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VEWAA BOD MEETING
Thursday, September 21, 2006
2:00 CST, 3:00 EST
1. Call to order: Paige Tidwell, Randy Elston, Susan Scott, Juliet Fried, Daryel Prust, Joe Doney, Peggy Englebert.
2. Call for agenda items: Awards
3. Minutes: Motion to accept minutes as read by Juliet Fried, seconded by Susan Scott, motion passed with all in favor
4. Treasurer's report: As of the end of August the balance in our treasury is $36,929. The budget is just about completed, and will be forwarded to the board for review within the next two weeks. Juliet moved to approve the treasurer's report, with Randy Elston seconding, motion passed with all in favor.
5. Membership report: There was a decrease for the month of August to 333, which is down from 347 in July. VEWAA is now the 5th largest division in NRA. It is still not possible to identify any trends by looking at the data, but NRA has also had a decrease in membership, as well. NRA currently has 6475 members, h including 6 in Canada and 5 in other countries. The board discussed the overall decline in membership across the board in the NRA in general, VEWAA in particular, and in all of the divisions.
6. Regional news: Louisiana held their VEWAA seminar with @ 50 people in attendance, including many students. Numerous testimonials to the benefits of joining VEWAA were made and Daryel thinks we may have gotten some more members. Attendees received 6 hours of credit. Must be in VEWAA to get certification in Louisiana; the chapter also provide trainings and a newsletter. Louisiana is the largest of the VEWAA chapters. Georgia VEWAA is sponsoring a one-day seminar in October. This is a joint effort with Georgia Rehab Association.
7. Journal of VEWAA: Randy will be e-mailing his re-writes to Madan within the week so that the VEWAA Journal can be published within the next month. Paige asked about printing, and the response was that the editor took care of the printing of the Journal.
8. VEWAA Newsletter: Daryel enumerated the articles he has received from the board members for publication in the next newsletter. Discussion ensued about the merits of sending out the by-laws to the membership for vote. Formally we are supposed to mail out the by-laws 30 days before the delegate assembly. With the current numbers in VEWAA the group agreed that publishing a notice in the Newsletter alerting the members to read the By-Laws on our Website was a good idea. A ballot will go in the newsletter and people will be asked to vote via this ballot. People will need to note their name, state, and membership number on the ballot. Daryel will send the collected articles to Peggy who will print and mail
9. Website: Only 78 hits in August. The glitch was fixed so that when people go to the website they are directed to VEWAA.
10. Nominations/Elections/Awards: Susan Scott told the board that she and Paige have been working on the call for nominations, which will go out in the next week or so. We need a President-elect, Secretary, and Treasurer, Members at large ? 3 positions available. Deadline will give everyone enough time to have the board in place before the end of the year. Long discussion ensued as to how the nominations and balloting should be conducted. We will use NRA format. Awards: Susan reported that we have one VEWAA service award nominee (only VEWAA members can nominate an award winner) and one Paul R. Hoffman nominee. Juliet suggested we look at reason for the winner of the award: in recognition of creativity and innovation in Vocational Evaluation and/or Work Adjustment in service to people with disabilities. Member or non-member may nominate for this award.
11. Program
a. NRA annual conference - BOD meeting Thursday from 12 to 2 will be a lunch. Separate membership meeting between 5:30 and 6:30 will be held with food and beverages provided. Make sure general membership date and time and place are noted in the newsletter. VEWAA is sponsoring 2 sessions at the conference this year at a cost of $500 for each session. We will also be donating $1,000 to the Switzer foundation.
b. VECAP conference: The board discussed the possible confusion in sending out a call for papers for the VECAP forum to our VEWAA members. It could be sent out electronically, and should have a bold announcement that VEWAA is sponsoring a session at this conference, even though VECAP is a different organization, so as to clarify for the membership the intent of the notice. Or we could put a notice into our newsletter or make an announcement at our membership meeting. The board discussed what VEWAA's purpose would be in sending out this notice for VECAP. The final decision was to put a notice in the VEWAA newsletter. Supporting the field, professional courtesy, supporting professionals in the field of VEWAA are the reasons for the board to collaborate with VECAP.
12. Old business:
a. Travel Policy - A question has been asked about allowing a per diem for food expenses to board members at conferences. Discussion followed about the budgeted amount for conferences. Usually we are under budget for travel expenses. Joe suggested we do without the per diem this year and, if we want to do it next year, budget for it because if everyone on the board attends the conference, and bills for all expenses, we will be way over budget in this category. There is money in other categories, however, that could be moved to fill in. GA rehab has a cap of $49 per day for food, which the board thought was high. Joe ran some numbers for what a per diem would cost the organization. Joe will try to find out what other divisions are doing in this regard. The travel policy voted on several months ago will stay in effect.
13. New business: There being no new business the board adjourned at 4:05 PM.
14. Next Board meeting: Thursday, October 19, 2006 @ 2:00 CST/3:00 EST
Join the VEWAA Division today!
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