On July 30, 2008 the board voted via email to revise the
organization's Articles of Incorporation by deleting Article 7.
That request has been sent to the Oregon Secretary of State's Office
but no reply has yet been received. We made the change at the
request of the IRS agent who is reviewing our application for tax
exempt status.
The minutes of the previous meeting had been circulated among the
board members via email and approved.
Meeting of 8/7/08; attending: Benj, James, Felicia, Rob, Evangelina,
Wayne, Dorothy, Jack Meacham
Announcements: Benj explained to us the details of the 'Walk for the Gold' event
for the Special Olympics which will be on August 23rd at Alton Baker
Park. Members of WCPCA are invited to take part as individuals.
Details about the day's activities are at walkforthegold.com.
The board endorsed this activity.
The Paypal payment setup on our website is working well at this
time, Felicia indicated.
James explained that Bob Crites, whom we had nominated for the
Sergeant Shriver Award offered by the NPCA, wasn't selected for this
honor. The board was very disappointed because Bob is deserving.
James will talk to Kevin Quigly, president of NRPCV, about the
matter and let the board know what he learns.
Dorothy reported that she, Rolly, Evangelina, and Felicia have
worked on WCPCA's response to the IRS regarding the organization's
application for tax exempt status. James and Wayne met with Dorothy
yesterday to go over the response which was completed this week.
Dorothy sent it to the IRS on our due date, 8/7/08, and it will be
received on 8/8/08.
Dorothy called the IRS agent involved to let her know that the
response was on its way. She received a voice mail reply in which
the agent indicated that she expected to review the response next
week.
Dorothy explained a new restriction that will influence our funding
of humanitarian projects outside of the US. We will be limited to
Peace Corps Partnership Projects. Otherwise we have to satisfy the
many new Homeland Security requirements to prevent the funding of
terrorist organizations. We decided to avoid this requirement at
least for the time being.
The board thanked all of those involved for their work.
Evangelina gave the treasurer's report which is summarized below:
| General Fund | Beryl's Memorial fund |
|---|
| Cash in checking acct. | $2,745 | Principal Life Income Bond | $20,000 |
| OCCU 6 mo. CD | $2,512.30 | Money Market | $2,612 |
| Totals | $5,257.30 | | $22,612 |
Three year investment in the Calvert Fund for its humanitarian work:
$2,000. This investment plus 1% interest will be returned to WCPCA
in early September. The board has previously decided to add this
amount to Beryl's Memorial fund. That deposit will bring the total
in the Memorial fund to approximately $24,612. We'll be close to
our initial goal of raising $25,000 for this fund.
Eugene Celebration: We have paid the fee for the booth and James
will pay the fee for the parade on Monday.
We talked about polling the membership. Felicia reported that with
our new software she can create polls that members can respond to
online. There is, for instance, a poll now on our website that asks
members what kinds of articles they would be most likely to purchase
from WCPCA. This poll also keeps track of the responses and that
result is available also on the website. Given this situation the
board felt that it wasn't necessary to do business with Survey
Monkey.
Next week Evangelina, James, and Dorothy will meet with Charlie
Ward, our volunteer accountant, to talk about the organization's
federal tax liability. We'll also review all of our Oregon state
reporting requirements to verify that we are handling them
correctly. The former inquiry is necessary because we've received a
letter from the IRS asking us to file but on a form that, we feel,
doesn't apply to the organization.
Felicia's gave the communication coordinator's report: Note the
previous information about polling. She handed out a draft of
information about WCPCA that is for a flier to be handed out at the
Eugene Celebration and other events. This informs the public about
our organization and invites interested people to join the
organization. The information is posted on the board only section
of the website.
Board members are asked to read the information and make any
comments, suggestions, etc. to Felicia and Evangelina who will
continue working on the flier. We need to have it ready by the
second week in September.
Felicia talked about a request for funding for a program called
'Running for Water' which is in Ghana. The board decided against
this due to funding restrictions that are required with the receipt
of a tax exempt status. (See previous explanation of this
requirement.)
Felicia is hoping to work with Deb to organize more outdoor
activities for WCPCA members. She asked the board's opinion of our
cosponsoring these activities with other organizations. The board
in general likes this idea. We just have to avoid political
activities.
