November 2003 BOD Meeting
Minutes
This meeting was held electronically on November 5, 2003 9:20PM EST
BOD Present:
Charles Scannell (President)
Lee Morey (Vice President)
Cheri Phillips (Secretary)
Rob Tess
(Newsletter Editor)
Joe Scavo
(Webmaster)
John Brandt (MAC/USCRTF
Representative)
Members Present:
Kelly Jedlicki
(LMAS Vice President)
BOD Absent:
Larry Burt (Treasurer)
Membership Director/Internet
Relations (position vacant)
Call to order 9:20 PM EST
1)
Joe
set up at BOD broadcast eMAIL list that used eMAIL forwarding, however Cheri
was the only one getting it, so Chuck set up an eMAIL list which appears to now
be working. Joe reported being unimpressed with Westhost, MASNA’s hosting
service, as they are slow to upgrade their application. Chuck said he’d just
gone in and requested the 2.0 application update (which Joe had done the
previous week w/o a response). The BOD eMAIL is: bod@masna.org.
The BOD is instructed to use this eMAIL address to communicate with each other
unless the discussion needs to be a private one between BOD members.
2)
Treasury
Report: Chuck reported that
all MASNA contact information has been changed with the bank and EMS. Contact
had still not been made with our Treasurer, so Chuck had prepared an extensive
treasury report.
Last
Month’s Balance: $5,349.31
Monies
Received Since:
$200.00 2 Corporate memberships
$150.00 3 Club memberships
$260.00 13 Individual memberships
$610
Expenses:
$32.40 EMS Charges
$10.00 Bank Monthly Service Fee
$6.00 Service Fee Returned
Check
$2000 Check#1103 – MASNA Seed Money
Return to LMAS
$48.89 Power
Supply CC machine
$61.85 Westhost bill paid
(–)$2209.14
Ending Balance to
Date: $3750.17
MASNA
Store: $??.?? (not mentioned)
Scholarship (approx): (–)$718.00
General
Fund: $3032.17
Treasury position: Chuck reported that Larry had been sent the bank
signature card and that he’d spoken with him on the phone, but had received no
responses via eMAIL. MASNA by-laws state that if you miss three meetings in a
row, you are considered to have quit. Chuck indicated he would give Larry until
next month prior to doing something to fill the position with someone else.
3) Membership Report: Chuck reported that JT had resigned his BOD
position. Cheri volunteered to take over the Membership position. The Internet
Promotion position is open. Chuck and Lee will get the membership list together
and send it Cheri. Cheri will keep the master list. Rob and Joe also requested
copies. Lee will give Cheri copies of the eMAIL form letters he used last year.
4) VP Report: Lee is working on updating the membership list. He is
also assembling a list of clubs with an interest in a newsletter content
exchange and will forward the information to Joe. Rob reported being contacted
by the Marine Aquarium Society of Victoria (Australia) about a newsletter
exchange.
Additionally, Lee is starting to think about
getting the scholarship program going again.
5) Secretary Report: A motion was made, seconded and passed to
accept last month’s minutes.
6) Editor Report: Rob
reported that the Australian club wants us to eMAIL their newsletter to our
members (in PDF format; <1MB). The
deal would include them doing the same thing with our newsletter. Rob has a sample
of their newsletter he can share with all of us. Lee suggested that rather than
eMAILing the newsletter to all our members, we send a
group eMAIL to the members (w/o the newsletter), then post the newsletter to
our website instead. It was agreed that would be a better method. Rob agreed to
eMAIL the sample PDF file from the Australian club. Rob is looking into a
periodic exchange with South Africa as well.
Rob will be hunting us down for
newsletter articles. He asked John for detailed information on the closing of
Fiji, thinking this might make a good newsletter article and be a way to
promote aquaculture at the same time. John expressed concern that the Fiji
issue was political, not a conservation issue. Rob feels that it is still a
good launching pad for discussion. Rob attempted to get permission from Walt
Smith to quote his responses from RDO and RC, without a response from Walt.
Rob requested that anyone who
has articles or leads on articles let him know.
7) Webmaster Report: Once the membership list is finalized, Joe
wants to start contacting MASNA clubs to solicit a steady flow of content to
display on the web site. No current protocol currently exists for this and he
would like to start one.
Joe believes he now has a good
handle on how the website works and would like to change a few things,
notifying the BOD prior to pushing the changes though. The information on the
site needs to flow better; he wants to keep abreast of current club happenings
and reports that some of the current content is stale and outdated,
particularly on the Home page. Joe wants to firm up communication with all the
clubs and believes that there shouldn’t be a club out there that doesn’t
support MASNA. He suggested a mass mailing.
8) MAC/USCRTF Report: John contacted Washington DC to find out if
there were any trade issues discussed at the last USCRTF meeting in Guam. The
response was, “No.” and he hopes to receive minutes and a summary from the
meeting soon. John should be able to attend the next USCRTF meeting in Washington
DC in February or March.
9) Lee proposed brainstorming ways to speed up our online meetings.
That would allow us to use the meeting time for problems and ideas like doing a
membership drive and getting the scholarship program going. Suggestions
included:
a.
Having the meeting moderated –
Chuck reported proposing this in the past, but the group not liking the idea.
He still has the moderation controls.
b. Posting monthly officer reports online prior to the meeting so
that typing them doesn’t take up meeting time. They would be posted to the
group by eMAIL.
The second idea was agreed upon, with proposal made by
Cheri to require reports be sent out by the Monday before the meeting. Lee said
he’d sent an eMAIL reminder to the BOD next month.
Motion to adjourn by Chuck,
seconded by Lee. The motion passed at 10:22pm EST.
