February 2017 Minutes
AWB FEBRUARY 11 2017 Minutes
AWB Meeting was called to order at 12:00 by President Hawkins.
The meeting
was held at Denny's Restaurant in Independence,15 members were present, and there were two guests.
The meeting was a Q and A meeting giving members a chance to discuss what might be on their minds pertaining to what and how AWB could be more
productive.
Alice wanted to do something for the Knights of Columbus for their very nice
contribution of $1,000. It was suggested we could have a picnic in
Sugar Creek, with their families and AWB members, so that we could let them know how much we appreciated their volunteer services. AWB would buy the food and they would cook it for us and their families.
There was a 50/50 drawing, Linda was the winner, and she was kind enough to
return it to the treasurer to be put into the Christmas fund account. She
returned $15.00 back to the Treasurer.
The meeting adjourned at 2:00 p.m.
Draft minutes: The MCB board met On Thursday, January 28th on a teleconference
call and the following is a synopsis of the proceedings.
In my President's report I asked the board to appropriate money for a fund-raising seminar to be held in February in St. Louis. The cost for the 40-hour class is $2,500.00 for three people to attend. Those people are Chris Gray, Kim Vaughn and Darrel Vickers. The board voted to approve this.
During our last convention I had stated that we were going
to take a serious look at cutting some of our expenses in an effort to have more of a balanced budget. We asked our accountant, Jerry Nickels, to take a look at our expenses and give us some suggestions. The budget and finance committee met with Jerry this past Tuesday and went over some of his recommendations. We presented some of those proposals to the board and here
is the outcome.
The ACB grant will remain at $20,000.00 but individuals will be limited to
receiving $500.00 each. The past two years there were only 20 people
attending the ACB convention and each person received $1,000.00. If only 20
people attend the ACB convention this year that would mean a savings of
$10,000.00 for MCB.
The committee also asked the board to increase the rate attendees would pay
for summer camp. They had asked for a $25.00 across the board increase but
that was modified to a $10.00 increase covering the next two years and a
$15.00 increase in 2018. The rate for those attending summer camp will
begin this year and are as follows.
Adults for the week long camp will be $85.00 for 2016 and 2017.
Children under the age of 18 will be $70.00 for both of those years.
The weekend camp will be $60.00 for 2016 and 2017.
In 2018 the week long camp will be $100.00 for adults and $85.00 for
children under 18.
The extended weekend camp will be $75.00.
The committee has recommended that we do away with the in-person board
meetings in April. The committee felt that this was unnecessary at this
time and the board agreed. Our by-laws do state that the board meet two
times apart from the pre-convention meeting in October but it does not state
that these meetings should be an in-person meeting as opposed to
teleconference calls. It is estimated that this will save MCB approximately
$9,000.00 annually... The 2016 April board meeting is under contract so this
will begin in 2017.
The budget and finance committee also recommended that an affiliate
requesting a visit from a staff member, board member with the exception of
the president, or a committee chair be responsibility for the expense of
that visit. The board voted to approve this.
The board approved the recommendation from the committee that we eliminate
all donations with the exception to the following three organizations...
Power-Up, (Missouri Assistive Technology).
Mind's Eye Radio
Kansas Audio Reading Service.
Each one of these organizations will have a line item in the budget of
$2,000.00 each.
This will be a savings of $4,000.00 each year.
As an addition to the accounting and financial policy, the board added one
sentence which says, the executive director shall approve the president's
expenses and the president shall approve the executive director's expenses.
This was done for checks and balances and for transparency.
In other business conducted the board approved three new
chair people.
Resource and Development - Kim Vaughn
Emergency Preparedness - Merle Long
Special Services - Joe Dobbs.
The board approved a recommendation from the low vision chaired by Jeff La
Montia to adopt the font policy used by the American Council of the Blind.
Basically it says that we use Aerial Black, 18 point as the font and use 1
1/2 line spacing. Only the headings will be bolded. Of course, should an
individual need a font different this they can always request it from the
office.
A modification was made to the public relations guidelines
that when working with an affiliate that this be done via postal mail,
email or teleconference call.
A proposal was made to the board from the Act Now council to
create a publications committee. After a presentation by Ruthie Clark and
much discussion the motion was defeated.
In closed session the board approved the new personnel
manual and a new job description for the executive director. Both of these
documents are available from the office upon request.
If you have any questions about any of these items don't hesitate to call me
at 855-832-7172 or 636-428-1500.
My thanks to all of our board members for a job well done.
It was a pleasure working with them.
Respectfully submitted,Shirley Brokaw AWB Recording Secretary 2017
