned room assignments for board members. She will send out updated list. We have made AV set-up arrangements for each room.

Debbie mentioned lunch discussion topics that each board member is to use for generating discussion at their tables. One of the topics should be: What are the benefits of an OPEG membership." Nancy also noted that we do not need a lot of topics, since half of the luncheon will be devoted to the membership meeting.

Chip is going to be the technical guru and will set up everything in the breakout rooms. Nancy is setting up the keynote material on her computer.

The title for Mary's keynote presentation needs to be corrected. The closing will be on developing a plan. Marsha will make the corrections on the version to be printed.

The maximum number that can register is 125. We picked a good topic, as there are more early registrations than usual. Chip is going to send out a reminder.

Rob e-mailed an agenda for the business meeting that will take place at the Exchange.

Fall 2007 Workshop - Chip:

We wanted to do something on using technology in evaluation and graphical presentation. We wanted Ed Tuffe (wrote book on "Visual Display on Information"), but he is too expensive for OPEG. He recommended Jerry Weiner, but that did not work out. Chip also e-mailed Bill Cleveland who nominated Naomi Robbins. Chip spoke with her. She specializes in the visual display of information, has also written a book, and does this kind of presentation all the time. Chip recommended that she be considered. There are also a variety of other people in Ohio (analysts and consultants) who use public domain software, specifically R and other free software that anyone can use. There was some interest expressed in this in the Fall Workshop evaluation.

Debbie cautioned about overemphasis on creating a workshop that is primarily quantitative. Chip noted that the majority of members indicate interest in both quantitative and qualitative applications. Marsha pointed out that we will be doing an evaluation at the end of the Spring Exchange, and we will be asking about this. Thus, nothing is set in stone. We are just looking at these as possible ideas. Nancy said there is also some qualitative public domain software. She will get some more information.

We need clarity on connection between visual display and free software. Decision to cover these two areas may also be impacted by evaluation feedback. Marsha noted that we have the potential for four different slots. Last year, we cut it down to three.

Chip said there are at least two people on the list who use R and they have offered to work together on a presentation that focused on displaying data. Rob mentioned possible tracks: display of statistical information, geographic information, and multimedia. The Program Committee can wrestle with these issues. From the whole Board, we need to know if we are going in the right direction. Unless anyone has any better ideas, we are.

Marsha will send out the draft Spring Exchange evaluation form for Board members to review. It will include specific questions about how members feel about this topic.

Chip asked if we could move forward with securing to Naomi Robbins. Rob asked if official commitment could wait until June.

Membership Committee Report - Debbie Crawford:

Debbie is confused as to why we have two databases. Chip and Randy are working through this. We currently have a membership database with lots of errors. Randy does not have time to clean this up, so Chip has been cleaning up the contact information. We will eventually have an updated database and will likely move to something that will be managed directly on line. Randal (the webmaster) has offered to help us with this. In the meanwhile, we have a workable solution.

Other Business:

Planning for 2007 Elections - Chip Partridge

President: Rob

Vice President: Nancy

Two At-Large: Alec Boros, Rick George, Tucker Hanley, Shiloh Turner, and Marsha Zabecki.

Chip is going to put together an electronic ballot. He will check with Tom Archer, since Tom previously had set up a ballot on Zoomerang. Chip will aim to get this out by April 30 and give people two weeks to respond. We want to be able to notify those elected in advance.

Planning for 2007 Awards - Kelly Burgess

Evaluation Recognition Award: Nominees - Jerry Bean, Alec Boros, and Eric Stewart.

Roberta O'Keefe Award: Discussion about whether Sandy Ortega had previously won this award. She was very involved with OPEG at one point. Chip pointed out that she is now at Kent State. Rob suggested that Kelly check with Steve Albanese to see if Sandy had previously won the award.

We can vote on the awards via e-mail. Rob has the order form for the plaques.

OPEG Newsletter - Ricky George

Rob made a special acknowledgement of Rick's work on getting that fantastic newsletter together. It's a really nice piece. Rick will do another one after the conference.

Next Meeting: Friday, May 18, 2007 during lunch at the Spring Exchange. Next full Board meeting scheduled for Friday, June 22, 2007 from 10-11:30 a.m. Location TBA.

Submitted by: Jan Upton