AEOE Summer Statewide Board Meeting

Hi Hill Outdoor School

Aug. 28, 2005

Attendees (* denotes voting member): Laura Vandezande*, Michael Charnofsky*, George Stratman*, Tom Drake*, Lisa Murphy*, Debbie Carraway, Maggie Wolfe, Dan Allison

Minutes by Lisa Murphy and Laura Vandezande

1. Welcome/intros (10 min)

2. Mission Statement (30 min)

3. Financial Report – Laura for Zayanne (20 min)

4. Spring Conference Update - Tom (15 min)

5. CD-ROM for marketing AEOE at sites – Tom (10 min)

6. 2005 conference evals & procedures (20 min)

7. Spring Conference DVD

8. Fall Conference reports – Laura & Lisa (10 min)

9. Follow up from April meeting (30 min)

1. members categories & benefits – Ad hoc committee

2. CD-rom production (see Agenda item #5)

3. membership brochure

10. Website (30 min)

1. webmaster position

2. link checking service

11. Clearing Magazine (10 min)

12. NAAEE

13. GSECC report – Michael

14. AEOE PO Box

15. Historian

16. Newsletter

17. Next meeting

1. Welcome/Intros

Members with a vote at this meeting: Laura Vandezande, Michael Charnofsky, Lisa Murphy, Tom Drake and George Stratman. We have a quorum (at least until Tom and George leave).

2. Mission Statement

Mission statement is revised to the following proposed statement:

Proposed Mission Statement:

“The Association for Environmental and Outdoor Education supports and inspires educators in their quest for the knowledge, skills, and attitudes essential to help all learners understand, appreciate, and care for their environment. As an integral part of achieving our mission, we encourage direct experience outdoors.”

George moved, seconded by Tom to submit revised mission statement to the executive board for approval. Motion passed.

3.Financial Report (Laura for Zayanne)

a. Review of ’05 Conference Budget

b. ’06 proposed conference budget

The board asks the Conference committee to look at the annual and proposed conference budgets in tandem and take into consideration information from the last year’s conference coordinators. They will move ahead with a draft of their final budget for approval.

Laura requests that Zayanne distribute via e-mail the approved 05-06 budget (since we can’t seem to keep track of the paper copies we’ve been given). Thank you!

4. Spring Conf Report: Michael

April 28-30 @ Camp Hess Crammer: with 5-9% increase = $120 for reg. registration

Contra Dancing as entertainment on Friday night, Hoping for B-Side Players (world music, danceable, social justice) for Sat. (Possibility of Jack Johnson).

Still pursuing Julia Butterfly Hill as Keynote, also considering Richard Louv.

We need to have clear guidelines for skits/talent show

Music outside the dining hall on Friday night was suggested

Take into consideration amphitheater location and sun/heat concerns

5. CD ROM for marketing AEOE to sites: Tom

“Starter kit” for becoming involved in AEOE, and what AEOE is about. May include Power Point presentation – Conference photos, etc

Tom will send out a cost analysis to the board (within a few weeks).

He will be in contact with Jason Westfall about producing it. Michael Charnofsky will be involved. There will be a new brochure and possibly an information page, and poster as well.

6. 2005 Conf. Evaluations & Procedures:

a. Karyn has compiled this year’s data in a useful format for the conference committee.

b. We need to think about the value of the collecting and processing of the information of the conferences. Do we use it, are we using the best format to collect this info.

Does it include the knowledge and skills aspect of the conference, and is the effort invested in compiling the eval. worth while, and is the conf. planning group using this info to help plan the next conf.

7. Spring Conference DVDs

Concern was raised at the Sunday April board meeting regarding quality and content of skits.

Matt Perry has produced 2 DVDs. One of Bill Hammerman and John Young’s talks, and one of the Saturday night skits that were performed at the conference.

Concerns are raised about the DVDs that are out there (quality and content), and the implied contract, where Matt Perry is the distributor of the DVDs of conference skits and speakers.

George moves:

Any materials distributed under the AEOE name must be consistent with the mission of AEOE and have the board approval prior to release of the material. (For website and newsletter we should consult existing policies and practices.)

Second by Michael

Motion passes unanimously.

The board recommends we establish clear guidelines for newsletters and website management.

Action: George will look into how AEOE can acquire the footage recorded by Matt for use by AEOE as deemed appropriate.

In the meantime, the DVD (of conference speakers) will be circulated throughout the board to decide if we want to make it available for members, or have it as an archival resource.

Motion by Laura:

“We do not approve the distribution of the Skit night DVD under the AEOE name.”

