OPEG Meeting Minutes

Minutes for meeting of OPEG Board of Trustees 7-11-08 Maryhaven

Attendance at Maryhaven: Rob Fischer, Nancy Hood, Karen Shaner, Shon Bunkley, Rachel Holbert, Julianne Manchester, and Chip Partridge. Participation via Conference Call: Jan Upton and Marsha Zabecki. Absent: Shiloh Turner.

Introductions – Everyone did a personal introduction and described how they got involved in OPEG.

Review of Minutes – Jan Upton: May minutes fixes: Rick was in attendance and Chip was re-elected to At-Large position. Approved with correction. April minutes were approved.

Update on Web Page Edits – Jan Upton: Jan has compiled all the board member photos and other photos from the Spring Exchange. [UPDATE: All these materials are now on the OPEG web site.]

Treasurer’s Report – Karen Shaner:  Karen reviewed the June Financial Statement. The year-to-date revenue is $18,150. Expenses are $13,420. The net profit is $4,730. Randy separated out the postage ($350.32) and printing ($408.47) for the Kinkos bill ($758.79) for the Spring Exchange mailing. The program committee subtotal is $10,949.67, which is 68 percent projected.

Rob asked if there were any outstanding receivables from the Spring Exchange. Karen said she thought there were 1-2. She said that she believes that Randy received 1-2 membership payments that have not been deposited. Karen will check this. Jan needs to follow-up with Renee Belbeck. Renee needs to submit invoice for work she on the mailing list. This should be coded as “Administrative Services” on the financial statement spreadsheet. [UPDATE: Jan e-mailed Renee but did not receive a response. If Karen has not received an invoice, Jan will call Renee.]

Jan asked about the final attendance count for the Spring Exchange. Nancy said it was 85-90. Karen will check this. Rob noted that Randy developed a document that separates out the Spring Exchange revenue from conference fees and membership fees. This was part of the 5-year synopsis our budget that Randy prepared. Karen will find and update this document. Chip noted that he has the latest one from Randy.

Marsha noted that the current CD and checking account totals need to be added to the June financial statement spreadsheet. They normally appear at the bottom. She noted that the 6/24/08 statement indicates that the CD value at maturity is currently $7,386. [UPDATE: Karen corrected this on August future financial statement.] Assets from the last statement were $19,000, which includes the approximately $7,000 from the CD. Rob noted that our approach has generally been to keep at least one year of the operational budget in checking/savings (~$20,000). Nancy explained that our revenue was less than projected but expenses were a bit under, so financially we are doing well.

We included the cost for the spring mailing ($759) under “Membership Committee.” Do we need to break out this cost between the “Membership Committee” and “Program Committee”? Historically, we did a separate membership mailing in January, but we did not do that this year. Although this cost was put in the “Membership Committee” category, the estimated expense appears in the “Program Committee” estimate. The Fall Workshop mailing was included in “Program Committee,” probably under supplies as this budget line is large.

Karen will need to draft a proposed budget for presentation at September meeting. It may be possible to reduce some of the budget lines on the financial statement spreadsheet.  At one time, we discussed having separate lines for the Fall Workshop and Spring Exchange. That would be helpful.

We have excess revenue of $4,700 this period. We need to verify that we have paid all our expenses. Nancy noted that we did not have any speaker fees in the spring, which lowered the expenses. Marsha asked if we should add more to the CD since we have it.

Karen explained the problems that she encountered with being added to the OPEG account. Chase Bank expressed concern because of multiple names on the accounts. All are old Board members. The customer service representative explained that the Board Secretary should draft a letter for the full board to sign. Jan e-mailed the letter to the group during the meeting for their signatures.

Program Committee Report – Nancy Hood:

Spring Exchange (May 16, 2008) – The Program Committee met and reviewed the evaluation results. The consensus was that it was a very solid performance but not over the top. There were approximately 90 participants. We’ve had more, but we’ve certainly had less. Expenses were low, so we didn’t lose money. In fact, we made money. Nancy thinks we need to have more focus on marketing. At the same time, we have some exciting things going on such as Chip and Jerry Bean offering free statistics workshops.

Update on Statistics Session (July 9, 2008) – Chip provided an update on the free statistics workshop that he did with Jerry Bean. This was the first of a few workshops that they put together. This one was on MyStat, a free statistical graphics program. The next one coming up in August is going to be on structural equation modeling (SEM). On the evaluation, they asked participants what workshops they would like in the future. Top choices were a more basic level statistics class. There is no money involved. Chip and Jerry are doing this for free. It was intended to be a pilot of how this type of hands-on training could be done. Participants brought their own laptops.

