Marine Aquarium Societies of North America

MASNA January, 2006 BOD Meeting Minutes

(This meeting was held electronically on January 11th, 2005 9: PM EST)

Attendance:

BOD Present:

Cheri Phillips (President)

Robert Lemcke (Treasurer)

Charles Scannell (Industry/Webmaster)

Amy Larsan (membership & Secretary)

Cathy Garey (Public Relations)

Lisa O’Connor (Internet Promotions)

BOD Absent:

Steve Bentz (Vice President)

Members Other Than BOD Present:

Kelly Jedlicki (LMAS President)

Mike Hughes

Steven Pro (PMASI)

OFFICER REPORTS:

NOTE: All officer reports were distributed via email to the BOD in advance of this meeting. They have been formatted and are inserted into these minutes.

1) President’s Report:

January 2006 President’s Report:

Newsletter:

· I have taken over responsibility for producing the next issue of Marine Scene. I’ve installed MS Publisher on my home computer and am learning how to use it. I’m working w/ Steve to find out which of MASNA’s sponsors want to get an ad into this issue, w/ 1/15 as an aggressive deadline for their copy. We have an ad from Ocean Inspirations. I’ve gathered my President’s Pen, MACNA XVII info, files from Marc Levenson, etc. and will see what can be done in a short period of time. At my request, Amy contacted Steven Pro regarding his generous offer to let MASNA use some of his articles if we’d like to. I now have the link to those articles that are available to us.

MACNA XVIII:

· Participated in a discussion w/ Kim Price, and Steve Howard regarding the value of offering Reef Central free admission to a group of staff in trade for advertising on Reef Central. Steve and Craig from WAMAS also gave Kim and I information on the costs and types of local advertising done by WAMAS and the value they feel they received for those costs.

· I gave Kim information on what the costs were to do produce the postcards and mail them for WAMAS.

MASNA Store/eBAY:

· Per decision made at the last board meeting, I shipped 40 calendars to Steve and 40 to Chuck to give to LFS in their area for consignment; 161remain in my possession.

· Shipped 5 individual calendars - ordered through the MASNA store

· Processed order for a black convention tote back and calendar. Corresponded w/ Joe Ranney to get tote bag shipped

· Processed order for a set of Dr. Ron Shimek’s books. I was informed by Weiss Company (original donator) that they are permanently out of stock on 1 of the 3 books. After talking to the customer, I arranged for shipment of the remaining 2 books at 1/3 off the original cost and have updated the store ad accordingly.

· Shipped two calendars for items sold on eBAY. Calendars either shipped day of sale or next morning in hopes of getting positive feedback from the winner.

Misc:

Talked w/ Alice Hart by phone and subsequently accepted her resignation as Editor.

Continued discussions w/ the Adrian Nichols of the Louisiana Reef Club to explore how MASNA could help. On their behalf, I contacted Anthony Calfo to begin discussions of their club holding a mini conference/workshop to kick some life into the club and raise some badly needed funds, generate frag/equipment donations by bringing in folks from out of the area. Anthony has agreed to be a key speaker and will donate some frags if timing for his trip there can be worked out.

Sent Amy a number of files to replace those lost when her computer hard disk failed.

2) Vice President’s Report:

Membership:

In discussions with HelloLights for Corporate Sponsorship.

In discussions with Dr. Mac/East Pacific Aquaculture for Corporate Sponsorship.

In discussions with Drs. Foster & Smith about renewing their membership and offering a 10% discount.

In discussions with Vivid Aquariums for Corporate Sponsorship.

In discussions with Sera USA for Corporate Sponsorship (competitor of Salifert in Europe).

In discussions with numerous other Sponsors at this time.

MACNA Follow-up and Presentations:

· Will run an “SPS Fragging” seminar at Pets Plus in February for multiple area clubs.

Miscellaneous:

· In conjunction with Cheri, contacted all of our Corporate Sponsors via email to update them on the delay in the release of the Marine Scene Newsletter:

“Due to a number of unforeseen issues over the past few months, we have experienced a delay in the release of our last Marine Scene Newsletter for 2005. I speak for all of the Members of the Board of Directors in that we apologize for not having this important issue out to our members as we had originally scheduled. I would like to take this opportunity to let you know that we are fully committed in honoring our pledge to you as our Corporate Sponsors to publish your advertisements as you were promised when you paid your annual membership dues for 2005/06. We have never lost sight of the integral part that your investment provides as a building block in our organization as well as the "good will" your investment provides in our long-term relationship. It is our good fortune to have been provided with sponsors as gracious as you with your support in our mission and movements forward towards a spectacular year in 2006.

We will be contacting you shortly to coordinate the advertisement sections and hope to have the Newsletter out to our members within the next few weeks. Again, I can only re-iterate that it is the combined efforts of all of our members that will make us as strong as we are and as we need to be in moving towards the conservation efforts we are seeing in the areas of Aquaculture and the continued education of hobbyists world-wide, young and old.