We talked about possible fundraising activities and several
ideas were put forward. The board was especially enthusiastic about
Jack's suggestion of writing a cook book with recipes from the host
countries of our members. We liked the idea of a cook book that
included identifying sources for unusual ingredients either locally
or online, short descriptions of the country and/or the typical
occasion for the dishes included, and photos.
James asked Wayne, the fundraising committee chair, to develop this
idea with the committee and think about having a cookbook ready to
be marketed in the fall, 2009, in time for holiday purchases.
Wayne agreed to have the committee work on this matter and return to
the board with further ideas.
Membership: We agreed to talk in detail about membership issues
at our September meeting. We feel that we can approach this subject
better when we know if we have received tax exempt status or at
least when we'll receive it. Topics that we need to discuss include
recruitment and the dues schedule. James would like to write a
personal letter to previous and prospective members as part of a
possible fall recruitment campaign. We need to recruit members
before printing a membership directory for the fall.
Dorothy has been out of town so there was not a report on current
membership numbers.
James reported about possibilities for non-profit organizations
to have free tables at both the Saturday Market and the Holiday
Market. The board is interested in pursuing these possibilities to
publicize the organization and to sell merchandise. We'd like to
coordinate any work in this area with the U of O Peace Corps
recruiter.
Jack Meacham was in charge of identifying prospective projects
for funding. He explained how he polled and met with board members
to select a Peace Corps Partnership project to receive the $700 that
the board had already set aside for this purpose. The first choice,
a bee keeping project in Uganda, has already been fully funded.
Thus the board selected another project to fund which is a school
garden fence in Gambia. The project needs $707 and the board agreed
to fund it fully.
This is a project to build a fence around a school garden to prevent
livestock from entering the area and destroying the garden. The
money will be used to purchase materials. The fence will be built
with donated labor from the community. We'll ask the PC more about
the project and request photos.
Note: Since the board meeting Evangelina has contributed the funds
and they have been acknowledged by the PC.
Eugene Celebration: We reviewed our plans to take part in the
Eugene Celebration on September 12-14. WCPCA members and interested
parties will be encouraged to march in the parade on Saturday
morning, 9/13, and then to staff a booth on Saturday and Sunday,
9/13 and 9/14. We have no activities on Friday, 9/12.
People who will work on setting up the booth are: James, Benj,
Evangelina, Josh. We need more volunteers to staff the booth and to
take it down as well as to organize items for the parade. James is
coordinating the activities and inviting people to contact him to
volunteer time. We expect the new U of O recruiter to take part and
to supply some visuals and literature to hand out.
We agreed to purchase several more flags, up to a cost of about
$100, to carry in the parade. James will work on this.
Evangelina will work on printing information regarding WCPCA to hand
out at our booth at the Celebration. She's also interested in
purchasing candy to hand out during the parade. The board agreed to
this.
We discussed the frequency of our potlucks and other social
gatherings. There was some interest in having a potluck with a
program each month except possibly during the summer. Jack
suggested alternating a potluck with a program and purely social
gatherings of different types including attending a movie, etc. The
PC recruiter organized such gatherings during this last year. We'll
continue this conversation at another meeting.
We have a sign up sheet at each potluck and Benj offered to
contact new people who attend a potluck.
We discussed the procedure for the election of officers that
will take place this fall. Articles VIII of both the constitution
and bylaws explain that each year we need to have a nominating
committee of 1 to 3 members and that the election must take place at
a November meeting of the general membership. This could be at a
potluck.
We agreed that Wayne and Dorothy will organize a nominating
committee of members who are not on the board and that nominations
will be announced to the membership in October. We felt that there
should be a general encouragement of the membership to nominate
board members and also, consistent with our policy of several years,
that the nominating committee should avoid contested races. There
are ample opportunities for interested members to serve WCPCA as
officers or at large board members. We also note that board members
must be paid up members of the organization.
We discussed one potential advertising activity for WCPCA:
having the name of the organization and photos flash on the screen
at the Bijou before the scheduled film. No decision was made
pending a full consideration of such matters. This would cost $125
for one month.
Coming potluck and other meetings:
September 4th: next board meeting at 7:15 pm at Dorothy's home.
September 13 nd 14: Eugene Celebration activities.
September 19, 6:00 pm: Potluck at Benj's home.
October 9th: board meeting at 7:15 pm at Rob Dwan's home, 887 Sunset
Dr., Springfield; Rob's home is a geodesic dome on Kelly Butte in
Springfield.
James will work on scheduling a program for the September potluck.
