Minutes – Board Retreat

List of attendees: Jennifer Hall, Laurie Solum, Mark Hammerschmith, Cheryl Lyons, Donetta Sheffold, Prudence Miles, Joy Jorgensen, Rose Lacey, Louann Friedland

Debrief of Last Year - Jennifer

What went well?

  • The treasury was increased by $800.00+.
  • Speakers were good and kept everyone in touch with Campus happenings.

What didn’t go so well?

  • Attendance was problematical (especially Balancing Work and Home session).
    • It was suggested that a survey of the membership be taken.
    • New members may need a session dedicated to them.
    • Maybe a mentor should be assigned to new members.
    • Members will attend when they feel attending is valuable.
  • More work needed to be done to collect membership dues.
  • Board Member commitment was inadequate at times.

Anything left undone?

  • The Administrative Policies Committee never met – this was to consider those procedural matters that are not really part of the By-Laws.
    • ACTION: Donetta and Laurie will be co-chairs this year and include JoDee and Rose and get this handled.
  • More needs to be done on the Karel Murphy Award.
  • Subcommittees need to be emphasized and formed.

Financial Report from Outgoing Treasurer – Laurie

  • Laurie handed out the Treasurer’s Report as of June 30th, 2007 and everyone reviewed
  • A good year – costs were mainly Summer Retreat and Year End Event in June
  • A question arose regarding the purchase of two of the clocks for the Karel Murphy award
    • ACTION: Laurie will check with Laurel regarding the purchase of the clocks and where they are
  • For events this year, it is hoped that cost sharing can be combined with the Provost award for the Fall Event – Steve Hanamura on October 17th from Portland (we can save travel fees if we hired someone near) – the limit will be $4,000 per speaker.
  • Jennifer requested that transaction detail for the line items be provided monthly
    • ACTION: Laurie will work with Joy to get this started
  • Laurie officially handed over the Treasurer’s books to Joy
  • Joy requested that everyone copy her on any planned expenses
    • ACTION: Expenditures will be approved through email and Board Meetings

Review PFLA Sub-Committee Report on Sustainability – Donetta

  • Donetta handed out the PFLA Sub-Committee on Sustainability Report dated June 6, 2007

ITEM #1 – Membership Goals

  • AGREED: After discussion, the Board agreed that the goal of 100 members is good
  • AGREED: Membership fees will continue at $35 with a reduced fee of $20 for memberships purchased after January 1st through June 30th. It was noted that this will help the January membership drive also.
  • There was much discussion around whether to include as a charge the membership fee to those attending the Workshop Event in October so that they would automatically become members
  • ACTION: Cheryl will check each month to see that a blurb about PFLA and activities can be included in the OSU Today mail-out and include links to the website. She will also check to see if we can get in a Barometer article
  • ACTION: Jennifer will look for the pens with PFLA imprinting

ITEM #2 -- Raising money

  • AGREED: A Silent Auction will be held at the December meeting – call for donations will be sent out in October along with the Auction announcement
  • Sales merchandise was discussed and the Board did not approve
  • AGREED: It was proposed and agreed upon that we have $5.00 gift certificates from Pangaea or equivalent for our lunch guest speakers
  • AGREED: Steve Hanamora will be our October speaker at the Professional Development Workshop – it will be held at the Alumni Center where a book signing/selling table can be setup for sales of the guest speaker’s books
  • AGREED: We will have one “headliner” guest speaker this fall and see work this works out. PFLA will apply for Development Funds and spend up to $4000.
  • ACTION: Rose will check with Sunny Kobe Cook and see she can come in the Fall of 2008.
  • ACTION: Rose will put together a two year Professional Development plan for the Board’s review
  • ACTION: For marketing purposes, it was agreed that a message should be sent to the inform_list of Office Managers

ITEM #3 – What is necessary to make a sustainable organization a reality and expectations of Board and PFLA members

  • Reviewed the By-laws and Board reinforced that Board member cannot miss more than three unexcused meetings. ACTION: Louann will record attendance at Board Meetings in the Minutes and Jennifer will track and respond as needed
  • AGREED: All Board members are committed to keeping focused and keeping the whole group involved, minimizing politics and divisiveness.
  • Committees were formed as follows:
    • Professional Development – Rose Lacey, Chair
    • Membership – Sarah Haluzak, Chair
    • Admin and Processes Committee – Donetta Sheffold, Chair
    • Sustainability Committee – Donetta Sheffold, Chair – will meet at least 1X a term
    • December Holiday Event Committee – Cheryl Lyons, Chair – Louann will assist
    • June Event Committee – Prudence Miles, Chair
    • Karel Murphy Award Committee – Rick DeBellis will be asked to chair
  • AGREED: It was agreed that each of the Board Member roles wil reviewed from the By-laws and agreed to by each Board Member at the meeting in turn. See later in the Minutes.

ITEM #4 – Topics for Professional Development

  • This was briefly discussed and was covered more in-depth in the afternoon session.

