Executive Committee Meeting

Minutes

February 14, 1997

Present: Judy Look, Maureen Ferriter, Rick Hogan, Johannah Burdin, Bridget Mullen
Location: Bowdoin College

Meeting called to order by Judy at 9:00 a.m.

Old Business:

Secretary's Report: Bridget read her notes from the annual business meeting. Several comments were added. Summary follows: Officiers elected were: President--Judy Look, President Elect--Maureen Ferriter, Treasurer--Johannah Burdin, Secretary--Bridget Mullen, Member-at-Large--Rick Hogan. The value of position of Liaison was called into question and discussed. Membership charged the President with bringing their concerns to NEAEOPP and perhaps dropping the Liaison position altogether. In the meantime, Lynn Ploof-Davis was elected Liaison The proposed constitutional amendment regarding the definition of membership was voted down, discussed and tabled. Discussion was leaning toward giving students the right to vote. There was also a question raised about creating a student liaison position on the Executive Committee. Question of whether to leave this issue to Strategic Planning was discussed--the membership expressed concern that the planning process will likely take several years and charged the Committe with tackling the issue and bringing a proposal back to the membership (a mailing or a meeting) before the end of the year. Lynn Ploof-Davis, chair of Trio Day Committee reported on planning for the February 21 & 22 event in Portland. Membership charged the Executive Committee with follow through on the Strategic Planning process by facilitating formation of 3 committees including: Advocacy, Student Services and Professional Developement and by reporting back to the membership on the progress of Strategic Planning during mid-year.
Rick motioned to accept amended notes from the annual business meeting as Secretary's Report . Johannah second.

Liaison's Report: Maureen reported on the February 7 NEAEOPP Board meeting. At the meeting, Judy conveyed MEEOA's interest in eliminating the NEAEOPP Liaison position by relating the concerns voiced by membership at the January 10, MEEOA business meeting. NEAEOPP President, Diane Dickerson, strongly urged Maine to continue to send both the state president and Liaison to Board meetings. The Board is currently focusing energy on developing job descriptions for each Board position. Their feeling is that there is a great deal of work that NEAEOPP could/should be doing (too much for just one state representative.) The Liaison job description appears to be nearing completion and will be largely focused on advocacy and communication between federal/ regional/ state organizations. NEAEOPP will be continuing the debate over the role of the state presidents on the regional board at the next meeting. As for the MEEOA membership's interest in dropping the Liaison position, Maureen and Judy both suggested we share the Board's "job descriptions" with MEEOA members and ask for their input (perhaps at a mid-year meeting.) In light of the fact that MEEOA will be specifically concerning itself with Advocacy through the Strategic Planning process, the Committee agreed it was a good idea for the membership to revisit the Liaison question. In the meantime, Maureen felt it would be helpful to share the major concerns about the position with Tom Putnam, the incoming NEAEOPP President. Maureen agreed to pursue this in the form of an e-mail message that would be "CC"ed to the Committee. (Note: under New Business the Committee discussed how to proceed with the current state Liaison.) Judy also noted that it's helpful to know the history of the Liaison position and that the Committee could help foster awareness of this in the state and region. Maureen agreed to talk more with Jerry Ellis about this.

Other NEAEOPP news: The Board is working on a new, less cumbersome name. Any suggestions can be submitted direct to NEAEOPP. The political "network" arranged last year needs some follow up. Currently, no one is officially networked on Trio's behalf with Maine's newest Senator, Susan Collins. Last year the contacts proved effective and we hope that they may be willing to conitinue. They were: Kristi Pierce w/ Rep.Baldacci , Helen Pelletier w/ Sen. Snowe and Carol Brush w/ Tom Allen. Judy will follow up on these "assignments.". Upcoming awards being bestowed by NEAEOPP include the Chisolm Award and the Claiborne Pell Award. Nominations for the awards were reviewed. Maureen Ferriter is planning a regional, SSS, day long workshop for next October or November. Possible topics for sessions include: welfare reform, Financial Aid and student orientations. Input from SSS programs is welcome. Maureen canvassed other state organizations represented at the NEAEOPP meeting to get sense of how they structured their associations and found a terrific range. The NEAEOPP conference still needs workshop ideas. (The Committee brainstormed several workshop ideas that Maureen and Rick will follow up on.) Judy reported that the Hilton Hotel does not allow food or beverages to be brought into the hotel for functions--such as hosting a hospitality suite. The estimated cost to MEEOA for having a cash bar and snacks through the Hilton for an evening is approx. $50.00. Finally, it was noted that Kristi Pierce is putting together a survey, to be distributed at NEAEOPP and later through the mail, asking how NEAEOPP can better serve the membership.
Bridget motion to accept Liaison Report. Johannah second.

Treasurer's Report: Judy reported on account activities as of January 1, 1997. The annual conference paid for itself with expenses of $4132.29 and income of $4460. Judy officially handed over the Treasurer's books to Johannah.
Maureen motion to accept Treasurers Report. Rick second.

Current Liaison: Judy proposed that Lynn Ploof-Davis would act as Liaison by attending NEAEOPP Board Meetings and submitting a written report to the monthly MEEOA Executive Committee Meeting. All in agreement.

Strategic Planning Committees: Volunteers were identified at the annual Business meeting. They are: Student Services=Tim Foster and Penny Gray
Advocacy=Lynn Ploof-Davis, Shelli Lunney, Karen McKosker and Lindy Duval
Professional Development=Helen Finlan and Velma Murphy
(For further information about Strategic Planning, please see New Business.)

