Board Meeting Minutes

February 26, 2003

TIME: 9:00 am
PLACE: Cooley Godward, University City
PRESENT: Tracey Pardo, President; Sushila Selness, Vice-President; Sheila
Corman, Secretary; Owen Smith, Treasurer; Mary Garcia, Past
President, Amy Hale Janeke, Chair, Constitution and By-Laws Committee; Ellie Slade, Chair, Employment Committee; Jean Willis, Chair, Grants Committee; Maggie MacDonald, Chair, Archives Committee.

The meeting was called to order at 9:30 a.m.

The minutes were approved as presented.

Treasurer's Report:

Owen announced that the Chapter's total funds are $24,591.58 including $14,200 received from the Joint Institute member and vendor registrations. The Joint Institute funds will be expended by March 15th.

Most of the chapter funds have been moved to Mission Federal Credit Union. Once all the outstanding checks have cleared, the U.S. Bank account will be closed.

We now have 90 members.

By-Laws Vote:

Tracey stated that since none of the three proposals for the change in Article 3 of the by-laws received 2/3 of the vote of the members present at the January Brown Bag, the by-laws remain unchanged. It was decided to re-vote at the annual business meeting, when more members will be present.

It also was decided to revise the ballot to include only the main proposals. Members would vote on the Proposal Number One subsections only if that proposal receives 2/3 of the vote.

Amy and Sheila will work on the reworking of the ballot and instructions. The revised information about the proposals needs to be sent to the members in early May.

Tracey thanked Amy and her committee for their hard work.

Election of Officers:

The Board has approved the slate and John Adkins, Chair of the Nominations Committee has sent it to the membership. The installation of new officers will be at the annual meeting on June 6th. The ballots need to be sent out by April 4th and returned by May 2nd.

Annual Meeting:

Since the Board voted to sponsor the AALL representative at the Joint Institute, it was decided not to have a speaker at the annual meeting set for June 6th. Sushila will ask Steve Whiteside if the Shepard Mullin Board Room will again be available for the meeting since it is a central location. She is working with a vendor to provide lunch for the meeting.

Spring Social:

The date of the Spring Social has been changed to April 15th at Thomas Jefferson School of Law. Sushila will talk to a vendor to see if one may want to sponsor a meal during the event.

Sushila will post a sample list of suggestions for donations to the listserv. Toward the end of March details will be available on the logistics of getting items to her or to one of her program committee members.

May Brown Bag:

The May Brown Bag will be held at the San Diego County Public Law Library on May 9th. It will feature a speaker discussing long-term care insurance.

Joint Institute:

At this time, about 8-9 SANDALL members have signed up to attend the Joint Institute. Distribution of the profit from the Institute will be divided among the chapters by the number of members attending from chapter. If a member belongs to more than one chapter, it will be further split between them.

Sushila asked if it would be possible for SANDALL to pay for her extra nights hotel accommodations. She needs to arrive a day early to facilitate vendor set-ups and stay a day later to settle all hotel charges. Sheila so moved. Mary Garcia seconded and the motion was passed unanimously.

Membership Directory:

Owen has proofed the directory once with the help of a student. He should have the information in about two weeks. It was decided to distribute as many copies of the directory as we can at the Spring Social to save the cost of postage. The Daily Journal has again generously volunteered to pay for the printing.

Discussion with Chairs:

Constitution and By-Laws Committee (Amy Hale Janeke) Amy said it was an interesting year working on the changes to the By-Laws regarding membership. Much time and research was put into it and AALL is interested in seeing the research. Depending on which proposal is approved in June, we may have to negotiate with AALL to get their approval.

Sushila stated that while working with the other chapters she has learned that it is very important to clearly define the membership categories and the rights and privileges of each to avoid confusion. For example, a vendor member may volunteer for a committee for some event for which there is a charge but then decide to put a price on his or her services for a waiver of that charge.

Next year should be spent on clarifying confusing points in the by-laws.

Employment Committee (Ellie Slade) Ellie stated she sweeps the Internet every day looking for job announcements to post on the SANDALL listserv. Ellie has some questions about linking to headhunter web sites. It was decided to list jobs posted by headhunters, but not to link to their web sites.

Grants Committee (Jean Willis) Jean stated that people don't apply for the grants and Thursday is the deadline for the Joint Institute grant.

She asked about grants for the AALL annual meeting. That would be a lot more expensive, but members would apply. The other California chapters do provide grants.

Sushila mentioned that the Spring Social fund raiser is to try to raise more money for grants. If successful, she'd like to recommend that we make it an annual event.

Mary added that members have differing ideas on just how much money the chapter should accumulate and what it should be used for.

Sheila suggested possibly a ½ grant to AALL if we can afford it.

It was decided the Board would consider the idea at their next Board meeting in May with the new incoming Board present.

Jean also asked how people are appointed and for how long as committee members. The By-laws state that the President appoints committee members, but there is no mention of how long they serve.

It was suggested that the incoming President at the beginning of his/her term send an e-mail inviting members interested in serving on a committee to apply to serve on one. It would also be helpful if the person stepping down as committee chair would be available to assist the new chair.

Archives Committee (Maggie MacDonald) Maggie reminded the Board that she needs two copies of the newsletter, one for the archives. It was suggested she talk to Amy Moberly to get the extra copy.

Old Business - None

New Business

NOCALL, SCALL, SANDALL, WestPac and LLOPS will sponsor a joint reception at AALL. They will send out an e-mail to see how many people are planning to attend AALL to set up the reception plans.

Sushila mentioned fundraising. There is a big demand for legal research classes among non-law librarians. Perhaps SANDALL can offer a full day workshop and charge a registration fee to raise money. Similar workshops have been offered successfully in the past. The Board decided it was something for the new board to act upon. Right now, San Diego County Public Law Library has a LSTA grant and is working with public librarians for free. Special librarians might be interested in the workshop, though. Sushila thought if we did that and made money, it could be used for grants.

It was also suggested that we consider a joint meeting with SLA next year.

Mary brought up a letter she received from KPBS asking SANDALL to participate in their March fundraising phone-a-thon. We would need five people to volunteer to be considered a group and be acknowledged on the air. An e-mail will be sent looking for volunteers.

Owen brought up the issue of the newsletter, e-mail versus print. We spend a lot for printing and mailing. One of the problems is the advertising. AALL does not allow web-based newsletters to have advertising. We'd have to create two versions, one on the web for a short time with advertising and another version without it for archiving. This will have to be thought out and discussed further with the new board.

The meeting was adjourned at 11:27 am.

Respectfully submitted,

Sheila Corman
Secretary