OPEG Meeting Minutes

Minutes for meeting of OPEG Board of Trustees 10-10-07 Conference Call

Rob Fischer, Nancy Hood, Jan Upton, Randy Leite, Debbie Crawford, Chip Partridge, and Marsha Zabecki. Kelly Burgess, Rick George, and Shiloh Turner were not able to attend.

Review of Minutes: August minutes were approved.

Treasurer's Report - Randy Leite: Randy submitted an updated budget. The revised budget for Fiscal Year 2008 is $17,920. This is lower than the figure approved at the preceding Board meeting ($19,330) on August 10th. The new budget was approved. Randy explained that he revised the proposed budget to be more consistent with the actual revenue for the prior fiscal year.

Program Committee Report - Nancy Hood: Nancy confirmed that she has reserved Friday, May 16th for the 2008 Spring Exchange. The Fall Workshop mailing went in September. Nancy had a special thank you to Shiloh for handling the mailing and another special thank you to Marsha for putting together the Beginner's Excel session. Chip will be working on the evaluation survey. Julie Manchester has compiled handouts for the initial networking session. Rob is going to take care of the CEU paperwork with Case.

[UPDATE: We decided that sending out a survey exploring possible interest in intermediate/advanced versus beginning session was not necessary.]

Membership Committee Report - Debbie Crawford: We're doing well. At last count we had 130. Randy reported an additional five members have paid for 2007-08. Three were new. Thus, the total count is now approximately 133. Chip sent out an updated member list.

Debbie noted that there is not currently a Membership Committee. Thus, it was not possible to address the organizational membership idea discussed in the 8/10 meeting. Nancy had offered to help Debbie with recruitment. We also could put an announcement in the newsletter and web page updates asking for volunteers. Debbie also announced the need for volunteers at the Fall Workshop. Nancy also noted that since there are now ample members participating on the Program Committee that a few of those people might be willing to either change to the Membership Committee or work on two committees.

Debbie asked if there was any feedback on the OPEG PowerPoint. The group liked the PowerPoint. Jan sent Debbie some minor edits. The PowerPoint and handout are now on the web page. Members can use these for informational purposes and Board members can use in brief presentations on evaluation and OPEG. These can be used to promote OPEG. Members and others can also request presentations for their agency or organization. The Membership Committee may need to periodically update the presentation materials. Chip pointed out that we may need to clarify the meaning of the use of terms (e.g., formative and summative). There may also be applicable opportunities to incorporate selected points into other presentations.

Other Business:

Updating of Board Binder Materials - Rob Fischer

Rob explained that he did not mean for Chip to take the lead on coordinating the entire process. He thought that Chip, Marsha, and Debbie would each would be the lead reviewer for their team and would coordinate the comments from their team members. Each group could then do a summary of their recommendations of their changes for the Board. Chip said that he thought he had everything from everyone, but then Nancy noted that she has not sent anything. She then realized that she did not have the document. Rob will resend to Nancy who will review and send recommendations to Chip. With this exception, all the teams had reviewed their section of binder materials and sent their comments to Chip. [FOLLOW-UP: Did Nancy send her review and recommendations to Chip?]

The next step will be to proceed with approving the recommendations that only require Board approval. For changing code and regulations, we will need two-thirds majority of the votes cast by the membership. We can time this in conjunction with the Spring Exchange (May 16, 2008).

Newsletter - Debbie Crawford (since Rick George was absent)

The newsletter is almost ready, but Rick has been overwhelmed at work. The goal is to get the newsletter out before the Fall Workshop. Rob asked Nancy to write a brief article on the Fall Workshop keynote. Nancy said she would be glad to do that, but did not want to step on Rick's toes, so Debbie was going to check with him via e-mail. [FOLLOW-UP: Newsletter had not come out as of 12/7/07.] Nancy asked if we included hard copy of the newsletter in the Spring Exchange packets. The answer was yes, and so she planned to that if the newsletter was ready by then. Debbie said that it may not be enough information for hard copy. We will post on web site and send members an e-mail announcement. Rob expressed concern about the content being comparable to the first newsletter, which was well received. Rob said that he could write a letter to members for the back page.

AEA Meeting - Rob Fischer

Rob will be attending the AEA Annual Conference in Baltimore (November 7-10). He will be participating in the session with other affiliates. He asked if other Board members would be attending, but none were planning to do so.

Next Meeting: Monday, December 10, 2007 at 9:30 a.m., conference call.

Summary of Needed Follow-up:

• Did Nancy send Board Binder recommendations to Chip?
• What is a realistic date for finalizing the newsletter?

Remaining Follow-up from 8/10 meeting:

Did Chip prepare a version of directory that can be loaded onto the web page? [UPDATE: We added a directory of members who work as consultants. We have not yet loaded the full directory. We have recently done lots of work to the "Members Only" page, including adding the Fall Workshop presentation materials. Once Chip has a complete and clean version of the full membership directory, we will add that to the "Members Only" page.]

Submitted by: Jan Upton