This type of training would also fit in with the mixed methods approach that we discussed at the last Program Committee meeting. We could offer sessions within two tracks (introduction and advanced) as well as cover quantitative and qualitative. There was some discussion of web conferencing software, so that members statewide could participate in such training without driving to a central location. Nancy thanked Chip and Jerry for taking this idea and running with it. We should pay some kind of reasonable honorarium to the presenters. This was an all-day workshop. Issues that we are going to have to address with it being free: 1) It took a lot of preparation time. There is loss of revenue for Chip and Jerry when they do this. 2) Last minute cancellations (5 no-shows). There was no penalty with it being free. The Program Committee will review the evaluations and make some decisions about it.

Other Opportunities – Nancy mentioned e-mail from a member from Cincinnati about contacting members in her area about doing local activities. These types of things can result in greater marketing of OPEG. People all over the place are taking the initiative, which is great.

Fall Workshop (November 14, 2008) –The Fall Workshop is going to be on Friday, November 14 at The Quest Conference Center. Nancy also reserved the Fawcett Center for Friday, May 15, 2009. At the Program Committee meeting, we discussed having 3-4 parallel sessions of basic and intermediate level sessions. The topics for the Fall Workshop were covered when we talked about the Statistics Session—mix of beginner and intermediate, qualitative and quantitative. Nancy really likes the idea of the format being “An Evaluator’s Toolbox,” and she thinks that this could be set up to be a sustainable model over the years. This would mean 3-4 parallel sessions, with each being 1.5 hours. We could really pay attention to ensure coverage of each track throughout the day. It is more reasonable for local evaluators to do 1.5-hour sessions. Nancy has already spoken to several potential presenters. We could possibly establish a core of presenters over time depending on the response from members. There needs to be training and skills building, which is something that we need to emphasize with presenters. Maybe we need to use “Refresher” in the title and number the courses as a sequence. Each would need a detailed description. Another issue to cover with the presenters is the need to focus their presentations. There will be 6-8 presentations during the day, and we will need to work individually with each presenter to ensure consistent descriptions.

Board Member Assignments for 2008-09 – Rob Fischer:

Elections Chair – Chip will chair. Need to begin getting nominees now. We should put it on the web now. Four positions will be open. We could maintain a regular posting requesting nominees and awardees on-line. A calendar should be part of the updated web site.

Awards Chair – Rob will chair the awards.

OPEG Newsletter Chair – Julianne will chair. She will contact Rick, as he has offered to continue working on this. He has the infrastructure for producing the newsletter.

Membership Chair – Rachel and Shon are going to co-chair. Chip offered to be a committee member. Rob spoke about this position has changed a lot in the past few years. We need to review the Membership Chair's role, as a lot of the contact now happens through the financial side and the web page. We need to have more communication to encourage their ongoing commitment to the organization. There are approximately 80-100 members, but we have gotten up as high as 180 at one point. Chip spoke about the need to have a more updated web page. For example, we need to set up individual passwords so that members can update their data and can track them. We could bring in a programmer to do this. We could then create a more interactive web experience. We have the member database setup, but they still have to pay by check, so the treasurer contacts Chip each time a check is received to verify that they completed the on-line member information form. If we make an investment in upgrading the web page, we need to invest in online payment. If we charge for additional training, then we should have the funds to cover these extra expenses. We could also do some of this ourselves with a contact management system. We need to find out who owns the OPEG.org domain. Randal Rust is the OPEG webmaster. [UPDATE: Chip obtained an estimate from a programmer, which we will discuss at September board meeting.]

Program Committee – Nancy will continue to be the chair.

Other – Karen will follow-up with Tucker Handley. Tucker has been helping with registration desk during events.

Other Business: We need to choose a logo. [UPDATE: There was an exchange of logos between Chip and Marsha. Verify that logo issue has been resolved.

Next Meeting: Friday, September 5^th at 10:00 a.m. conference call.

Summary of Needed Follow-up:

1)        Karen Follow-up –

a.       Status of receivables?

b.      Did Renee Belbeck submit an invoice for edits to mail list in March? [UPDATE: Renee submitted invoice. Karen will include in September budget.]

c.       Final count for Spring Exchange? [UPDATE: Ninety participants were confirmed.]

d.      5-year synopsis of budget? [UPDATE: Karen is working on this and will submit after September board meeting.]

e.       Draft of estimated annual 2008-2009 budget? [UPDATE: Karen distributed for September board meeting.]

f.       Contact with Tucker Handley about assisting with registration desk? [UPDATE: Tucker is going to assist.]

2)        Chip and Marsha – Has which OPEG to use been resolved?

3)        Rob – Ownership of OPEG.org?