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December 28, 2016 Board Operations Committee Minutes

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CoNPS Board Meeting of the Operations Committee Agenda
December 28, 2016 @ 7:00 PM
Via Phone Conference, call Jessica @ 303-960-4196

Mo Ewing, Jessica Smith, Renee Galeano Popp, Denise Wilson, David Julie, Amy Yager

  1. Announcing resignations to members
    1. On Dec 23rd, Denise sent letters of gratitude to 6 resigning Board members.
    2. Renee reported that eNews would go out tomorrow.
    3. Public letter from Charlie & Jan will be included in this e-News.
      1. Jan will continue as Aquilegia editor and At-Large board member.
    4. Other resignations will be announced in eNews:
      1. Irene Shonle as vice president.
      2. Lenore Mitchell as At-Large board member.
      3. Leo Bruederle as future Denver chapter president.
      4. Jim Tolstrup as Horticulture committee chair.
  2. Employees-to-be
    1. Payroll Service
      1. Jennifer, Ronda and Linda have accepted their employment contracts.
      2. The TLC Payroll Service contact person is on vacation and will respond to Denise’s inquiries when she gets back.
      3. Denise will send email to Mo, Renee, and David, for review regarding Linda, Jennifer, and Ronda with requests for information, including W-4, and I-9 forms. Employees can direct further questions to Denise.
      4. Revised hours reporting form now includes columns to break out tasks so that we can get subtotals of time spent on different projects; Mo sent revised spreadsheet to Jennifer, and Linda is working on hers.
      5. Renee will meet face to face with Jennifer on Jan 11th. Renee wants to better understand Jennifer’s job. She also wants to discuss how Jen will organize the Western Slope Conference.
    2. Update on Ronda by David
      1. Ronda accepted the contract (will exchange signed copies with David on 1/5/2017), will work with chapters on workshops, will try to have some workshops in the SE and West Slope, does not want a role in the field seminars.
  3. Annual Meeting
    1. Update by Jessica on email from Gay Austin on Gunnison venue for Annual Meeting
      1. Jessica forwarded a spreadsheet of information, which will be included in the notes of this meeting.
      2. Fall dates are being researched and the Plateau Chapter, with Stephen Stern as President will need to take the lead.
      3. Western Slope Conference will have less attendees, in the past Gunnison’s Annual Meeting had 40 participants, so this event might not pay for Jen’s time.
      4. Jen can take the lead and get committee support. Venues, caterers, field trips would need to be organized. Needs theme and speakers and other details to be determined by the committee, with Plateau Chapter support.
      5. Mo is reaching out to Chapters’ Presidents to check on their preferred dates, level of support, and suggested fee ($40). Jessica is contacting the existing committee members to see who intends to stay on the committee.
      6. Local members need to be there to man the registration, bookstore, field trips, etc. We will have an eNews edition (not the next one, but the one after) with a sub-title of Western Slope Conference to include a description of roles for what help is needed.
      7. Mo will work up a draft budget. We will use the Rare Plant Technical Committee’s restricted funds to pay for the Friday meeting venue fee.
    2. A second Eastern Slope Conference to be held in 2017
      1. Discussion ensured. We agreed that we should have one conference, and it should be on the western slope to communicate that they are important. We will absorb the cost of Jen’s time if the event does not make much money.
  4. Membership committee
    1. Mo noted that this is a committee of one (Jennifer) whose only member is an employee.
    2. Linda is sending out letters to people who do not renew on the website. Linda does the membership brochures. Mo recommends that we just give this function to Linda. All agreed.
  5. Committee chair vacancies
    1. Horticulture committee – Amy suggested we get new members involved. Renee suggested soliciting all committee members for interest.
  6. Board vacancies
    1. CoNPS president
    2. CoNPS vice president
    3. Lenore Mitchell’s At-Large board seat.
    4. Bylaws call for 6-8 Board Members; it further specifies Board makes nominations and a call goes out to membership at large for nominees via Aquilegia and eNews. In the past, this has occurred in the summer. This is required for the President’s position.
    5. What is the soonest we can get this into Aquilegia? When is the next Aquilegia? Then we could advertise all open positions, get nominations, and the biographies of the nominees. These biographies would then be advertised in the Summer Aquilegia.
    6. It was decided that the Spring Aquilegia would advertise these the open positions. Jessica will receive the nominations and biographies, and get the info out to make the Summer Aquilegia and eNews.
    7. Mo suggested that for continuity, the Executive Committee could remain in existence to work with the in-coming President and Vice-President. Transition must include clarity of the roles of the committee during this time.
    8. The bylaws permit the board to nominate and elect a Vice-President. The board can consider doing so if the board decides that it would be desirable to have a Vice-President during the solicitation, nomination, and voting process required for the President’s position. In that case, the Vice-President thus chosen could be interim, with a full-term Vice-President elected via the solicitation, nomination, and voting process concluding in the fall 2017, or could be full-term.
  7. Terms of At-Large board members
    1. Jenny Neale and Steve Olson expire Sept 2017. Jessica Smith and Jan Turner expire Sept 2018. In 2019, Cecily Mui, Bob Powell and Amy Yager expire.
      1. When we have Board Members-at-Large expire, do they need to be voted on again?
      2. Do we want to consider limiting the Board Members to 2 terms? On one hand term limits would ensure introduction of new people, perspectives, and talents into the organization’s governance. On the other hand, volunteer organizations sometimes have difficulty getting enough participants and we have members who have valued knowledge, which we do not want to lose.
      3. We can make recommendations to the Board, then these should be spelled out in the Bylaws. Let’s think about this some more.
  8. Governance – considerations from Renee
    1. Should we have an assistant for some officers to promote information sharing? Perhaps have officers each prepare a manual of their duties and tasks and how they perform them. This helps in continuity of the organization.
    2. Should we have term limits? We need to think about this and table it.
      1. For officers?
      2. For board members?
      3. For committee chairs?
  9. Status of insurance (for record in the minutes) Started Dec 19th and runs for one year.
  10. Status of Jessica’s legal research
    1. Legal Non-profit Workshop Feb 15th – we have tentatively been accepted
  11. Amy offered to send a Doodle Poll for meeting dates with full Board for a meeting after Feb 3rd. (Mo is out of town Jan 15-Feb 3). Can we still use Regis room – Jan is on the Board, so Amy will ask her to request the Library Tracy Room.
  12. Next meeting 7pm on Jan 10th; call in to Jessica as we have this time. We will prepare for the full board meeting. Jessica will prepare agenda.

 

TABLED FROM PREVIOUS MEETINGS:

  1. Diminish email correspondence?
  2. Pull out and review policy and procedures for the Board (ask Jenny to help with this)
  3. Rework the policies and procedures?
    1. Templates found?

List: Employee Handbook

Employment Application

Anti-sexual harassment policy

Anti-discrimination policy

Conflict of Interest policy