ALA New Members Round Table

Midwinter Conference -New Orleans, LA

Executive Board Meeting II -Sunday, January 11,1998 8:30 -11: 00 am

Present:

Liz Brown, F. Ann Dykas, Nancy George, Linda Golian, Marilyn Grush, Paula Hering, Gerald Hodges, Beth Jedlicka, Carol Kem, Laura Lucio, Antoinette Nelson, Kara Robinson, Priscilla Shontz, Laura Sill, Ann Snoeyenbos, Terri Tomchyshyn, Dennis Wilson.

The meeting was called to order by President Ann Snoeyenbos at 9:00 a.m. Ann thanked Linda Golian and Lori Barnes for taking over Local Conference Arrangements at the last minute. A job well done! She also announced that Terri Tomchyshyn, Chair of the ALA Membership Committee would be joining the meeting at 10:00 a.m. to brainstorm on ideas to help membership both for ALA and NMRT. The comment was made that membership as a whole on both the state and national level is down, yet library school enrollment is up. Ann will attend the ALA Membership Committee meeting to be held Sunday afternoon from 1-3 as brainstorming ideas will be discussed.

Introductions were made by all present.

Treasurer's Report (Carol Kem):

-A strong recommendation for all ALA units/divisions with monies to have an emergency reserve amount for the roundtable budget was discussed. The question in general with ALA and the budget people, will be to transfer additional money into the endowment spending account.

Carol passed out copies of the Operating Budget for fiscal year 1997-98. Ann Snoeyenbos Laura Sill and Carol met with Liz Bishopp to review the new budget format, which they found is workable. Carol gave a summary of the amounts budgeted in each category of the budget with the new account numbers and codes set up for each item. She also explained where, what and how the money is spent in each category.

-The amounts of cash expenditures for copies, fax and postage listed under each officer/committee is a modest amount and these amounts are hardly used by the end of the fiscal year. With the consensus of the board, Carol would like to lower these amounts in next year's budget with the exception of MACE. Most of MACE's expense is an up- front expense; getting ready for awards, generating nice application forms, nice things for library school outreach, etc. By reducing some of the operational funding may free up some monies for the survey and retreat.

-YTD as of Oct. 31t 1997: Total Cash Receipts -$7,067.00; Subtotal Cash Expenditures Operations -$162.00; Subtotal Expenditures Programming and Promotion -$1,000.00; Total Cash Balance Endowment Accounts -$31,160.00.

-Carol gave out reimbursement forms and reminded everyone to send the original and a receipt of expenses to Gerald Hodges and give her a Copy as well as keep a Copy for individual files.

-Each director at the end of the year needs to take its own operational budget and programming budget and make a mini financial report for their areas, partly for training and as a back up to help Carol pull together the budget report. Ann and Carol will work together to make a form to be submitted to Carol at the end of the year.

Governance Committee (Liz Brown):

Liz passed out copies of the proposed revisions of Amendments to the Constitution and Bylaws prepared by the committee. Focus of the report will be on the revisions and any questions the board may have. At the Big Tent meeting the committee will discuss the relationship of the Constitution and Bylaws with the Handbook and review any questions or revisions that the board brings up.

Liz commented that the Constitution and Bylaws should be published in an official publication, in this case Footnotes, to be sent to all membership and prior to any voting. The revisions need to be on the annual ballot. She will submit the proposed approved amendments for publication by J an. 3151(?).

Action: Request to place revisions to the Constitutions and Bylaws in the ALA annual ballot mailing. [Approved]

Constitutional amendment: Article IV adds: Vice-President/President-Elect, Assistant Treasure/Treasurer-Elect, and four Directors from three Directors. Discussion included having an Assistant Treasurer to help the Treasurer and have a year of experience before taking on the position, which should be an elected position. The Asst. Treasurer would serve the 1st year as Assistant, the 2nd year as Treasurer and the 3rd year as Treasurer with training a new assistant to take over as Treasure for the next year; thus the Treasurer would have a one two-year appointment. This type of set-up gives the Asst. Treasurer Midwinter and Annual experience dealing with the budget. [Approved]

Constitutional amendment: Article V states that the Executive Board, which consists of the officers and immediate Past President shall have one vote, with the exception of the Assistant Treasurer/Treasurer-Elect, Who would be a non-voting member of the board [Approved]

Constitutional amendment: Article VIII adds: Governance Committee. [Approved]

Discussion continued on the revisions for the Bylaws amendments. Those approved by the board are listed in Footnotes V 01. 27, No.2, February 1998.

Special Guest:

Ann Snoeyenbos introduced Terri Tomchyshyn (Chair of the ALA Membership Committee) and a former JMRT member. Ms. Tomchyshyn addressed the group with ideas that have been discussed to increase membership in ALA:

-Build on networking

-Recruiting new members incentives

-Strong library school outreach programs -Good benefits package

-Concentrate on programs such as ALA's role in state associations, Library Advocacy, Media Advocacy, The First Amendment, Copyright and Mentoring.

One issue of concern was travel and how that affects membership who can't afford or do not have substantial travel budgets from their institutions to support conference attendance.

Ann will attend the ALA Membership Committee meeting to see what other ideas can be developed to help membership in ALA and NMRT.

ALA Staff Liaison (Gerald Hodges):

Gerald discussed the need for a survey. Have a plan of action for the next 3 years. In the survey concentrate on two or three things that can have productive results of such an effort. Suggestions for the survey:

-Find out who to survey.

-What are the three most important benefits of membership in NMR T? -What are the three weaknesses of NMRT?

-Activities/programs that meet expectations of members.

The Retreat needs to concentrate on the two or three initiatives derived from the survey that help focus NMRT on new ways or to validate what is already in place. The Retreat should be slated in conjunction with the annual conference and have a good facilitator.

Ann will announce later who will participate in the Retreat and where it will be held. Old Business/New Business/Announcements: None Adjournment:

Motion: Carol Kem moved that the meeting be adjourned. Paula Hering seconded the motion. The motion passed and the meeting was adjourned at 11: 05 a.m.

Respectfully submitted-

Antoinette Nelson, NMRT Secretary