ITEM #5 – Danger signs for future Boards when planning budgets and events

  • AGREED: The Boards declared that they will build up appropriate funds through well thought-out and judicious spending.
  • ITEM #6 – Other ideas
  • AGREED: Although AOP and PFLA discussed joining forces, this was put off for this year. There was some feeling that the “identity” of the two different groups is a treasured “branding” by both groups.
    • ACTION: This will be discussed at next year’s Board Retreat.

A round of applause was given to Donetta, Jo Dee, Rose, Laurie and Jennifer for the fantastic work done by the Sustainability Committee.

Lunch

Marketing Report – Cheryl

  • Cheryl announced that the new website should be up soon
  • Various methods of announcing news, events and activities were discussed: all of the following were determined to be problematical: Meeting Maker, Doodle, eVite
  • ACTION: Joy will look into getting the whole inform_list for the Professional Faculty
  • ACTION: Membership Committee must meet before the next Board Meeting.
  • ACTION: September meeting moved to Sept 12.
  • ACTION: Laurie will look into having a table for University Day and get the pens and poster from Laurel. There was some discussion around the large PFLA banner but it was determined that it is probably lost

Review of Board Member Positions

All Board member position responsibilities were read by that Board Member and agreed to. Some action items resulted:

  • ACTION: Cheryl will check with Tom Fenske and ask him to do a “transactional audit”.
  • ACTION: Jennifer will preside over the President’s Welcome Reception in October
  • ACTION: Committees as assigned above work on speaker suggestions as needed for events, etc.
  • ACTION: Laurie will check with Tri re: signing for the PFLA.

Meeting Space/Time

  • Meetings will be the first Wednesday of every month, 12:00 – 3:00 (Board meets following the meeting: 1:00 – 3:00) in MU 211 – except for the December and June meeting/events – they will be in the Arnold Gold Room. The exceptions to the dates are 9/12 and 1/9 for non-first Wednesday meeting dates.
  • ACTION: Laurie will send out a list of the meeting places and times to the Board for review and then to membership.

Monthly Meeting Brainstorming

  • More discussion was held around the Fall workshop with Steve Hanamura:
    • It is hoped that the cost can be split between PFLA, the Provost’s Office and other agreeing departments – Laurie promised that Housing and Dining will participate.
    • A call was made to Sarah Eklend. She informed the group that an individual has to apply for the Provost funding. One person applies and the Treasurer signs for the organization. This does use up the one person’s Provost matching funds for the year.
    • The event will be a whole day from 9:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. at the Alumni Center
    • There was much discussion on how to charge for the Fall Workshop – it was felt that having the registration automatically make you a PFLA member may not be a good idea as this may make people feel uncomfortable in coming to the Workshop. It was decided that the cost of the Fall Workshop will be determined in part by what the cost will be.

ACTION: When Rose returns from vacation in two weeks, she and Joy will meet and go over the numbers and bring back this information to the Board to make a decision.

  • C. K. Gunsalus, author of “College Administrator’s Survival Guide” was suggested as a future speaker.
  • ACTION: Jennifer and Rose with check with Curt and Ron for more on Campus speakers.
  • Various suggestions for monthly meetings were brainstormed:
    • Alice Tucker – Guide Dogs
    • Tammy Bray – Organization Restructuring
    • Rochelle Schwab – Wellness
    • Critical Incidence Team
    • One Laptop per Child
    • HR Practices
    • Counseling Office (suicide)
    • Email/Using Technology
  • It was suggested that we create a “PFLA Reading List” – add the link to the website
  • Harrison’s Seminar’s – CIO’s in Portland
  • “Leading From Where You Are”
  • Negotiating Skills lecture
  • Teambuilding
  • Voluntarism
  • Managing Up and Down
  • Networking for Dummies – Curt and/or panel of people
  • Five Guaranteed Openers for Conversations

Membership – How to Increase

  • Have really good monthly meetings that people will want to come to and then want to come to the next one after attending
  • ACTION: have a “can of worms” in first 10 of each meeting – pull out questions for discussion – use as ice breaker and group cohesion building – sample questions: “What keeps you awake at night”, “What keeps you coming to work each day”.

Other Activities We Should Be Involved In

  • At this point, the group decided that we should table this as it looks as though we have a lot to do this year and should concentrate on what we are doing and do it well.

Holiday Event in December and Year End Celebration

  • Members should pay to come – we will use the catering “tasting” that was so successful last year
  • Silent auction will be held
  • We need to make sure that we focus on promotion of PFLA and membership
  • The committees for these meetings will get together, get more members and bring ideas back to the Board

Karel Murphy Award

  • Rick DeBellis will be asked to head this Committee
  • ACTION: Rose will transition the materials, etc. to Rick for this position

Technology Update – Mark Hammerschmith

  • Mark reported that IT requested we upgrade our system to the new IT system and this should be accomplished tomorrow. It is mostly the same except for:
    • News and events
    • He has put the new Board on line
    • We can now post items to the calendar
  • ACTION: Mark will move “What’s New” into the calendar
  • ACTION: Mark will work with Cheryl on changes to the web site
  • Mark reported that everyone should send any typo or other changes they see needed to him
  • ACTION: Mark will give an update on the website at the 9/12 Meeting.

Wrap-up

Jennifer thanked everyone for attending and everyone agreed that this was a very productive meeting and we should have a great year for PFLA!