Thank you in advance for your understanding and patience. We value your support and participation and look forward to making this Newsletter the best it can be! Please send your advertising information to Cheri Philips at:

cheri@uniquesensations.com

With Best Regards for a Happy and Healthy New Year,

Steve Bentz

Vice President/Director of Fundraising and Scholarships”

Will modify this with Amy to contact our regular members.
Distributed 40 Calendars to Pets Plus USA on consignment at $7.99/each and am awaiting a count on the sale.
Sent Signature information required by Washington Mutual Bank in order to serve as the second signer for MASNA as approved in our last BOD meeting.
Still in revision of Scholarship webpage and will forward to Cheri and Chuck in the next 2 weeks.
Still updating the text on our Mission Statement and will post to the Board by the end of January.

3) Treasurer’s Report:

Calendar

Listed 5 and sold 3 calendars via Ebay with averaging 5 views per auction

Our Ebay positive feedback is 100%

Called 5 clubs to buy calendars resulting in one purchase of 10 calendars.

Financials
Should be distributed by this evening.

Scholarship Fund
Have had several email/faxes to open a money market through PayPal
Escalated issue with PayPal's Merchant Customer Services to grant us a money market account since all requested documents have been provided for ~2 weeks.

Second authorized check signer for Washington Mutual account
Contacted our VP and provided him with the documents that Washington Mutual requires to have him added to the account
Waiting on our December BOD minutes to be approved. After they have been uploaded to the website, I can present them to the branch manager to complete the list of documents they require.

Future:
Obtaining current MACNA XVIII Host Agreement to invoice MAST as stipulated in the agreement
Merchant Account re-evaluation
Provide some assistance with 2006 Photo Contest / 2007 Calendar

[* - Secretary note: due to the size and formatting of the Draft Balance Sheet and Draft Income Statement, they are left as an addendum to the monthly minutes]

4) Director of Membership Report:

*November & December Membership*

2002-

2003

2003-

2004

2004-

2005

2005-

2006

Diff

From

2004-

2005

Comment

Individual Members

115

121

New:

Michele Daddio (Nov)

Patrick Burk (Nov)

Bob Minard (Dec)

Brent Ybarrondo (Dec)

Brian Galbraith (Dec)

Craig Schweitzer (Dec)

Renewals:

Kevin Kohen (Dec)

Club

Members

-13

New:

West Tennessee Marine and Reef Aquarium Club

Corporate Members

New:

Brilliant Reef (Nov)

Olivia Galvan (Nov)

Pets Plus (Nov)

The Hidden Reef (Nov)

Renewals:

Clams Direct (Nov)

Live Aquaria (Nov)

Phyto Fest (Nov)

All Glass (Dec)

I tried to recover from the total loss of all of my membership information (two years worth!). Cheri was able to email me all of the templates, charts and reports I needed to make it through.

I am slowly going back to some emails I saved on yahoo to be able to recover all that I had done in the past two months to report to the BOD. Many items I had done I can not recover, and unless it comes to my mind I doubt I will recall in time to send out this report

I sent all welcomes and renewal thank you emails.

I emailed with John Janda about getting a new user name and password. I was able to forward that to Chuck to correct for John

I mailed Chuck about a few corrections (double entries) that were made on the database.

I emailed Steven Pro at Cheri’s request to ask again if we have permission to use this articles published on WetWebMedia

I spoke with the owner of Reefscape and referred him to Cheri to have his ad run in the next MASNA Newsletter

I tried a number of times to contact Olivia Galvan (emails and phone calls/messages) with no contact.

5) Secretary’s Report:

**This report takes into account that I had no secretary report for the month of Dec**

Email Votes:

None

BOD Forum Votes:

None

January 2006 Secretary Report

Recovered form the loss of two years of MASNA information in regards to secretary work.

I mailed all MASNA members about the Dec meeting as well as this January meeting.

I posted on Reef Central and Reefs.org for both Dec. and Jan meetings.

I completed both the November (without recorded minutes) and December Meeting minutes. They both will be mailed to the BOD separately.

I mailed Ms. Daniela Stettler to see if she would like to be added to the MASNA National Speaker database. I have no reply as of yet.

I entered in the information for three new speakers for the MASNA National Database.

Dr. Sallie Boggs
Tullio Del'Aqua
Adelaide Rhodes

6) Editor’s Report:

Resigned –

“Please accept my resignation as newsletter editor for MASNA, effective today January 5, 2006.

I truly regret that circumstances have kept me from performing my duties and that I let down the BOD and MASNA. I hope to have some free time in the future to be able to volunteer to help the organization.

Sincerely,

Alice Hart”

7) Webmaster’s/Industry Report:

General Monthly Website Maintenance
Work on correcting several member issues either display and or sign in issues with clubs directed by Cheri or Amy
General email contact with member's regarding MASNA membership
Added our Treasurer to the Contact List on the MASNA STORE
Distributed Calendars to local reef stores and need to go back and collect money and or unsold calendars. Will send paypal payment for any sold and report status sometime this week when I work my way down there.
Finished USCRTF Report for posting on website
Email exchange with NOAA to find out more specifics on upcoming meetings and topics so I can see what meetings fit our overall agenda. Usually they email me a few weeks before these meetings and specifics are not too in-depth so sometimes I have gone to meetings on sludge removal from the Chesapeake Bay with might not specifically be a topic we might want to report on.

