Minutes of SWANA Rocky Mountain Chapter Monthly Board of Directors Meeting

21 April, 2009, CDPHE Building A, 5500 Cherry Creek Dr, Denver, CO

ATTENDANCE:

Present: Curt Ahrendsen, Debby Barton, John Briest, Cameron Beul, Stephen Gillette, Susie Gordon***, Jerry Henderson, Neil Nowak, Tom Schweitzer, Dick Sprague, Cathryn Stewart, Tom Strickland

Absent: Kathy Andrew, Brenna Barrett

Others present: None

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 7:41 am as 12 of 14 directors present.

MINUTES:

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

ADOPTION OF AGENDA:

Strickland/Gordon moved/seconded to adopt the agenda as amended. Motion carried unanimously.

TREASURER:

Gillette stated checking account balance is $17,143.67 and savings account balance is $19,522.02.

COMMITTEE REPORTS and ASSIGNMENTS:

Membership: Andrew emailed membership report with apology for being unable to attend the meeting. There are 157 members with one new member with the Custer County Landfill. Andrew has contacted the five unpaid members.

Technical Program/Meetings:

Fugitive Dust/Storm Water Management: There are a total of 37 signed up for the technical program. Discussion held on whether to establish a cut off date where any late registrations would be taken at the door on a first come first available basis. The problem is the logistics in ordering food and seating in limited locations.

Webinar/Third Quarter training. Sprague did not have a list of national webinar topics for the third quarter. Discussion held on what future technical programs to be pursued for the summer before the annual meeting. Joe Kaul with CETCO has offered to hold a technical class on GCL systems. Discussion held on having a program on green legislation results. Discussion also held on whether hosting a coaching or defensive driving class would be of benefit. Further discussion and decision would be held at the May Board meeting.

Annual Meeting:

Logistics: Registration fee will be based on actual costs. Registration fee not yet determined as final speakers and logistics not yet determined. A Save the Date card will be sent out with a request for Call for Presentations. A suggestion was made to develop a golf tournament for Wednesday afternoon or Friday afternoon.

Sponsors: Nowak is the contact for sponsorship for the annual meeting. A suggestion was made to change the sponsorship level names to match various mountain peaks.

Program:

Presentations: Ahrendsen went over the various meetings held by the planning committee. There is a need for speakers and topics. In addition, the possible plan for tour to the Zoo had to be scratched as composting is not being done at this time. Discussion held on having a motivational speaker such as Bob Wendover from Generational Studies who spoke at the conference last held in Colorado Springs. Concerns were raised about the cost for such a speaker as such professionals are a bit pricey. Discussion held on whether to have a special fee for a motivational workshop or increase registration fee to include a special workshop. Consensus was to have folks do some independent research on possible motivational speakers and estimated costs and bring to the May meeting to make a decision on type of speaker.

Tour: In addition, the possible plan for tour to the Zoo had to be scratched as composting is not being done at this time. Discussion held on whether to have tours as part of the annual meeting. In the past, the annual meeting included a tour on Wednesday afternoon with the conference meeting held all day Thursday and Friday morning. Further discussion and decisions will be made at the May meeting.

Entertainment: No discussion on this was held.

Scholarship: Henderson talked to the Colorado School of Mines financial aid office regarding scholarship obligations. According to the financial aid office, any students receiving federal assistance must report the scholarship amount which will reduce federal aid received, therefore any scholarship awards should be paid directly to the school which will forward the money to the student. Further determination on how to handle scholarship awards in the future will be discussed when another Scholarship application is received or at some future Board meeting. Sprague commented that National SWANA sends scholarship money directly to the student’s school for the school to distribute to the student in order to not run afoul of the federal regulations.

Nominations: No further nominations presented at this time as the Board has 14 active members.

Legislative: Nowak sent out current legislative table. Gordon and Nowak commented on the status of some of the national legislature.

International Board: Sprague commented that the International Board policy committee is holding a telephone conference today followed by a regional meeting for the district in which Colorado is a member. The full International Board will be meeting in Georgia in June.

Web site/Webmaster: Strickland reported that we still do not have a current signed contract with Erin Doak. He will continue working with him to obtain a contract for signature. The website redesign is taking longer than originally hoped. There is also a need for determining prioritization and response time which should be considered in a future contract.

Newsletter: The May Board meeting will make assignments for the summer newsletter which Henderson will be taking over from Sprague.

Road-E-O: The interest group will be meeting soon and Strickland will report back to the Board the results of the meeting. Discussion was held briefly on the possible impacts of the current economic conditions on Road-E-O participation and sponsorship.

OLD BUSINESS:

Bylaws review: No report at this time.

NEW BUSINESS:

SWANA History Project: Sprague will contact Dana Marie Schmidt to get some history as she was very active in the early stages. Sprague noted that Gary Price with the city and county of Denver recently passed away and he was also instrumental in the early years of the chapter’s formation.

Air Quality Guidance Document Stakeholder Interest: Briest asked the Board if the chapter would be able to offer assistance to the CDPHE-Air Quality Division to help develop guidance documents similar to the solid waste unit’s efforts to develop standardized guidance. Consensus reached that follow up would be made after the technical session to base potential discussion on the results of the training.

Next Board Meeting: The next Board meeting will be WEDNESDAY, 20 May 2009 at 7 am as a telephone conference call in deference to the CAFR summit which is being held on Monday and Tuesday, 18-19 May 2009. The date was changed due to potential conflicts with the CAFR Summit being held in Vail on 18-19 May 2009. The 16 June Board meeting will be at 7 am and hosted by Golder Associates. Address and directions will be provided before the June meeting.

ADJOURNMENT:

With no further business, Gillette/Nowak moved/seconded to adjourn the meeting. The meeting adjourned at 9:11 am.

Respectfully submitted,

Deborah Barton
Secretary