Second by Lisa

Approved unanimously

8. Fall Conferences

a. Southern:

Nov. 4-6 Highland Springs Resort

“Setting the Stage” (Camp Highland O.S. is on the old Stage Coach Route).

Southern Council Meeting Sunday Nov. 6

b. Northern:

Oct 7-9 Tamarack Flat campground @ Yosemite

“Why We Care”

Friday night wine & cheese

Saturday night: campfire – bring your songs, stories to share.

Northern Council Meeting will occur on Sunday Oct. 9

9. Follow up from April meeting

a. Membership categories and benefits ad hoc committee report:

1. Michael recommends we offer higher levels of membership for people who can/want to contribute more. This may or may not include additional benefits.

Basic: $15

Contributing: $35

Institutional: $50

Life: $150

We can get Clearing Magazine for $10 instead of $18 annual subscription.

We could offer this as a benefit at the Contributing Membership level (but need to calculate in mind the added expense).

Laura moves

AEOE adopt new membership levels to take effect Jan 1^st 2006

Basic: $15

Contributing: $35

Institutional: $50

Life: $150

Clearing magazine will be a benefit for membership at the contributing level.

Michael seconds motion

Motion passes unanimously.

b. CD-rom production (see Agenda item number 5)

c. Membership brochure

Michael will continue working on the brochure. Jason Westfall and others will be assisting on this.

•• George would like to step down as the AEOE State Coordinating Secretary, Debbie has voiced an interest in the position.

10. Webmaster report:

a. Webmaster position

Maggie loves being the Webmaster however, she will be outrageously busy this year as a first year 7/8^th grade math and science teacher. She is willing to give weekend training to the new webmaster if there is someone out there that would step up to it. At this point the website is huge... maybe more than a volunteer commitment – (there is now reimbursement for software, and a $1000 stipend).

Maggie’s recommendation is to consider paying someone to be webmaster

or split it up among a few volunteers. Dan A. suggests increasing the stipend. $5000 to maintain it at the quality we presently have would be reasonable. $2000 – we may be able to find someone to do it for this amount. (may have to be scaled back from what Maggie has done)

• Laura and Maggie will work on a job description of the webmaster job. We (Laura, Heather, Maggie) will begin advertising the position in the newsletters, website, and in the next group email to membership. Also they will ask Zayanne if it is possible for us to raise the webmaster stipend to $2000.
• Dan A. expressed some interest in the position, Hoppy and Heather have also expressed some interest.

b. Link checking service – $249/year SEVENtwentyfour link checking service.

Maggie has a proposal written up for us, that was sent out with the board meeting prep.

• Members present recommend that the board approves Maggie’s proposal on the link checking service. It will go to an e-mail vote.
• UPDATE: EMAIL VOTE RESULTS:  
  There is an item from the meeting that we need to (possibly discuss and) move and vote on. According to the meeting minutes, it was recommended by members present (though not a quorum I understand so they did not vote, so we need to) that the board approve MaggieÂ’s proposal to contract with the link checking service, SEVENtwentyfour, at $249/year.  Well, the motion was made and seconded and there were 5 ayes, no nays.  I would still like to hear back from Zayanne to make sure that this works in the current budget, but it looks like this motion passes.  Zayanne, can you get in touch with me regarding this and sending out a final copy of the budget?  And, Laura, when you get the results of your vote and ask that it be recorded in the minutes, do you think you could put this one in at the same time so we save somebody’s energy? Let me know. Maggie, can you let me know how we want to proceed with doing this, and possibly talk to Zayanne about paying it?

11. Clearing magazine (see Agenda item # 9)

12. NAAEE - Hoppy is our official rep.

• Laura appointed Michael as our second representative.
• We need to ask Zayanne what our level of financial support is for our representatives attending the conference, and get that info to Michael and Hoppy.
• Do we want to be institutional members of NAAEE? Michael will research benefits of membership.
• The board expects that the representatives (Hoppy and Michael) will present a training session to the board or to the membership (depending on which is more appropriate) based on their experiences at the NAAEE affiliates meeting and conference.

13. GSEEC Report –

Michael went to GSEEC conf. in West Virginia this June. (equivalent to NAAEE affiliates meeting). They spent most of the time developing a strategic plan for GSEEC.

Sandy Funki is the leader (paid director) of GSEEC, however the funding for this has ended, and the position will be eliminated.

They have done a leadership clinic in Los Angeles (Michael feels that it was an exceptional workshop) and have a diversity list serve.

It is unclear what they will do now: will they go through the process of becoming a non-profit (they are currently under the California Forests Foundation’s non-profit.)? The diversity portion may break off and become it’s own entity.