8) Internet Promotion Officer’s Report:

There has not been any action taken other than reading up on some boards and policies. Computer has been fixed so that I should have no problems with this next meeting.

9) Public Relations Report:

I finally had a chance to complete a draft of the evaluation form for
MACNA XVII which is attached. It can be sent as an email attachment
(will need to create fill in fields and create dropdowns, etc.) or
posted on the website - depends on how the board wants to go. I
apologize for the delay, but the holidays have been really busy for me
along with major commitments with my professional organization and office relocation over the holidays to very small quarters!
I am going to be out of town at a meeting the next 4 days, but will try
to attend the meeting anyway. I understand that I automatically resign
if I miss 3 meetings in a row - I will do my best to attend. I need
someone to tell me what time the meeting starts in Las Vegas. In
addition, I will be using the hotel internet access, so if someone could
forward their phone # to me, so I can call someone if I can't log in to
either talk me through the log in (again!) or to pass along comments

MEETING CALLED TO ORDER 9:00 PM EST:

10) New Business:

Motion made by C. Phillips to accent both the November and December meeting minutes. Second by C. Scannell. Motion passed, 5 aye, 0 nay at 9:03 PM EST.

11) New Business:

C. Phillips asked for B. Lemcke to please invoice MARSH. B. Lemcke agrees that at 1/31/06 it would be the time to send out the invoice.

B. Lemcke needs a copy of the Hosting Agreement MARSH agreed to, and will be sure to find that on the MASNA website or by emailing C. Scannell.

12) New Business:

C. Phillips brought the topic of the upcoming 2007 MACNA bid needing to go out soon. Knowing it will be sent out soon, any contractual changes must be made now for the 2007 club.

Larsan brought up the need for an addition to be made to the contract, that the MASNA table should be setup in a prime location at MACNA. C. Phillips as well as the rest of the BOD agreed that this should be an addition to the contact so long as the wording is more specific.

Motion made by C. Phillips, to add the stipulation to the MACNA contract
that MASNA be given first choice of booth location. Second by Lisa O’Connor. Motion passed, 6 aye, 0 nay at 9:25 PM EST.

13) New Business:

B. Lemcke recommended like a contractual change to the host agreement so that it includes better wording about what registrations MASNA receives an attendee fee for (e.g. each attendee, those attending just the trade show…).

It was agreed that free advertising for a booth should mean MASNA gets a booth fee. Also the change to the contract needs to have the proper wording for the exchange of money or services. Much discussion was had over the correct way to state this to be sure any club considering to host MACNA knows clearly what they are signing to.

Motion made by C. Phillips to move this discussion to the MASNA board for further details over the proper wording for this change. Second by C. Garey. Motion passed 5 aye, 0 nay at 9:52 PM EST.

14) New Business:

K. Jedlicki suggested to the BOD that the MACNA bid invitation should be sent out more sooner then it has been in the past. Her points being that for a large city there is not enough time to secure a hotel for the next years event. That many hotels need booking well over a year in advance.

The BOD agrees that for future bids that can be done, but not for this years bid. There is too little time already to make any changes. Further research will be done to see when would be a better time to send out the MACNA bid.

15) New Business:

B. Lemcke suggested another contractual host agreement change. That the Host agreement should include better wording about what registrations MASNA receives an
attendee fee for (e.g. 3 day or 1 day conference attendee=$5 fee, trade show attendees=$1).

Motion made by B. Lemcke, Host club shall pay MASNA a $5 fee per attendee,
regardless of whether registration is to attend any part of the conference or trade show. Second by C. Scannell. Motion passed, 5 aye, 0 nay at 10:23 PM EST

16) New Business:

C. Phillips brought up the subject of the remaining 2006 MASNA calendars (approximately 161 remaining) and what we should be doing to sell them. MASNA can go about selling the rest knowing that at this point MASNA as basically recouped their value.

The idea of now selling the remaining calendars at a big discounted price was well accepted.

Motion made by C. Phillips to offer calendars at $5.99 plus shipping. Motion second by A. Larsan. Motion passed 5 aye, 0 nay at 10:39 PM EST.

17) New Business:

Steven Pro spoke to the BOD about how he, Eric Borneman, Anthony Calfo, Dr. Shimek, Frank Marini, Kelly, will be setting up forums on Marine Depot's message board. They were hoping to include an announcement in the next newsletter more aimed the six of them than at MD.

Some concern was brought up over the mention of Marine Depot would be seen as a plug to MASNA corporate sponsors. It was agreed that all of the people involved with this new forum are MASNA members (honorary or otherwise). That as long as it was based around them, it would not be seen as an advertisement for MD.

Motion made by C. Scannell, to include a new Member's News section on the
newsletter and include an advertisement for the above mentioned individuals whom are starting a new board. Motion second by B. Lemcke. Motion passed, 6 aye, 0 nay at 11:01 PM EST

Motion to adjourn meeting to general discussion made by C. Scannell. Second by L. O’Connor. Passed 5 ayes, 0 nays; at 11:12 PM EST

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