MichALL Board Meeting

Meeting Minutes   

March 9, 2012

 

Present: Amy Ash, Pat Bravender, Kineret Gable, Janet Ann Hedin, Mark Heinrich, Frances Krempasky, Yolanda Jones, Virginia Thomas 

 

I.  Call to Order

The meeting was called to order by Virginia at 3:45 p.m. at Dickinson Wright, PLLC in Detroit. Amy Ash, Pat Bravender, and Fran Krempasky attended the meeting via telephone conference call.   

 

II. Consideration and Approval of Minutes

The minutes from the January 27, 2012 meeting were approved. Fran will send the minutes to Jessica to post to the MichALL website.

 

III.  President’s Report : Virginia Thomas 
 

         A.     Tax-Exempt Status

 

Virginia reported that Kineret updated all figures needed for the Federal tax exempt status report. Virginia is waiting for the MichALL newsletter to be produced to send with it. Janet said the newsletter will be ready on Monday to send out via email. Virginia made a motion that we send out the tax exempt status update even if the newsletter isn’t ready. The only thing still left to do is the State of Michigan tax exempt status forms, which Virginia and Kineret will work on. Virginia also thanked Amy for her review of the 1024 form, her comments were helpful.

 

           B.   February Election

 

                  Election results are in from the February 2012-2013 MichALL election:

 

                        - Vice President/President-Elect : Amy Ash, Thomas M. Cooley Law

                           School Library, Grand Rapids

- Treasurer: Pat Bravender, Grand Valley State University Steelcase     
               Library, Grand Rapids

            - Member-at-Large: Michele LaLonde-Reaume, Ralph M. Freeman
               Library for the US Courts, Detroit

 

                   Virginia sent out an email to the MichALL listserv about election results.

                   Total votes were 37; half of the membership voted.

 

         

 

C.  Chair, AALL Council of Chapter Presidents Election

           

                There are 4 candidates running for the AALL Council of Presidents. The

                MichALL Board has one vote, due by March 16th. Since Virginia was one of

                the candidates, she excused herself from voting and left the room while the

                Board voted. The Board voted for Virginia Thomas. Yolanda will inform

                AALL of our vote.

 

IV.   Vice President’s Report

 

         A.  Annual Meeting Program

 

               Yolanda reported that the MichALL annual meeting program is similar to the

               format used last year. The agenda will start with the e-book program, followed

               by the luncheon where there will be a leadership discussion. The discussion will

               be about current trends and development in leadership and issues facing the

               organization.  We could also ask for membership input and read some of their

               comments at the end of the discussion. It was suggested that we could also

               ask the e-book speakers to sit at each table and lead a discussion on e-books.  

 

               Susan Lewis will be the only AALL Executive Board member attending the

               MichALL meeting. (We were told previously that AALL was going to send two

               Executive Board members to our meeting).

 

               Amy suggested that the Pro Bono Committee could give a 15 minute talk about

               what they've been doing. Linda Rexer from the Michigan State Bar Foundation,

               who is Co-Chair of the Pro Bono Taskforce, could discuss their website and the

               pilot project to educate librarians about it.

                

               Yolanda sent out a draft flyer of the MichALL Annual meeting to the Board

               and will be sending to the listserv soon. The RSVP date was changed to the end

               of April. Also, it will be noted that we cannot take money on site because of

               Gerald R. Ford Presidential Museum rules. We can ask people who need to pay

               on-site to send a check.

 

               Kineret will send Fran a list of attendees so that Fran can make name tags for

               members attending the meeting.

 

        B.  Catering

 

              The Board discussed catering companies and options. Pat suggested a caterer in

              Grand Rapids that she has used in the past, Martha's Vineyard. Yolanda will

              call them and let the Board know what she finds out via email. The Board also

              suggested that we can give estimates of attendees for the caterers. If we need to

              pay for additional attendees, then Kineret could write them a check off-site.              

 

  V.  Treasurer’s Report

 

  Pat and Kineret will meet to discuss the Treasurer's duties. Kineret has input data on

  spreadsheets and has up-to-date records to give to Pat. The records are now in good   

  order. Kinert said that MichALL has a $5352.32 balance in the account.

 

VI. Secretary’s Report

 
      Fran will send the January 27th minutes to Jessica to post on the MichALL site. She

      also reported that all MichALL emeritus letters were mailed out. Janet and Virginia

      will meet to discuss how emeritus members are selected as Fran received a recent

      suggestion to add another emeritus member. No report from the Public Relations

      Committee.

 

VII.Past President’s Report

 

       Janet reported that she is working on the MichALL receipt books. The MichALL

       Newsletter is almost finished. Janet is working with Amy on the Bylaws Committee.

       No report from the Grants & Scholarship Committee.

 

VIII. Members At Large : Amy Ash and Mark Heinrich

 

       Amy reported on two Committees. The Pro Bono Committee is doing work for the   

       Solutions on Self-Help Task Force.

 

       The Bylaws Committee met and had a productive meeting. Some of the items

       they discussed may need Board decisions. For example, a question arose; is

       MichALL a corporation or an association?  Virginia said she will research what this

       entails. Amy will submit bylaw changes to the Board for the April Board meeting.

     

       According to our bylaws, if we want the membership to vote on any changes to the

       bylaws at the May meeting, we'd have to discuss them soon. The bylaws state that   

       the Board reviews the changes before they are given to the membership; and

       then the membership is to receive the changes at least 20 days before voting on them.

      
       Amy suggested that we adopt AALL's amendment process which requires a simple

       majority vote and we wouldn't have to submit changes to the membership so early.

       Janet said that we might submit the bylaws for review at the fall dinner and then we

       could have the membership vote on them online. Virginia suggested that we submit

       our bylaw changes to the AALL Bylaws Committee for review before we vote on

       them. 

 

       Amy said that the MichALL website uses the term "constitution" for bylaws and we

       should change that. Also, AALL uses "chapters" instead of the term "association"

       which MichALL uses. Virginia said that we could use the AALL Model Guidelines

       to propose our revisions and also have our parent organization review them. Then we

       could determine what the next steps should be in the process. If we could have the

       bylaw changes ready by the April Board meeting then the Board could review them.

 

       Mark had no report.

 

IX.  Old Business

        None.

 

X.  New Business

 

      Pat will fax the catering menu to Yolanda.

 

 XI. Next Meeting Date

 

       Next meeting: April 13th at 3:30; Meeting was adjourned at 4:52 p.m.

 

Minutes respectfully submitted by: Fran Krempasky

April 2, 2012