Michael would like to remind us that we have approved funding and support for continued involvement in GSEEC

14. P.O. Box –

Michael has access to the official AEOE P.O. Box in Wrightwood– Tami (Michael’s friend in Wrightwood) has the key. But no one on the board lives in Wrightwood anymore.

Laura will contact Kris Pamintuan, and Dan Webster, and Heather Butler to see if any of them would be willing to manage a PO Box for AEOE.

NOTE: We need to check the physical address on the non-profit status paperwork.

15. Historian:

Janice is wanting to step down from the role of Historian. We need to get the word out to recruit someone.

We also need to think about the Bill Hammerman library – where will we store it? Marty Rigby of Acorn Naturalist has stated that he is willing to store this at the Acorn Naturalist. Also there was a previous suggestion by Esther Railton CSU East Bay may be able to take it into their library.

• We recommend that Janice research these leads.

16. Newsletter:

Laura states that at the last Southern Council meeting the idea for a statewide newsletter with regional sections for northern and southern was discussed. This issue has been suggested in the past (but without the sectional inserts).

Issues raised in the past have been that 800 issues are a lot for one volunteer to print and distribute. Also important to retain regional centered information in the newsletters.

Maggie put forth that we could have an editor in chief that puts together the statewide portion of the newsletter that gets sent out electronically to the regional editors. Regional editors would then add in their sectional pages, print, and send out the newsletter to their regional membership.

.

Alternatively the info could be sent to the editor in chief to then be processed together.

We would like Northern section to discuss this suggestion at their next board meeting.

Michael and Dan Allison also suggested that the editor and distribution functions can be separated to reduce the work load for the editor.

More alternative ideas are welcome. The board would like this topic to be revisited at the Statewide Board teleconference in November.

***The newsletter needs to be reviewed prior to being sent out. The board revisited the request that has been discussed regarding the review of all official documents that are sent out by AEOE. (see April 15, 2005 minutes) The minutes were modified to reflect that this includes sectional AEOE newsletters being edited by additional “editorial eyes” prior to publication. Sectional Chairs will report on the implementation of this policy at the next State Board Meeting.

FYI: Southern is currently posting their draft newsletter on the Yahoo Groups site, the council replies to Jason, who then makes the changes, it’s then re-posted, and any necessary changes are made. The final is then posted before it goes to print.

Questions for future meetings:

What is our non-profit status?

Financial report including investing

Spring conference updates

Fall conference final reports

Stipend for webmaster

Membership in NAAEE

Newsletter

Publicity / marketing – CD-Rom and Membership brochure

*****Suggestion to have information/presentation materials available prior to board meeting, so people know what’s going on, and so our meetings are more efficient.

Meeting Adjourned!!!!!

Motions Passed

• George moved, seconded by Tom to submit mission statement to the executive board for approval. Motion passed.

• Any materials distributed under the AEOE name must be consistent with the mission of AEOE and have the board approval prior to release of the material. (For website and newsletter we should consult existing policies and practices.)

• Laura moved, “We do not approve the distribution of the Skit night DVD under the AEOE name.”Second by Lisa, approved unanimously.

• Laura moves that AEOE adopt new membership levels to take effect Jan 1^st 2006

Basic: $15

Contributing: $35

Institutional: $50

Life: $150

Clearing magazine will be a benefit for membership at the contributing level.

Michael seconds motion

Motion passes unanimously.

• Michael was appointed to be our second NAAEE representative

Action Items

• Zayanne will distribute via e-mail the approved 05-06 budget

• Tom will send out a cost analysis of a CD-rom marketing tool to the board within a few weeks.

• George will look into how AEOE can acquire the DVD footage recorded by Matt for use by AEOE as deemed appropriate.

• George will coordinate circulation of current DVD footage for board member review.

• Michael will continue working on the AEOE brochure (Jason will be working with him)
• Laura and Maggie will work on a job description of the webmaster job.
• Laura, Heather, and Maggie will make sure the job of webmaster be advertised to membership appropriately.
• Laura will call for an email vote on Maggie’s link-check proposal.
• Laura will contact Kris Pamintuan, and Dan Webster, and Heather Butler to see if any of them would be willing to manage a PO Box for AEOE.
• Janice will research leads for storing historical records
• Sectional chairs will make sure newsletters are reviewed before being published. Tom and Lisa/Tami will report to the board regarding this
• The Northern Council will discuss the idea of one statewide newsletter at their next meeting.

George would like to step down as the AEOE State Coordinating Secretary, Debbie has voiced an interest in the position.