ArkGeo Board Meeting Minutes - July 11, 2008

ArkGeo Board Meeting - July 11, 2008

Present: Bert Drake, Wayne Lunsford, Frank Philpott, Beth Daniel, Pat Vaughn, Mike Pinkston, David Spicer, and Rich Swanson (via phone).

Not Present: Jerry Turner

Guests: Richard Lee and Mike Beavers

Call to order: Frank Philpott, president, called the business meeting to order at 6:35.

Roll call: As stated above

Minutes from last meeting were accepted as posted and discussed on line.

President’s Report: Frank Philpott presented the following 10 goals for ArkGeo for the coming year:
1. Membership -- Increase membership to 200 by 5/31/09. (Owners - Frank Philpott and Wayne Lunsford)
2. Fund raising -- Implement 2 fund raising initiatives to increase ArkGeo bank balance to $2500 by 5/31/09 (Owner - Rich Swanson)
3. Events -- Hold 1 general membership meeting by 6/15/09. (Owner - Pat Vaughn)
4. Events -- Hold 1 CITO event by 6/15/09. (Owner - Pat Vaughn)
5. Events -- Hold 2 "Eat & Greets" by 6/15/09 in each of the following regions of the state: NE (Owner - Mike Pinkston), NW (Owner - David Spicer), Central (Owner - Wayne Lunsford), SE (Owner - Pat Vaughn), and SW (Owner - Jerry Turner).
6. Community Relations -- Work with Ouachita NF officials to reach agreement on the waiver of, or significant reduction in, geoache permit fee for geocaches placed within the Ouachita NF, by 12/31/08. (Owner - Jerry Turner)
7. Community Relations -- Publicize ArkGeo through an article in one of the state's newspapers or TV news coverage of an ArkGeo event, by 5/31/09. (Owner - Jerry Turner)
8. Elections -- Recruit at least 5 nominees for next Board election, by 1/1/09. (Owner - Beth Daniel)
9. Elections -- Meet each of the ArkGeo Election Schedule milestone dates. (Owner - Frank Philpott)
10. Website -- Complete move of website to a new host server by 11/1/08. (Owner - Bert Drake)

A motion was passed that the Board resolve to meet these goals. Owners of each goal were directed to report the status of the goal at each Board meeting.

Treasurer’s Report:
Income from merchandise sold: $687
Donations received: $35
TOTAL Income: $722
CURRENT BALANCE: $2223.78

ArkGeo donated 5 shirts and 10 medallions for door prizes.

Website Manager’s Report: Recent problems with the web site host are forcing us to accelerate our schedule to switch to a new host and new web site software. This may be done within the next couple of weeks, at least for testing. Other items relating to spammers and the handling of inactive and deactivated accounts were discussed.

Election Committee Report: New committee members are as follows:
Etta Flowers (ettabrowneyes) - Events
Nikki Garrett (nini2002) - Events
Keith Saveall (SaveAll4Love) - Community Relations
Clark Gray (cfd29) - Community Relations
Richard Lee (IdRatherBeHiking) - Events
Brenda Bain (bluesybreeze) - Fund Raising

Fund Raising Committee Report: Rich Swanson was approved as liaison to the Fund Raising committee. Committee was directed to elect a chairperson. Max Slaughter, Ron Laster, and Maribeth Laster have left the Fund Raising Committee. Information, records, and the inventory of ArkGeo tee shirts, hiking staff medallions, and geocoins has been turned over to Beth Daniel. At the Clarksville event, ArkGeo sold 29 shirts and 25 medallions. At the Lake Catherine event, ArkGeo sold 8 shirts and 6 medallions. We are now making a profit on shirts and need to sell $146.22 to make a profit on the medallions. ArkGeo's current inventory is 30 shirts and 65 medallions. ArkGeo still has 9 geocoins from 2006 in our inventory. One of these coins will be retained by ArkGeo as an archive. The remainder will be turned over to the fund raising committee to sell. eBay was discussed as a possibility.

Community Relations Report: Committee was directed to elect a chairperson. Prior to the Board business meeting, Mike Beavers addressed the Board concerning the Ouachita National Forest geocache policy issue, to suggest that a couple of “well-mannered, well-spoken members” make themselves available as a liaison committee to Senator Pryor’s office to make appropriate information available. David Spicer and Jim Sick (members of Community Relations Committee) as well as Frank Philpott were suggested as appropriate folks to take care of this. The Committee was approved to take the lead on this issue going forward.