Student/Associate Membership:The proposed amendment was rejected at the annual business meeting. The Committee discussed what additional steps to take next. It is not clear to the Committee whether the membership would like to give students the right to vote and hold office. Rick suggested a possible two-tier membership might include: Professional=employed by a Trio Program. Associate=anyone supportive of the goals of Trio but not employed in a Trio program. The question of a possible student liaison position on the Executive Committee was briefly raised. The Committee agreed to work on a new proposal (perhaps with input from the Strategic Planning Committees) to present to the membership at a mid-year meeting.

Notecards: The fund-raiser cards are currently located at UMaine. Thank you to Lindy Duval for volunteering to continue helping with handling the tracking of the notecard fund-raiser.

Maine Program Directory: Thank you to Kristi Pierce for generating the Maine directory of Trio program personnel that was mailed in the fall.

MEEOA ad: Thank you to Becky Colanino for designing the ad for the NEAEOPP Conference on such short notice!! It looks great.

New Business:

MEEOA Directory: Rick will use the data-base from the annual conference to update the MEEOA Directory. It will include: address, phone, fax and e-mail and will be organized alphabetically by program. Any member who needs to update their information can contact Rick.

Fund-raiser: MEEOA will sell notecards at the NEAEOPP conference.

Memo from Lindy Duval: Lindy contacted the committee to follow-up on three important points: the notecard/fund-raiser, strategic planning and Policy Seminar. Thanks for the support and the ideas. MEEOA welcomes the input of all the membership!

Policy Seminar: There are 3 scholarships available through NCEOA (2 for alumni(ae), 1 for member of the Board.) Lindy suggested an Alumnae, Zoe Lane, a former UMPI SSS student with a daughter who attended Upwar d Bound at UMPI. She sounds terrific and the committee agreed to pursue having her go to D.C. Judy proposed that Father Jim Nadeau be contacted to go. Bridget agreed to ask him. Maureen noted that there is an Alumnae living in Arlington that Jerry suggested as a good resource. Maureen will follow up on this. Johannah expressed an interest in going this year--as a committee member and an Alumnae! Judy plans to attend. Judy noted that rooms need to be reserved ASAP-it was decided that Judy would reserve two rooms. Other suggestions for appropriate alumni(ae) candidates should be referred ASAP to Judy.

Alumni: Johannah expressed interest in beginning an "Alumni Folder" by compiling names of individuals that are often put forth for speakers, policy seminar, awards, etc... Each year we seem to start from scratch with generating possibilities. She'll begin by collecting names that are put forth for Policy Seminar this year.

Board Member Manual Information/Documentation: Judy shared informatio about a manual for effectively managing a nonprofit board that is currently available on the market. A brief discussion about organization followed. Bridget proposed that each committee member document their position this year--and at the end of the year have a manual for each committee position. Documentation would include: a calendar of activities/responsibilities, an index of any resources required by the position, as well as a brief job description and a list of names of individuals who have held the position in past years. (Note: Maureen suggested that we index the names of businesses that donated to the MEEOA Auction this year. Rick agreed to print the information out for the records.) It was agreed that the committee would set documentation of committee positions as a goal for this year.

Inventory: Judy and Rick agreed to inventory MEEOA's resources currently located at UMaine and move the archives to the designated attic space.

Annual Conference Evaluations: Maureen shared the results of the conference feedback sheets. 25 evaluations were completed and returned. Feedback on the facilities and organization of the conference was positive. The one area that received low rating was the "Open Afternoon in Bar Harbor." This was not successful this year due to the Luncheon overlapping with free time. With only a few exceptions, the workshops were well regarded. People also seemed positive about the Strategic Planning sessions. All respondents were enthusiastic about the keynote speaker. The committee felt very good about the feedback from the conference--especially considering that there were a few new dimensions this year, both organizationally and content-wise. Entertainment is an area we should go back to review for the next conference. Namely, is it worth the investment to pay for an entertainer to perform? Any member interested in reviewing the conference survey may contact Bridget at the Bowdoin U.B. office.

Strategic Planning: Judy, Bridget and Maureen typed up the notes from the Strategic Planning sessions with the membership and shared them with the Committee. Members were then assigned to act as point to the 3 separate committees that were born out of the annual conference planning sessions. They are: Advocacy=Johannah & Bridget Student Services=Rick Professional Dev.=Maureen. Judy will stay in close contact with Jerry Ellis and Joan Becker.
Point persons will contact committee members and charge them with:
A. Appointing one person on their committee to be facilitator and liaison to the Exec. Com.
B. Recruiting new people to their committee
C. Gathering ideas and concerns on the subject from other colleagues
D. Setting a meeting time and place for their committee for a date in March.

The proposed calendar for Strategic Planning is for the three committees to meet separately during March to continue the brainstorming & priority setting process begun during the last Strategic Planning session of the annual conference. The Exec. Com. will meet with the 3 planning committee facilitators (and any other available committee members) over a lunch during the NEAEOPP conference in April. During May, the committees will report their work out to the membership and gather feedback on priority setting, infrastructure and new ideas.

In the meantime, Judy will contact Jerry and Joan to get their input on the content of the committee meetings. (Should committees stick to Brainstorming outcomes and possible activities? Should they begin to work on priority setting? Should they work directly from the lists started at the conference?) Judy will share important communications regarding Strategic Planning with the rest of the Exec. Com. as needed. Judy will also put together info packets for each of the committee members including the notes on the current and ideal state of MEEOA and the outcomes generated for each of the 3 focus areas. Maureen, Rick and Johannah will follow through with contacting the committees and securing a facilitator for each. Rick noted that eventually he hoped to be able to put a section dedicated to Strategic Planning on the MEEOA Web page that could potentially have links to committee facilitator's e-mail addresses.

Meeting adjourned at 3:10 p.m.