SLA Maryland Chapter

Board Meeting Minutes, March 20, 2007

(Volume 55, Issue 1/2, May 2007)

Liz Scalia, SLA Maryland Chapter Secretary, escalia@AIR.ORG

Members present:
Executive Board members present:
Edna Paulson, President
Linda Hutchinson, Past President
Will Hires, Treasurer
Liz Scalia, Secretary
Andy Zimmerman, Director (via speaker phone)

Advisory Board members present:
Susan Fingerman, Networking Chair
Chris Olson, Public Relations Chair
Uta Hussong, Bulletin Web Publisher

Location:
JHU Applied Physics Lab, Laurel, MD

President Edna Paulson called the meeting to order at 6:55 pm. 

Regarding Board approval of the minutes of the Board meeting on October 19, 2006, it was decided that Secretary Liz Scalia will send a copy of those minutes to the Executive Board members by email and ask for their approval.  Once they are approved, Liz will send a copy of the minutes to SLA’s Leadership department.  Regarding the approval of the minutes from the Chapter Business meeting on October 19, 2006, Edna will soon hear back from SLA HQ on who should vote to approve those minutes.  Once Edna hears back, she will advise Liz Scalia on the appropriate action to take.

The Board discussed a possible visit from SLA President Rebecca Vargha.  Rebecca Vargha has expressed a desire to meet with Maryland chapter board members, and to meet with the students of CLIS.  Edna Paulson will communicate to Rebecca that the Board suggested that there be a meeting with Rebecca and CLIS students in College Park sometime in the early Fall, and that the Maryland chapter board members attend the same meeting to interact with Rebecca.  The Board also suggests that the SLA student chapter at CLIS arrange the logistics of the possible meeting.  The Board will appoint a planning committee for this event when/if the Board is made aware of a date for the meeting. 
 
Treasurer Will Hires distributed copies of the Treasurer’s report (attached to these minutes) to those present.  There was a brief discussion on the weather-related travel difficulties experienced by both Patricia Kidd and Edna Paulson in trying to attend the SLA Leadership Summit in January 2007 in Las Vegas.  Patricia Kidd was not able to reach Las Vegas ultimately since she was stuck in Chicago due to poor weather conditions/airline difficulties.   Edna mentioned that Patricia’s conference registration did not go through ultimately due to problems with both SLA’s online registration and fax machine.  Edna also mentioned that Patricia did not receive her $1000 check from the Maryland chapter.  Treasurer Will Hires mentioned that there would be a fee to do a “stop payment” on the check, but that after 6 months, the check will be void.  Linda Hutchinson commented that she thought that the Board had decided to issue “up to” $1000 for attendance at the SLA Leadership Summit at the October 19, 2006 Board meeting, but she is not sure exactly what wording was used at the time.  Treasurer Will Hires commented that he paid out the $1000 checks to the appropriate people based on the October meeting minutes that were distributed.  All present agreed that in future meetings more clear and detailed notes should be made regarding such matters in future meeting minutes.  Edna mentioned that she missed one day of the conference due to poor weather conditions and airline issues, but that it actually saved about $80 in expenses since the airline arranged for a hotel room. 

Liz Scalia, past Membership Chair, verbally submitted her Membership report.  Andy Zimmerman is the new Membership Chair.  The Maryland chapter currently has 200 total members, according to the SLA Communities of Practice website (checked 3/15/2007).  The Maryland chapter has received 21 new members during the time period from September 2006 through February 2007.  Note that this number does not include members who simply renew their chapter membership on time.  This number of “new” members refers to members who are either totally new to SLA and to the MD chapter, those who are not new to SLA, but are new to our chapter, and those who are not new to SLA, and are re-joining our chapter after a time period of lapsed membership to our chapter.  Also note that it is not possible to differentiate between the later two categories of new members.  Liz Scalia confirmed this with Jill Calabria, Director of Membership of SLA.  Liz Scalia has welcomed these new members individually via email, for those that provide an email address.  Liz has also given the names of the new members to Connie McEowen, Bulletin editor, for inclusion into the next issue of the Cutting Edge.

President Edna Paulson expressed a desire to form a nomination committee in early Summer 2007, since Summer is a more ideal time to nominate people, as opposed to the Fall.  Past President Linda Hutchinson volunteered to serve as a member of a future nominating committee.  Linda also volunteered to consult the Chapter Recommended Practices document regarding chapter procedures regarding elections (including electronic voting) and report back to the Board by the end of March.

Tracy Landfried is the new chair of the Program committee.  The Board discussed several different ideas for a future event (could be a social, fun event).  The Board decided that such an event should take place in May 2007.  Chris Olson mentioned several options such as a walking trail near the Bay, Sandy Point State Park, or a walking tour of one of Maryland’s cities.  Edna Paulson will convey these ideas to Tracy Landfried and inquire about any progress she has made on a future program.  Any program ideas are welcome.

Susan Fingerman reported on her progress with Technology Day.  She has reserved the Kossiakoff Center at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel for the event at no charge, for October 4, 2007.  This building has an area for meals and an auditorium for the keynote speaker.  Susan has access to many electronic documents and forms from the last Technology Day in 2003, and she will send out a past agenda to the Board via email.  Susan plans to call a meeting about Technology Day in April.  The budget for the 2003 Technology Day was about $5000, and approximately 100 people attended, each paying approximately $125 for the entire event.  Some past Technology Day’s have not generated a profit, but we will try to make a profit this year.  The Technology Day committee needs to decide upon a theme and topics for the event.  The committee will have a vendor chair.  It was mentioned that SLA’s June conference is a good opportunity to interact with vendors regarding Technology Day. 

The issue of how to process payments for such events to the chapter was raised (an example is the DC chapter’s merchant account, or a service like PayPal).  Treasurer Will Hires said he’d look into this issue and report back to the Board on our possible options.

Edna Paulson reminded the elected Board members about turning in their signed copies of the Leadership Code of Responsibility forms to Natalie Gozzard at SLA HQ.  Edna will send a link to the form out to the elected Board members via email as a reminder to turn it in.

Edna Paulson will send a report on the SLA Leadership Summit in Las Vegas to Board members.  Edna mentioned that she will attend the SLA conference in Denver this June.  The Board should have another meeting before then, so the Board will be able to vote on that then.

Edna Paulson mentioned that the New Jersey chapter inquired about possibly organizing a joint reception with the Maryland chapter at SLA’s conference in Denver.  Edna will communicate to the NJ chapter representative the general sense of our meeting that we do not wish to co-host such a reception.

Uta Hussong mentioned that the Central Pennsylvania chapter may approach the Maryland chapter in the future to propose merging the two chapters into one. 

The Board set a date and time for our next meeting, April 24, 2007 from 6:30 to 8:30 pm.  Andy Zimmerman volunteered his workplace (Gordon Feinblatt in downtown Baltimore) for this meeting.  Edna Paulson will send Andy an email to ask for his confirmation that this date/time is all right at his workplace.  An alternate date is April 26. 

The next Board meeting after our April one will be sometime in late July or early August.  Edna Paulson will send out some possible dates via email in the future.

The meeting was adjourned at 8:15 pm.

Respectfully submitted,

Liz Scalia,
2007-08 Secretary