Attending: Dustin Johnson, Felicia Kenney, Evangelina Sundgrenz,Benj Epstien, Deb McLaughlin, Rolly Thompson, Wayne Thompson, JamesCloutier, Artis Spriggs, Brett Holt, Dorothy Soper
Dustin called the meeting to order at 7:15 pm. The minutes ofthe previous meeting had already been circulated to the boardmembers and approved via email. They are posted on our website.
Under updates, Dustin explained that he plans to take a new job inthe Portland area and will be moving there probably in March. Wediscussed how to handle the duties of president. Dustin willcontinue as president through January and into early February atwhich point his resignation will become effective. James Cloutier,the Vice President, will become the president as of February 5th. The board wishes Dustin well in his new job and new community andthanks him for his year and a half service as the president ofWCPCA.
Evangelina gave us the treasurer's report which included anupdate on our account balances and all income and disbursements overthe last month. The board accepted the report which is summarizedbelow.
Account balances:
Oregon Credit Union
Business Checking: $6,140
Business Savings: $5.00
Business Money Market Acct.: $508
Beryl's Memorial Fund: $22,561
In addition WCPCA has invested $2,000 through the NPCA in theCalvert Foundation's Microenterprise Program.
Recent income has come from memberships and the sale of theinternational calendars published by the Madison, WI RPCV group.Rolly has been in charge of selling the calendars with help fromother board members. We earned $378 from the sale of calendars lastmonth. There are only a few remaining calendars and they'll be soldfor us at Swahili Imports.
With Brett's help we'll purchase a copy of the Microsoft Accessprogram for Felicia to use to create a database for our membershipdata. Brett can obtain an educational discount. As a result thesoftware will cost $115. (Felicia has already started on thedatabase using a short term free download version of the software.)
Regarding investing the money in Beryl's memorial fund, we'vepreviously agreed to work with Rick Karr of Edward JonesInvestments. Karr also works with Jim Beyer who is a WCPCA member. Jim will meet with Rick and then come to our next board meeting todescribe what Rick recommends for us. Board members will then meetwith Rick to make final arrangements.
Evangelina sent a check for $200 to Father Charles Mwipopo inTanzania for his philanthropic work. The money was raised by thesale of some of Beryl's jewelry and then donated to WCPCA for thispurpose.
Rolly gave us an update on the telephone message service offeredby two companies. She looked into Qwest and MTM and compared pricesand services. We opted to use MTM because its price wasconsiderably lower, $14.95 per month with the first and last monthfees due at the time that the contract is signed. The number willbe listed on the website. There will be no directory listing. Rolly will set this up and check the messages.
Rolly and Evangelina have completed the WCPCA's application for501-C3 status for our organization. It will be submitted in lateJanuary. The board thanked them for their thorough and careful workwhich required meeting with an advisor and extensive research intothe organization's history.
Brett, the PC recruiter on the U of O campus, described some ofthe PC activities coming up on the campus. He informs ourmembership via email and asks for volunteers in many cases.
He has begun organizing the NOM party (to celebrate the selection ofnew local PCVs) which is jointly sponsored by his office and WCPCA. The event is a potluck dinner provided by WCPCA which will takeplace in the Many Nations Longhouse on the U of O campus on Tuesday,April 22nd from 5:00 to 7:00 pm. This is Earth Day and theanticipated principal speaker will incorporate the theme of thatcelebration into his talk.
Brett is working on a program which tentatively includes arepresentative of the university, a principal speaker, entertainmentby a group of international students, possibly a speaker who is theparent of a PCV, and a member of WCPCA. In addition to dinnerdishes provided by WCPCA membership, we'll need to purchase somedishes in order to have enough food.
Attendance at the last two NOM parties which have been in thelonghouse has been very good. We look forward to a good turnoutthis year. We'll need help from WCPCA members to bring food, helpwith decorating and clean up. We'll be asking for volunteers nextmonth.
Felicia, the Communications Coordinator, reported that she'sworking on the database for our membership, has updated the websitewith current information, and has arranged our use of Paypal toallow people to pay for memmberships online. The use of Paypal forpeople to purchase shirts and calendars can be arranged in thefuture.
When the database is completed Felicia will send an email toeveryone on the mailing list to ask them to update their contactinformation and pay for memberships. If they want their namesremoved from the mailing list, she'll do that.
Felicia puts announcements of our upcoming events on the website andalso in local newspapers. For the latter she needs the informationtwo weeks in advance for the Eugene Weekly and one week in advancefor the Register-Guard.
We decided that in addition to posting the minutes of our boardmeetings, we would have a brief summary of news and upcoming events,an "email newsletter". With this, members would not have to readthe minutes to learn news. Dorothy will send a summary to Feliciaonce the minutes have been approved by the board.
Felicia will also email a request for information for the "emailnewsletter" to those who volunteered earlier to work on anewsletter.
Dustin reported that the western regional meeting of the NationalPeace Corps Association will take place on January 26th in Olympia,WA. He asked if anyone would like to attend. No one volunteered. Dustin thought that he might be able to attend. He'll prepare areport on the activities of WCPCA over the last year to present orsend to the meeting.
Dustin had to leave at t his time so James conducted the rest of themeeting.
Brett proposed that WCPCA contribute funds to a current projectat a Peace Corps site in Mongolia where a Eugene volunteer, HannahKlausman, is in her second year of service. Ms. Klausman listed theproject with the Peace Corps Partnership program.
She's looking for $300 to complete the refurbishing and furnishingof the Music and Dance Room at her high school. The project's goalis to create an environment where students can actively learnMongolian traditional and modern dance and music. The communityhas already contributed approximately $1,500.
The board discussed the project and voted to send $300 so that theproject may be completed. The decision is consistent with theboard's commitment to support the work of volunteers from the localarea.
Dorothy suggested that we consider reissuing the directory oflocal RPCVs using the database information that Felicia is puttingtogether. The reasons are to allow local RPCVs to be able toidentify and contact each other. This may help boost ourmembership.
We've published two directories in the past. We sold ads for thefirst one to help pay for the cost. The group decided to discussthis more at the next board meeting.
We selected dates and programs for some coming meetings:
- Next board meeting: Thursday, February 14th, 7:30 pm,home of Benj and Joann Epstein
- Next potluck: Friday, March 14th, 6:00 pm at the home ofDeb McLaughlin
Tentative program: Presentation by the parents of HannahKlansman, the Eugene volunteer in Mongolia. Her parents,Anita Tanner and David Klausman, visited her in Mongolia lastsummer and have organized a lively power point presentationabout Hannah's work and the country. - NOM party, Tuesday, April 22nd, Many Nations Longhouse,U of O campus, 5:00 - 7:00 pm.
James adjourned the meeting about 9:00 pm.
Minutes by Dorothy. Approved by the board as of 1-23-08.
