July 2003 BOD Meeting Minutes
This meeting was held electronically on July, 2003 9:00PM EST

BOD Present:
Charles Scannell (President/Internet Promotion)
Nancy Swart (Past President, Treasurer)
John Brandt (MAC/USCRTF Representative)
Lee Morey (Director of Public Relations/Membership)

Members Present
Joe Wall - ETRC delegate and member
Carvi Shamsid-Deen/AquaGifts - member
JT Croteau - Sea Dwelling Creatures
Kelly Jedlecki - LMAS

BOD Absent:
Jennifer Myerscough (Secretary)
Tom Walsh (Vice President & Dir. of Fundraising/Scholarships)
Sandy Shoup (Newsletter Editor)

Call to order 8:13 PM

1) President's Report (Charles Scannell)
Nothing new to report from the President's desk since last month

2) Treasurer's Report (Nancy Swart)
July 2003 Treasurer's Report for period covering for period 6/11 through 7/9:
Income
$30.00 - Membership Dues
$237.00 - Auction/Scholarship Fund
Total Income = $267.00
Expenses
$27.65 - Phone Charges/USCRTF
$40.18 - Merchant Account
$61.85 - West Host
Total Expenses = $129.68

Net Income = $137.32

Balance as of 7/09/03 = $2,2422.60
(Minus $380.00 allocated to Scholarship Fund)

3) Web Report (Nancy Swart)
Routine Updates, site converted to Dreamweaver so that my successor will have an easier time maintaining it. Setup "Members Only" mail list on Topica.com. No activity. This is my final attempt at getting our members talking to each other. Auction Site - almost not enough activity to make the hassle of re-listing items worth it. Would help if we had some livestock.

4) Membership (Lee Morey)
15 honorary, unchanged
9 complimentary, unchanged
4 new clubs,in total 22 clubs. New clubs are NY Capital Reefs Aquarist Society, Brooklyn Aquarium Society, New Jersey Reefers Club, Marine Aquarists Association of South Texas
11 new individual members, 82 in total now
10 corporate members, unchanged
2 requests for information
I hope to be caught up on all the admin stuff by the end of next week.
Discussion followed regarding contacting international clubs.

5) MAC/USCRTF (John Brandt)
I have little news to report. I did just mail out the MAC 2nd Quarter News to the BOD, and posted it on reefs.org. I often post "Real time" news of MAC on reefs.org. The cyanide test procedures and verifications are occurring presently in the Philippines. There will be updates soon on this, and routine testing should begin this month.

The USCRTF meeting in October appears to be a go. I was wondering if travel warning issues would matter but it looks all clear. Anything can happen, and if there is a terrorism-related travel warning, then the Government will not send anyone anywhere. The meeting is October 3-7 in both Guam and The Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (Saipan). I'm extremely excited and wish you all could go too. There is serious business on the agenda and I'll find out more as I can from my personal contacts at the USCRTF. Now, I am going to seek funding help for my trip to relieve MASNA of the full costs. There are NO guarantees that I will succeed. It can't really cost less than about $1500 total. I have some possible options to get that down. I just saw round trip airfare to Guam for about $1000 however, I haven't yet pursued deals. I am going to try to collaborate with MAC, they get REALLY great deals on airfare because they have so much International travel going on. The ticket they bought for my round trip to Manila was a bargain. Anything I can do to reduce the costs is a good thing. It's still a long way into the future so you will get updates from me as they happen. MASNA is paying for the few calls I make to Washington DC (USCRTF). MAC pays for all calls I make to MAC.

6) MACNA XV (Kelly Jedlecki)
We finally got our tax ID #, the profit status is wrong but that is a small hurdle in comparison to what we have been through. The # was submitted to the CC company and we should have our account in 7 -10 days. We had one booth cancellation due to a lawsuit between Omega Sea and Aquarium Systems. We have picked up a vendor from UK. Registrations are still coming in, plans according to schedule. AMDA problems still occurring behind the scenes. Pressure has been put on Rick Preuss to give up his speaking spot to AMDA & Ferdie without consulting us. Rick relayed this to me yesterday. I sent Steve correspondence about the meeting room. They now are requesting hospitality suites for out of town guests. Steve did not return my email about the denied request, so I re-emailed him and he sarcastically said they would just take the meeting room. They were being given a meeting room free of charge from Friday to Sunday but they still wanted hospitality suites in addition.

Q&A regarding MACNA XV followed.

Motion to Adjourn at 9:23 by Charles, seconded by Nancy. Carried.