Board Meeting Minutes
Location: Denver, CO
Regis University Library, Tracy Center
Date: November 2, 2013
Time: 9:00 a.m. – 11:00 a.m.
Call to Order – Charlie Turner, President
Attending
Charlie Turner, Jan Turner, Linda Smith, Betsy Bultema, Steve Olson, Steve Popovich, Mo Ewing, Jeanne Willson, Brian Kurzel, Connie Gray, Bernadette Kuhn; with Ed Roland and Stephen Stern attending by phone. Charlie was proxy for three voting members, and Connie for one, for four who were not in attendance.
Announcements
Thank you to the Northern Chapter for agreeing to host the 2014 Annual Meeting!
Congratulations to the New Board members who were voted in by e-mail: Jenny Neale, Jan Turner, Erin Tripp, and Lenore Mitchell. Thank you to out-going director, Brian Kurzel.
The Oct 5th CoNPS Board Meeting minutes were passed by e-mail vote. Jan moved to approve the minutes, and Connie Gray seconded it.
The Advocacy Survey created by Brian Kurzel was passed by an e-mail vote. Charlie moved to accept Brian’s survey questions, and Jenny seconded it. The final version of the survey will be attached to the record of minutes for this meeting. The Survey Monkey link was sent out Friday, Nov 1st, with a link in Aquilegia. Ed said amount did not work.
Business
Need a new Workshop Chair because Linda Hellow needs to get a full-time position. Advertisement was included in Aquilegia.
Report on 2013 Annual Meeting – Mo and Linda
The finances did very well with $3273 as net profit.
20-30 calendars were sold at the meeting. These are print on demand.
Discuss Mission Grant versus Ad Hoc Funding – Mo and Charlie
There have been Board discussions about establishing a CoNPS policy (Mission Grant) regarding the annual funding of projects outside of CoNPS, however there is already an Ad Hoc funding policy. Do we need one or the other or both policies since they are slightly different? If we need the Mission Grant policy is the wording satisfactory to vote on the policy? This will require Board voting.
This has been TABLED until we hire someone for the advocacy position. Near the bottom of the by-laws, Ad-hoc funding is mentioned for case to case situations.
Adopt a Rare Plant funding for data entry – Jenny or Bernadette
There have been Board discussions about whether to fund trained people to perform data entry for the Adopt a Rare Plant program. We need to make a final decision to fund or not. This will require Board voting.
Some concern has been expressed that members already need to pay for information in the database. Is this double-billing the members? Can CoNPS members volunteer time – in-kind help – instead of CoNPS funding this? DBG and CNHP have donated training time and resources. The training for this kind of input is a big deal taking 2 days, so the task is not a good one for volunteer help. Jill Handwerk will train and the need is for a student intern of 60 hrs. Steve P. has issue with having to pay for data, and can we fund this one time without setting a precedent? In regards to paying for data, will the CoNPS Advocacy person get a reduced rate? Mo asked, “What is the future of the program?” Charlie moved to fund it, but withdrew his motion. More information is needed, such as 1) time frame for input, 2) future direction of the program, and 3) will there be a request for future funding. This vote was TABLED until we have more information when CNHP representative can be present.
Board of Directors At-large – Charlie
Who are the current members and how do we re-establish the staggered terms of the Board of Directors At-Large? There is some confusion as to who are the Board of Directors At-Large so we need to confirm who they are. The Bylaws allow 6-8 members on the Board of Directors; at this time we think we have 6. The Bylaws state: At-Large Directors shall serve three-year terms. Two or three At-Large Board of Directors shall be elected each year. Currently we have almost all six being re-elected at the same time. The idea was to have a small number (2 to 3) of new Board of Directors members at one time to help keep consistency. How do we correct this issue? Mo suggested we draw straws. The result was 1 yr terms for Betsy and Jenny, 2 yr terms for Steve O and Lenore, and 3 yr terms for Erin and Jan.
Jan T. moved to accept Jessica Smith as a Board of Director At Large for a three year term, and Bernadette seconded. Brian Kurzel highly recommended her. Vote passed unanimously. The next one will be a two year term.
Expectations of duties of Board of Directors At-Large – Charlie
The officers and chapter presidents have defined duties in the Bylaws however the Board of Directors At-Large have no defined duties. In the past we have gotten questions from Board of Directors At-Large wanting to know the Board’s expectation. Some examples of defined duties could be chairing a committee, service on a committee, performing a CoNPS project, etc. First should we define the duties in the Bylaws? The defined duties will require the Board’s input and eventually the Board’s votes. At this meeting only the first question was addressed: Should we define the duties?
Charlie says we need more definition of what an At-Large member is expected to do. Jan offered to collect information to write of list of where we have needs. Committee heads should send her their needs.
The following reports were presented and discussed:
Financial Report – Mo Ewing
Membership is up 8%. The endowments are doing well. Mo says at this rate we can consider funding advocacy position once we get survey results. Bernadette asks if we can pay the new Workshop Coordinator more. The budget will be voted on at next meeting.
Media – Jan Turner
Two-thirds of our members get Aquilegia by email. The cost of the print copies with color covers is around $900 to $950 per issue. If we had advertisers, we would need more color and more pages. She is requesting budget increase for next year for an additional $2000. She thinks it’s a good marketing tool and we should print more copies for non-member outreach. Budget adjustment will be made so that the Annual Meeting issue is charged against Annual Meeting profits.
Conservation – Mo Ewing
WRV needs follow-up monitoring which is generally not funded. Mo suggested partnership with CoNPS to provide this. He spoke with Tim Seastedt, an Ecology Professor at CU. Team leaders trained to do monitoring with line transects with volunteers to help. Brian Kurzel said photo monitoring may suffice; may not need species level. These projects are mostly Forest Service (Steve P is USFS liaison) and BLM Lands. The need is for WRV, and a WRV liaison/specialist would participate.
Education/Outreach – Jim Tolstrup
Jim will write article for Feb 15th deadline of Aquilegia on “Taking Native Plants to School”. Big Thompson School District volunteers will be used on Earth Day. Colorado Home and Garden Show Grants are being looked into.