Executive Board Minutes 5/7/2000
Present:
Lisa Alexander &emdash; Mid-Peninsula
John Bechtol &emdash; Sonoma
Josephine Cilluffo &emdash; San Francisco / North Peninsula
Deb Farber &emdash; Contra Costa / Alameda
Karen Grossman &emdash; Mid-Peninsula
David Harris &emdash; Sonoma
Beverlee Kell &emdash; Marin
Doug Miller &emdash; Sonoma
Lew Mills &emdash; Northern California
Our charter requires us to do planning each (July to June) year. The plan will eventually be at this link: http://www.chaddnorcal.org/ExecBoard/StrategicPlan/
Branches should have a rough plan too, if something new. The branches are supposed to do this also.
We will work on this and you can expect a note on it under separate cover.
The ultimate intention is to consolidate the PRL into one database for the chapter, from the separate ones that each branch keeps now. This gives us much more flexibility:
We will need to have a policy by consensus on the PRL as to whether membership is a requirement. We will discuss it on ncregion until 6/21 (we had said 6/1 but that's too short.) After that, if we cannot agree, we will take a vote of the Executive Board.
As of now, we ask for membership except in Marin, and we give a short list of resources for low income and MediCal providers to those who cannot afford to join. These people can of course come to meetings and can forego the $5 donation if they cannot afford it.
Until we have an official inquiries coordinator, we will need branch coordinators to answer PRL questions, etc. When it is on the web, we may be able to consolidate question answering into a small group of people or one individual "inquiries coordinator.
The newsletter is wonderful, but costly. Even with ad rates in the high end for similar chapters, we cannot break even financially without filling it with (about 8 pages worth of) ads. Nonetheless, it is an important connection we make with our members.
Unfortunately, after an illustrious career as editor, Lisa Alexander has needed to step down. Deb Farber is going to set up a template for a plug and publish Newsletter that we can send out each four months without much effort. We sill agree on a set length, probably either 12 or 16 pages (to avoid adding inserts as in the 14 page editions). There will be set columns on:
Deb and Lew will agree on list of fields for the events listings in Newsletter and Web Page. Look for it soon at "fields for Events Listings"
New Staffing needed for the Newsletter includes
It is proposed that we may have a discounted rate if advertisers want to buy an ad for the entire year-3 issues.
The Newsletter will from now on hopefully be printed to a "PDF" file as well so that it can be published on the web.
We will work on drafting a complaint to National about how our membership signups are handled. We have big problems with members not being credited to our chapter, even if we sent the check in ourselves sometimes. Judy will draft a letter to send National, ncregion list members will have a chance to proof it and it will go out under Lew's signature.
One partial remedy is now in place. Our web site now has a membership signup where members can sign up exactly like on the National site (except that it is a little more complex to pay). But this way, we have documentation of who has joined our chapter. Go take a look at the signup page.
Branch budgets
Branches will be asked to develop a budget for the next fiscal year (which is set by National to be July 1 through June 30, 2001) by 6/15. You can work with Judy on this. It does not need to be complicated. Example: Do you have income from at the door donations to cover your room costs and refreshments? Can you afford to subsidize an event's losses?When a branch is spent down to its last $100, it can no longer spend money without Chapter approval. Otherwise, branches are responsible to maintain their own financial viability.
Sacramento owes us $250 for Newsletters, we believe. Lew will contact them to see if they want to continue doing that, or want to affiliate in any specific way. (Lew did, they don't.)
Even though the chapter is covering phone costs now, we need to think of ways to control these costs too. The newsletter is one of the biggest costs for the chapter.
Marin and Sonoma will benefit greatly from the Comings event and should be OK. Other Branches need to get some control over money sooner. Judy will help with this by sending out monthly budget summaries.
We can look at when we will go bust on the current trends, (not long). Judy will keep an eye on this. Basically, branches need to be self-sufficient for their costs. The chapter also needs to save more on the Newsletter and the phones.
We did not cover this much. We need to figure out how best to use these people.
We all seem to agree that more publicity for CHADD would be good. Ideas?
We don't know. The income was good. We haven't tallied the costs yet. The benefit will go to Sonoma and Marin chapters. In the future we will probably try to spread the risk for these kinds of big events over the entire chapter.
It is unlikely that we can afford to send someone to the National Conference this year. Of course anyone can go on their own, but so far I don't know anyone who is going. It will be November 1-4, 2000 at the SHERATON CHICAGO HOTEL & TOWERS. For more info see the
Deb Farber is going to be stepping down as branch coordinator for the Contra-Costa / Alameda Branch.
We do feel that we need to have more volunteer participation. It may be that we have lots of people who can do various tasks, but they don't know what those tasks are. We will try to get this information out to group leaders. It can also be found on our Volunteers page.
If we could get someone to make a list or a letter of membership benefits that we can post on the web and /or send to new members, this would be very helpful. To see what we have so far, go look at the membership page.
Like the Newsletter, we will aim to meet every four months: May, September and January. It will help to have this continuity. (Our meetings can theoretically be chats, phone bridge, internet polls or whatever.)
Next meeting will be in September.