Minutes of SWANA Rocky Mountain Chapter Monthly Board of Directors Meeting

7:00 am, June 17, 2008, HDR Offices, 303 E 17th, Denver, Suite 300, CO 80203-1256

ATTENDANCE:

Present: Kathy Andrew (telephone call), Debby Barton, John Briest, Roger Doak (telephone call), Stephen Gillette, Susie Gordon, Neil Nowak (arrived late)Tom Schweitzer, Dick Sprague, Cathryn Stewart, Tom Strickland

Absent: None

Others Present (via conference call): Lars Williams, Bruce Philbrick

Attendance Notations: * - Member arrived after meeting called to order

** - Member left before meeting ended

Minutes are in the order of the agenda and not necessarily in order of discussions.

CALL TO ORDER: Meeting began at 7:05 as 10 of 11 directors present for a quorum. Introductions were made among those present and on the telephone conference call in.

MINUTES:

May Board meeting minutes were previously approved via email vote.

ADOPTION OF AGENDA:

Gillette/Sprague moved/seconded to adopt the agenda. Motion carried unanimously.

TREASURER:

Gillette reported that the 1 June 2008 balances for checking is $10,494.89 and savings is $18,873.38. There is still one missing payment for past technical session. National SWANA did not mail the May dues yet. The website bill is paid quarterly so there has been no invoice received yet for the website upgrade.

COMMITTEE REPORTS and ASSIGNMENTS:

Membership: Andrew reported 157 members as of 16 June 2008 with only 3 listed as unpaid or suspended. She has sent follow up notices to those three individuals. There are some members whose company is no longer paying their dues. There are 7 members still on post office mailings. Discussion was held on increasing membership for the local chapter as national has set a goal of an increase to 8300 from the current 8000 membership by October 2008. National will pay higher reimbursement to the chapter for any new members. Discussion was held on how to attract the smaller hauling companies and smaller municipalities, in other words what services do those entities want from SWANA. Discussion held on the Front Range Haulers that are planning to meet the second week of July. Lars Williams indicated he will follow up with any non front range contacts provided to him. He will keep Strickland informed of times and discussions.

Technical Program/Meetings:

Technical Program:

Defensive Driving Program Technical Program: The consensus of the Board was to hold this program at a later date dependant in part on input from the collection “branch” members. A possible scenario is a weekend training session in January or February which is historically the slow period for many haulers, unless severe weather occurs.

Annual Meeting: The following items were discussed pertaining to the annual meeting.

Contracts:

Hotel: The room rental has been paid and reserved.

Meals: Actual costs will be billed following the conference though a count will be needed before the event.

Band: No deposit is required; however they require a payment the day of the event before they begin playing.

Bus: No deposit required however final payment is due about mid September with final reservation numbers.

Buffalo Rose: Consensus was to negotiate for 2 drink tickets per registered participant. The Buffalo Rose will provide the tickets for distribution.

Agenda/Program:

Discussion held on the tentative topics and speakers to date and others to be fleshed out. Consensus reached that program/track 6 will be on Energy and Climate topics instead of Regulatory and Legal Issues. Topics and speaker ideas should be forwarded to Stewart. Strickland will be sending out an assignment/duty sign up roster for moderators, registration table, and similar tasks for the board members.

Website:

Strickland provided copies of the announcement bulletin as well as the tentative program with registration. Discussion held on how best to get the information on the website to allow for registration for the various items and yet allow paypal payment.

Educational Scholarship/Grants: Doak has not yet contacted Jennifer Martinez to provide an article for the newsletter per her agreement with the Chapter for receipt of her scholarship. .No other scholarship applications have been received to date.

Nominations: Briest has spoken to some of the directors about running for the Board next year. He will continue to follow up with individuals and prepare a draft ballot for the next Board meeting.

Legislative: No report.

International Board: Sprague reported that Larry Hougom of Hilltop Refuse and Recycling Service will be talking at the IB board meeting the end of June to give a small hauler’s perspective on what SWANA can provide. Other items that will be discussed at the IB meeting will include reviewing and approving the Fiscal Year 2009 program plan, the 2009-2013 Strategic Plan, edit changes to several Management and Administrative Policies and the admission of a Puerto Rico Chapter as a provisional chapter. Other items to be discussed with the goal of approving will be possible new SWANA membership benefits such as group rates at Choice Hotel hotels and motels, liability insurance (Euclid) group rates which may be a benefit for smaller haulers, and discount rate for car rental with Avis. Sprague will not be present at the July Board meeting however he will try to provide a summary for the meeting. He is also willing to continue as the IB director as he made a two year commitment to the Board and next year will be his second year.

Web site/Webmaster: Erin Doak as sent a beta test version to Briest and Doak for review. The reason for the long delay has been the need to rebuild the entire site instead of doing it piecemeal. He plans to have a beta test for the entire Board by the end of June.

Newsletter: Summer newsletter is planned to go out in July so all assigned or proposed articles are due Sprague no later than 30 June 2008. The following is a list of the topics/assignments:

President’s Corner (Briest)

April Technical Session Wrapup (Nowak)

Annual Meeting Preparation (Stewart, assisted by Strickland and Schweitzer)

Scholarship – MOLO (Jennifer Martinez)

Scholarship Potential – Annual meeting and WasteCon (Gordon)

Financial (Gillette)

WasteCon, Tampa – October 2008 (Barton will coordinate draft with Laurie Batchelder Adams)

Membership – National/State (Andrew)

IB News (Sprague)

CAFR Summit Summary (Gordon will ask Margie Griek for a short summary as the CAFR executive director)

Recycle Grant Preview (Gordon)

Website Update (Doak)

Road-E-O/Winner Recognition (Barton)

OLD BUSINESS:

Road-E-O: All sponsor letters have been sent out. Details are being worked on for prizes versus participant gifts. No decision at this time on amount to sponsor grand winner to the national Road-E-O in Kentucky this year. Trophies for the top winners will be obtained. Discussion on whether having a drawing for attendance at the annual conference would be beneficial or not. Discussion held on whether a larger dollar amount scholarship is beneficial to attract out-of-towners to the event with the expectation that participant’s employers would pay the registration if costs to defray travel and lodging were provided. Discussion held that having some expense money on hand for smaller details would be beneficial. Barton/Sprague moved/seconded to have $1,000 for Road-E-O incidental expenses set aside to be administered by Tom Strickland. Strickland agreed to provide accounting to Gillette for use of the funds. Motion carried unanimously.

NEW BUSINESS:

Next Board Meeting: The 15 July meeting has been set aside as a telephone conference call to begin at 7 am. The 19 August meeting will be a face to face in south Denver at The Egg and I.

OTHER BUSINESS:

Gillette stated he will be out of the office from 27 June through 7 July in the event any checks or treasurer duties are needed to be fulfilled.
Gordon displayed a small trash can used in conjunction with the city of Fort Collins recycling program with the logo of “Starve Your Trash”. She stated the janitorial staff has been trained on how to handle the recycling versus the trash portions.

ADJOURNMENT:

Gillette/Sprague moved/seconded to adjourn the meeting. Meeting adjourned at 9 am.

Respectfully submitted,
Deborah Barton
Secretary

Events

Membership