Minutes of SWANA Rocky Mountain Chapter Monthly Board of Directors Meeting

HDR Offices, 303 E 17th Ave, Ste 700, Denver, CO with Telephone Conferencing

ATTENDANCE:

Present: (HDR Offices): John Briest* Stephen Gillette, Neil Nowak*, Dick Sprague, Tom Strickland
(Telephone Call in): Kathy Andrew, Debby Barton, Roger Doak*, Susie Gordon, Tom Schweitzer**, Cathryn Stewart**

Absent: Neil Nowak

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 called to order by Stewart at 7:08 am as 8 of 11 directors present for a quorum.

MINUTES:

August meeting minutes previously approved via email.

ADOPTION OF AGENDA:

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

TREASURER:

Gillette reported checking balance as of 1 September 2008 of $14,530.54 and, savings balance of $19,273.74. Gillette reported that $7,364.30 E-Loan balance was rolled over to a T-Loan with a promissory due date from National to the chapter of September 1, 2013 with a minimum of two years before the note can be paid off or redeemed with a six month interest redemption consideration. Paypal receipts for the annual meeting have been good. There is very little owing for attendees to the annual meeting, mostly those are from governmental entities with purchase orders or delays in getting checks sent in.

COMMITTEE REPORTS and ASSIGNMENTS:

Membership: Andrew reported no reports from national since 10 August 2008 so still holding at 154 members. She will put the directory out to print on 24 September so everything needs to be to her by 22 September 2008. Andrew won’t be at the meeting until the afternoon of 2 October as she will be with a Board of County Commission meeting.

Technical Program/Meetings:

Technical Program: Deferred to 2008-2009 programs.

Annual Meeting: Strickland will send updated survey to the board requesting their input no later than Friday 19 September or sooner. There will be a separate ticket for handing in the survey with the prize being one half off registration fee for the next annual conference. Consensus was to make these two prizes.

Gordon will follow-up with Strickland on table top display availability for the sponsors. Strickland will be visiting with the hotel on Thursday, 18 September to finalize arrangements. He will also check on size and locations. Consensus was that larger sponsor donors should have more prominent display tables.

Strickland is estimating a potential of 75 preregistered attendees, speakers and vendors but currently has 60 headcount.

Some speakers (possibly as many as one half) will not be staying to eat which will reduce head count. Strickland will confirm with the hotel about overages on food. Sprague and Barton mentioned most hotels allow about 5 to 10% overage for meals. Moderators will need to obtain food count from speakers, especially for Thursday noon and evening meals.

Discussion held on the tours that the first 65 will be on the tour buses as we have a 30 and a 35 passenger bus. Schweitzer will check on the availability of another 35 passenger bus. Schweitzer will also remind the bus company to have the buses fully gassed before the tours start.

Strickland went over the checklist of items to complete for the meeting. Strickland will verify all activities with Buffalo Rose and Gillette will bring check for the band ($600) to be paid on 2 October. Strickland will have place cards to be given to attendees during registration. Schweitzer will finalize bus tour details, working with Gillette to get payment sent in on time.

Sprague, Doak, Briest and Barton will bring laptops and projectors.

Nowak is obtaining various raffle and door prizes. Consensus was to hold to the $250 budget for door prizes. Discussion held on having two concurrent sessions to get back from breaks on a timely basis so needing more “prizes”.

Barton will prepare the name tags and obtain lanyards from National SWANA. Briest will get the 26 speaker gifts and note cards. There is also the cost and need to finish the outstanding member award. Stewart will ensure moderators have the count down cards to help speakers stay on time/task. Doak and Sprague will be working media so are not available to moderate.

Schweitzer will have Session 1 and Barton Session 2; Briest will have Session 3 and Stewart will have Session 4; Nowak will have Session 5 and Gordon will have Session 6 and Doak will have Session 7 as they is a wrap up session and Bruce Philbrick will be asked to Facilitate the Hauler’s meeting for Session 8.

Several individuals have signed up for the Pay As You Throw special Friday session with Lisa Skumatz. Consensus was to hand out the “free” drink tickets as part of the annual business meeting. Membership calling is ongoing. Briest will make up the Sponsor board and will include Logos if received on time. Gordon will follow up with sponsors to obtain Logos. Briest will provide introduction of Laurie Batchelder Adams as the Luncheon speaker. Doak will check with Kaitlyn Edmiston about giving a short thank you presentation as a two time scholarship recipient during the lunch. Awards presentations will be made during Friday lunch. Thursday dinner is an informal gathering and will start no later than 6:30 pm with band playing until 8:30 pm. Gillette volunteered to work registration desk and will give out the surveys and raffle tickets. All Board members should wear their metal name tags.

Scholarship: No scholarship requests have been received.

Nominations: Curt Ahrendson has indicated to several people his interest on being on the Board again. Only one write in candidate has been received to date on the ballot. Per the bylaws the vice president position has to be filled by someone with at least one year experience on the Board and is a member in good standing. The bylaws do not specify the timeliness of the experience so someone who has been off the board for several years could still be considered for the vice president slot. Nominations can be taken during the business meeting for the Vice president provided they meet Bylaws. Nominations for Board members can be taken provided the individuals are members in good standing.

Legislative: No legislative activity at this time. There has been regulatory update work on Composting with a stakeholder meeting to be held 17 September. Regulations to implement Exploration and Production Impoundments have progressed with the recommendation to add as Section 17 for commercial E&P and leave Section 9 for all other impoundments. CAFR policy committee is developing recommended e-waste legislative proposals for the 2009 state legislature to address increasing e-waste diversion, product stewardship, advanced disposal fees or producer responsibilities for paid take-back programs.

International Board: The membership committee met on 11 September and Region I met on 15 September. MA-4 (management/administrative policy 4) was rewritten to clarify that increases in national dues does not mean dues increase to chapters. Any chapter dues increases must be submitted by the chapters to National by 1 May to be increased with the next national fiscal year.

Much discussion ensued among the board members with consensus that this was not an acceptable policy. MA-11 is being modified to have an assigned liaison for training and a liaison for membership as there has been some lack of championship for the chapters by their International Board directors. Historically the Colorado membership committee chair has been the contact for training in Colorado. The Member Get a Member national program garnered 70 new members with national having over 8200 members reflecting a 4.5% growth. New members receive a lower introductory member rate for the first year and the Chapter will receive the full chapter’s dues for the new member – only national dues will be reduced. Puerto Rico is the first provisional chapter in 10 years and there is interest in developing chapters in other states that do not currently have a chapter. Sprague recommended we work with Wyoming to help them form a chapter and have joint activities to assist them.

Web site/Webmaster: Calendar is now functional. Google ads will be visible by 17 September and all other changes will be live as of 19 September. If there are any bugs, Erin Doak is to be notified. As Doak is leaving the board, he will follow up on the contract with Erin and will work with whoever is assigned to be the Board liaison with Erin for future website development, payments and issues.

Newsletter: Winter issue will be due out January 2009.

OLD BUSINESS:

Road-E-O: Strickland reported that the winner is ready to go and Denver will be sending two competitors who have become SWANA members in order to compete, which brings the membership up to 156.

NEW BUSINESS:

Next Board Meeting: The newly elected Board of Directors will meet briefly after the annual meeting to determine dates and locations for the November board meeting.

ADJOURNMENT:

With no further business, Sprague/Gillette moved/seconded to adjourn the meeting. The meeting adjourned at 8:59 am.

Respectfully submitted,
Deborah Barton
Secretary