Attending: Bob Watada, Rosa Sakanishi, George Jeffcott, Justin Overdevest, Michael Kresko, Maggie Keenan, Wayne Thompson, Felicia Kenney, James Cloutier, Jack Meacham, John Hofer, Dorothy Soper
James presided at the meeting which was held at the Jeffcotts' home. There were no additions to the published agenda.
Dorothy reported that WCPCA currently has 116 members. In the last month 6 members renewed their membership and two new members joined.
Felicia reported that WCPCA had received its first online order for a 2011 calendar. James will mail calendars that are ordered through the website.
Jack gave a treasurer's report that showed the following account balances:
- OCCU checking account: $991
- OCCU savings account: $5, 023
- OCCU Beryl Brinkman fund (restricted funds): $2,155
From earlier treasurer's reports: Beryl Brinkman Memorial Fund in the Oregon Community Foundation: approximately $27,000.Maggie gave an extensive report on her work to prepare for the March 1st celebration of the 50th that will take place at noon on the Broadway Plaza in downtown Eugene.
The organizing committee is collecting email addresses to use to notify people about the event. The database will include the WCPCA emailing list (members and nonmembers), other RPCVs in the community, citizens of countries served by the Peace Corps. Justin may be able to contribute the addresses of the most recent RPCVs in the area.
Preparation of a handout (4x5 inches) to notify people of the event. It will have the basic information plus the new 50th logo prepared by James and is a revision of the one used at the Eugene Celebration. Maggie will arrange for the printing. The handout will be distributed at the October and November potlucks and at a booth at two Saturday Markets (see below). It will also be available to individual board members to hand out to people that they meet.
There will be a WCPCA booth at two Saturday Markets in Eugene, October 16th and November 13th. We'll sell calendars, publicize the March 1st event, and try to collect email addresses from RPCVs whose contact information we don't yet have. Several board members volunteered to cover different shifts at the booth. We'll ask for more volunteers in the next newsletter.
Publicity for the event will also be in the form of letters to the editor, op. ed. article(s), U of O channels, public service announcements, Face Book, and press releases.
$350 is in the budget to support this effort in 2010. A portion of this has already been spent to prepare a banner and print the first batch of handouts. The committee will prepare a full budget to present at the next board meeting.
Wayne led the discussion about a possible second activity either in the evening of March 1st or at another time. For a gathering on March 1st we considered two sites: Cozmic Pizza and the Veterans' Club. Cozmic Pizza charges no rental fee; use of the Veterans' Club on a weeknight costs $350 and $700 for a Saturday night.
We also talked about a second event's being coordinated with the U of O's hosting the PC director or deputy director. We've received no recent word about the possible visit of these individuals but expect to hear before long.
We went over several issues related to this possible event but made no decisions.
We made plans for the October 8th potluck which will be a “welcome back” for U of O students who are returning PCVs. The event will be at the Long House which Justin has reserved from 5 -10 pm. The event will be at the conclusion of a week long street fair at the U of O at which Justin will have a recruiting booth and during which he will hold recruiting meetings.
Volunteering to come about 5pm to help set up for the potluck will be James, Wayne, Justin and two more students, and Dorothy. Dorothy will have to leave to pick up food that will be ordered and will return before 6pm. She'll recruit WCPCA members to host including sitting at the welcome tables.
James will bring the flags, a rope, and the banner; Wayne will bring a ladder; Dorothy will bring potluck supplies, name tags, plastic table cloths, and clipboards. Maggie will supply the handouts.
Dorothy will order some extra food since we exempt students from bringing food. We've budgeted $150 for the food.
The main item for the program will be a presentation by Maggie and her daughter about their recent visit to Maggie's PC site in the Philippines. We're setting aside about 30 minutes for the presentation and another 15 minutes for Q and A.
Regarding business James will talk about calendar sales and Maggie will talk about March 1st plans.
Justin may be able to identify a newly returned PCV to give a short talk about his/her project. We need to talk further about this to decide if there is really enough time for a second presentation.
John reported the five people have volunteered for the Food for Lane County's Empty Bowls fundraiser on Saturday, September 25th. He would like to have about 10 volunteers in all.
We discussed a process for nominating board members for the 2011 year. We need a nominating committee of one or more WCPCA members who are not currently on the board. Nominations need to be presented to the board at its October meeting and the names need to be included in the November newsletter. The election of officers will take place at the November potluck which is the annual meeting required by the constitution. The term of office will be January to December, 2011.
James agreed to contact Jim Beyer to see if he is willing to serve on the nominating committee. Board members discussed briefly who was interested in continuing on the board. We will all notify the nominating committee once we know who will be serving. James will work out a nominating procedure with the nominating committee.
We did some preliminary planning for the November potluck. We selected Friday, November 12th, as the date. Justin agreed to identify a newly returned PCV who would be interested in giving a presentation on his/her PC program. Dorothy will identify a host.
Justin explained that the PC exhibit at the Knight library will be next spring. The display that he is organizing will highlight the five decades of the Peace Corps' history with a local RPCV submitting materials to represent each decade.
James reported on the Eugene Celebration. There was a good turnout for the parade; the booth drew good attention. We sold $227 worth of merchandize thus covering most of the cost of our participation.
Next year we need more volunteers to help set up, staff, and take down the booth.
James reported on calendar sales: 78 of the 200 that we purchased have been sold to date. We are now selling them at three retail stores with another three to five as possibilities. They'll also be sold at the next two potlucks and at the two Saturday Market booths that we'll have. In addition, a notice about them will be in the next three newsletters. We need to have a strong response from our membership to sell all of them by the end of the year.
The board voted to give Ron Zauner a $25 gift certificate to Sweet Life for his heroic repair the taxi as it suffered an accident while in transit to the Eugene Celebration. We are all very grateful to him. Wayne will take care of this.
The board voted to place another $100 in the miscellaneous fund of the budget. That will bring the total allocated this year for this category to $200.
John summarized the outcome of the telephone survey of WCPCA members regarding the celebration of the 50th:
- a good number of our members are willing to join a celebration
- members are willing to help and to pay a participation fee
John has circulated a list of the names of those who offered the above.The next board meeting will be on Monday, October 18th, 7pm, at the home of Michael Kresko and Shannon Micheel.
Our meeting was adjourned at 9pm.
Minutes prepared by Dorothy Soper.