Events Committee Report: The Events Committee met Thursday night, July 3rd in the ArkGeo chat room with all members present. Richard Lee (Idratherbehiking) was elected chairman. Regarding the Lake Catherine event, all comments received by the Events Committee have been positive. The Events Committee would like to thank the Community Relations Committee for their great cooperation in regard to seeking donations for the event. A couple of other members helped with setup and their help was greatly appreciated as well. The Committee has also discussed locations for future ArkGeo annual events.

The Board voted to amend the standing rules to allow donations to member-sponsored CITO events in Arkansas.

A motion was approved to donate merchandise not to exceed $20 to a CITO event hosted by jclaudii on September 20, 2008 in the Ozark National Forest. A motion was approved to authorize the Events Committee to investigate co-hosting this CITO event.

The following revisions to the Bylaws were approved:

1. Article II, Section 2 rewording: "Each applicant for membership shall be required to provide ArkGeo with their name, address, phone, email address, and geocaching alias, as well as other information deemed necessary for contact and identification of a candidate. Any applicant who has provided ArkGeo with the above information, supports the goals of ArkGeo as described in the Mission Statement, is at least 18 years of age, and is a resident of the State of Arkansas or bordering states will be considered a member of ArkGeo. Any member who is in good standing with ArkGeo will be eligible to vote."
2. Article II, Section 2 rewording: "Membership revocation/withdrawal. Membership revocation shall require a majority vote by the Board. In the event of a tie, the Chair of the Board's vote will serve as tiebreaker. Any member may withdraw his/her own membership, without penalty and to be effective immediately, by giving written notification to the Board."
3. Article II, Section 2: Remove "Active Member. Any member who “logs in” to the ArkGeo website, using their username and password, at least once per year shall be considered an Active member." and remove "Voting Member. Each applicant for Voting membership shall be required to provide ArkGeo with their name, address, phone, email address, and geocaching alias, as well as other information deemed necessary for contact and identification of a candidate. Any Active Member who has provided ArkGeo with the above information, is at least 18 years of age, is a resident of the State of Arkansas or bordering states, and is in good standing with ArkGeo will be eligible to vote."
4. Article II, Section 3: Change "Voting Members" to "ArkGeo Members".
5. Article II, Section 5: Change "All Voting Members shall have one (1) vote per member." to "Except in the case of Board member elections (See Article III, Section 3), all members shall have one (1) vote per member."
6. Article III, Section 3: Change "Voting membership" to "membership" and change "Active members" to "members".
7. Article III, Section 3, "Eligibility" paragraph: Change "Voting member" to "member"
8. Article III, Section 3, "Nominations" paragraph: Change "Active members" to "members" and change "Voting members" to "members"
9. Article III, Section 3, "Election" paragraph: Change "Voting member(s)" to "member(s)"
10. Article IV, Sections 1 & 2: Change "Members will be notified of meetings via e-mail or telephone discussions." to "Members will be notified of meetings via telephone discussions or electronic means."
11. Article VI, Section 1, "Selection of Committees" paragraph: Change "Voting member" to "member"

The following additions to the Standing Rules were approved:

1. In an effort to provide timely communication to the membership, a draft of the Board meeting minutes will be provided to the Board within one week following the date of the meeting. There will be a one-week period in which the Board may make corrections to the draft minutes. At the end of this one-week period, minutes will be approved as they read and will be posted to the web site by the Secretary.
2. The Election Committee will post election results to the web site within one week of the close of the election. These results will include all candidates names (real name and ArkGeo username), the percentage of people who voted for each candidate, and the total number of votes cast.
3. Members may address the Board at regularly scheduled Board meetings. Members must contact the President or Secretary to reserve a place on the agenda at least two weeks prior to the meeting. Member speeches will occur before the business session starts and will be limited to 10 minutes.

Some proposed committee charters will be made available to the Board. After a two-week period of discussion and amending, these charters will be accepted as posted.

Next Board meeting is October 10 at the University of Central Arkansas in Conway.

Meeting was adjourned at 9:10 pm.

We appreciate the detail and timely release of the minutes of the July 11 meeting. Very informative. Good job folks! Thanks to the members of the board for all you do for Ark Geo and hope you have a successful year meeting our organization's goals.

I too would like to thank the board for the detailed minutes. I can't wait till an option of joining these meetings remotely is found so I can attend one.