Minutes of SWANA Rocky Mountain Chapter Monthly Board of Directors Meeting

17 February, 2009, Telephonic Conference Call, 1-877-879-6929

ATTENDANCE:

Present: Curt Ahrendsen, Kathy Andrew, Debby Barton, John Briest, Stephen Gillette, Susie Gordon, Jerry Henderson, Neil Nowak, Tom Schweitzer, Cathryn Stewart

Absent: Dick Sprague, Tom Strickland

Others present: Cameron Beul (Golder Associates)

Attendance Notations:

* - Member arrived after meeting called to order

** - Member left before meeting ended

*** - Individual joined via telephone conference call

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 7:03 am as 10 of 12 directors present.

MINUTES:

January meeting minutes were previously emailed and approved by e-vote.

ADOPTION OF AGENDA:

Schweitzer/Ahrendsen moved/seconded to adopt the agenda as amended. Motion carried unanimously.

TREASURER:

Gillette reported checking balance as of 31 January 2009 of $16,041.33, savings balance of $19,522.02 and the e-loan asset balance of $17,364.30. The January technical meeting had net revenue of $932.84.

COMMITTEE REPORTS and ASSIGNMENTS:

Membership: Chapter has 160 members with two new members from Pitkin County and Herzog (Grand Junction, Colorado). There are no unpaid members at this time. There are only 8 to 11 members not on email. Stewart commented that we have a goal for membership increase for the chapter which is mostly by word of mouth advertising.

Technical Program/Meetings:

E-Waste (January): Thank you letters to presenters and Geotech have not yet gone out but should be completed by the end of the week. Presentations have been delivered to Strickland to post to the website, however status is not known.

Fugitive Dust/Storm Water Management: Initial draft brochure sent out on Friday to the board members for review and comment. Location still needs to be determined. Availability of a room at CDPHE won’t be confirmed until later today (17 February) based on needs of the Hazardous and Solid Waste Commission requirements for the room. The brochure needs some tweaking. The air quality session will be in the afternoon and the storm water session in the morning. Concern was raised that this is a 6 hour workshop, however as Air Quality has graciously offered to provide technical assistance to rural landfills that have not yet completed their paperwork, the extra time is more hands-on and attendees will be able to leave. The workshop does include lunch and the standard low fee applies. Lunch will have to be provided out of the technical fees. A question was raised about charging for the class when using the CDPHE location; however charges have been made in the past for SWANA and other organizations holding workshops without a problem.

Webinar/Third Quarter training. Sprague not present so a list of potential topics from SWANA not available for discussion. Consensus was to table further discussion on a third quarter training class until the March Board meeting.

Annual Meeting: The planning committee tentatively consists of Ahrendsen, Andrew, Nowak, Schweitzer, and Strickland. Strickland has been investigating various locations with no luck to date. Andrew has provided a list of potential locations to Strickland but to date he has not been able to confirm a location and date for the Colorado Springs area. A question was asked if the Air Force Academy would be a possible meeting location, however due to heightened security issues, this would probably not be a feasible location. Schweitzer has talked to Doc Nyiro regarding possibly speaking at the annual meeting. Discussion held on sending out a call for presentations in March once a date and location is confirmed. Ahrendsen will handle the Save the Date and Call for Presentations notice. Andrew will email the notices when completed. Gordon recommended that the planning committee check with CAFR to possibly augment topics from the May Summit. Briest reported that Waste Connections near Fountain has volunteered their facility for a tour. Other tour locations include the El Paso HHW, possibly Recycle America facility and the Highway 94 landfill. In the past the annual meeting has had Thursday morning sessions, Thursday afternoon tours, Thursday banquet with entertainment, and Friday morning sessions. No discussion held on changing the format at this time. Nowak volunteered to take over the sponsorship contact from Gordon. Gordon volunteered to help with topic and program development. Further discussion on the annual meeting was tabled until the March meeting to allow time to find location and date. Attached to these minutes is a list of possible topics as well as a time line for planning purposes developed last month.

Scholarship: One inquiry received to date for a collegiate type scholarship. They have been told that the budget item has been spent but to reapply later in the year. The consensus of the group was that the individual would be responsible for follow up and not the board.

Nominations: No resumes have been sent out to the board for consideration to add Cameron Beul and Brenna Barrett to the Board. Briest will send out information for the board’s consideration. A motion and second would be required to have further discussion and then action.

Legislative: Nowak emailed a table report yesterday afternoon. Discussion held on a few bills to get an understanding of the background. Barton discussed briefly HB 9-1282 regarding planning task force for e-waste in the state which includes folks from across the state. Concern was raised that the board has 19 members and might be a bit unwieldy. SB 9-156 is apparently the request of some high school students looking for ways to reduce plastic bags usage/loss in the state. Concerns raised on this issue as those in the solid waste industry were not consulted and there are some experiences in other states that may have some impact on the outcome of the bill. Consensus was to send out a quick email to the members including the current legislative table with information on how to link to the general assembly web page to personally check on status of these solid waste industry related bills and others. Consensus was to also put a quick “save the date” and “annual meeting” announcements.

International Board: No report.

Web site/Webmaster: There is a new advertiser, Rotonics. Two ads are due for renewal. Geotech Environment has been given a complimentary ad as a thank you for providing the January technical session room with refreshments at no charge to SWANA.

Newsletter: Newsletter is out and one compliment received to date. Henderson and Sprague will work together to try to release the summer newsletter out in the May-July time frame.

Road-E-O: No report.

OLD BUSINESS:

Bylaws review: No report at this time.

NEW BUSINESS:

Next Board Meeting: The next meeting will be at 7 am on 17 March 2009 as a face to face meeting in South Denver Metro area. Location will be sent out to the board members prior to the next meeting.

ADJOURNMENT:

With no further business, Briest/Gordon moved/seconded to adjourn the meeting. The meeting adjourned at 8:23 am, 7 minutes ahead of target completion.

Respectfully submitted,
Deborah Barton
Secretary

ATTACHMENTS: