August 27, 2002 ESP Board Meeting

Minutes of the
Epsilon Sigma Phi Board Meeting
August 27, 2002
203 Whitten Hall, Columbia, MO

Present: Gail Carlson, Dale Hagerman, Tom Henderson, Roxanne Miller, Bob Schultheis, Pat Snodgrass, Karla Spencer (phone), Georgia Stuart-Simmons.

Absent: Karen Funkenbusch, Wilma Jean Lower, Ina Metzger, Rex Ricketts.

Call to order. President Georgia Stuart-Simmons called the meeting to order at 10:15 a.m. in Tom Henderson’s office, Whitten Hall.

Approval of 4/23/02 minutes. Approved as read.

Treasurer’s report.

Tom Henderson gave the financial report.
Basic Savings account = $2,640.57
Checking Plus account = $155.77
Total assets = $2,796.34

Georgia Stuart-Simmons asked how the current numbers compare to this year’s budget. Tom Henderson said he would look up the budget to check, but that not holding the annual ice cream social due to cancellation of UO/E’s Annual Conference in October would be a big savings. He said the other major budget amount is paying for two representatives to attend the National ESP Conference. Georgia Stuart-Simmons said her travel costs would be paid by her own Extension travel funds this year, which would also save money.

COMMITTEE REPORTS

Awards.

The status of this year’s ESP awards was discussed. Feedback from Awards Chair Karen Funkenbusch was not available. Karla Spencer said that last year the Board contacted individuals to encourage submission of award nominations, and that perhaps we should do the same this year.

Loan and Fellowship.

Pat Snodgrass reported that the Loan and Fellowship Committee was meeting today by teleconference to select this year’s major award winners.
She said earlier this year, the committee had raised the maximum award limit to $1,500 permitted at one time, rather than the previous $1,000. Dr. Ron Turner had approved this change. The lifetime award limit is currently $1,500.
Pat said she will ask Eileen Bennett to put an article in Weekly News again publicizing this change.

Membership.

No formal membership report was given. Tom Henderson said the membership total remained the same as it was previously.
Tom Henderson complimented National ESP Executive Director Linda Cook on her research into our chapter’s membership records. The discrepancy between National and Missouri ESP life member records was corrected so that National ESP records now correctly show Doris Littrell as a Life Member.
The Board discussed the challenge this year in collecting dues, given the fact that Annual Conference has been cancelled and there will be no face-to-face state meeting to remind individuals to renew their membership. Tom Henderson said he estimated that about 80 percent of our annual membership dues are typically collected during Annual Conference.
Georgia Stuart-Simmons suggested inviting people to join ESP. The Board identified the following ESP members in each region who could invite individuals to join ESP:

Central Region:      Cynthia Crawford

East Central Region:       Roxanne Miller

Northeast Region:      Nancy Flood
                                     Debby Whiston

Northwest Region:      Joan Hickman
                                      Beverly Maltsberger
                                      Karma Metzgar

South Central Region:       Pat Snodgrass (Salem)
                                             Karla Spencer (West Plains)

Southeast Region:      Judy Lueders
                                      Rick Sparks

Southwest Region:       Bob Schultheis

West Central Region:       Georgia Stuart-Simmons

Gail Carlson volunteered to help Tom Henderson and Rex Ricketts to contact prospective members on the MU campus.
Georgia Stuart-Simmons said she would contact Rex Ricketts to obtain a current list of prospective members to contact.
Georgia said she would also talk to Rex about contacting the individuals above who were not at the Board meeting to see if they would help in the member recruitment effort in their respective regions.
To serve as a recruiting incentive, Bob Schultheis suggested offering the current dues rate to members who renew or join ESP by a certain date.
The Board decided that if current ESP members approve the proposed dues increase this fall, the new dues would become effective November 1, 2002. Therefore, if individuals join or renew membership by October 31, 2002, they would be able to join at the current rates.
As a reminder, the dues increase proposal approved by the ESP Board at the January 10, 2002, meeting was as follows:
- Increase Annual Member dues from $11 to $20, which would increase the total Annual Member dues to $50 ($30 national, $20 chapter), and the New Member dues to $55 ($35 national, $20 chapter).
- Increase Life Member dues from $150 to $200 ($150 national, $50 chapter).
Pat Snodgrass asked if an ESP flyer could be available to provide to prospective members. Bob Schultheis said a flyer has already been posted on the ESP web site (http://outreach.missouri.edu/esp/members.html).
The Extension Professional’s Creed was mentioned. Gail Carlson said it is not currently part of the New Member packet provided by National ESP. Bob Schultheis suggested our chapter could create our own copies of the creed for new members.

Memorials/Courtesy.

Georgia Stuart-Simmons said that Wilma Jean Lower had notified her she would be unable to attend this Board meeting, but that Wilma Jean had emailed suggestions on how the annual memorials could be acknowledged this year. She said she could provide the names in memorial in an email message to membership. Or she could lead the memorial service as part of a TCRC meeting, if that were set up.
Tom Henderson reported that the oldest living Extension retiree had recently died: Cloin Joe Penner of Christian County, who had retired in 1972.

Professional Improvement.

Karla Spencer suggested delaying the Professional Improvement Committee report until later, when the ESP Annual Meeting was discussed.

Retirement.

Dale Hagerman had no report.
Gail Carlson suggested that when the retirees are announced after September 30, 2002, they should be contacted to suggest joining as Life Members.

OLD BUSINESS

ESP Annual Meeting plans.

Georgia Stuart-Simmons said she had sent out a memo a few weeks earlier informing the Board that plans had not worked out to schedule a joint meeting this year with the other associations. So the ESP Board needs to decide how we will handle our annual business this year. She said that our Board had talked about email ballots or a meeting using TCRCs as two possibilities. She asked for discussion.
Dale Hagerman suggested the possibility of applying for Loan & Fellowship funds through several individual ESP members to help fund our annual meeting. He said that type of approach had worked several years ago when individual MACAA members had applied to their national organization for funds for a regional meeting.
Pat Snodgrass said the Loan and Fellowship Committee was meeting today (8/27/02) and that we had missed that opportunity for the time being.
Tom Henderson said that he thought ESP would need to offer some sort of professional development component to the ESP meeting to be able to justify use of Loan and Fellowship funds.
The possibility of using TCRCs was discussed. Tom Henderson said there was no cost for use by UO/E during specific times.
Bob Schultheis suggested ESP could tie our meeting to an upcoming regional ITV meeting. Pat Snodgrass pointed out that only half the regions participate in the ITV meeting at a time, with four in the morning and four in the afternoon, which would make that difficult.
Handling ESP elections using a combination of email and the ESP web site was discussed. Bob Schultheis suggested putting election information on the web site, then sending an email message to members to handle the election. A closed web site that only members could access could be set up on our ESP web site.
Georgia Stuart-Simmons said that was the procedure used by National ESP last fall when the national meeting was cancelled.
Tom Henderson said email could be sent to active members, and mail could be used to send information to everyone who does not have email capability. Georgia Stuart-Simmons said the ESP newsletter is currently mailed to Life Members, and that Active Members receive the newsletter by email.
The Board discussed how privacy could be maintained with an electronic and mail vote. Georgia Stuart-Simmons said that regarding privacy, only one person who collected the ballots would see names with votes.
Action: Tom Henderson moved that our ESP Chapter conduct our 2002 Annual Meeting via email to Active Members and mail to Life Members. Bob Schultheis seconded.
Some discussion was held about how nominations for new officers is usually handled. Gail Carlson said the Past President is chair of the Nominations Committee and selects the members of the committee. Karla Spencer said last year’s Board discussed potential nominees at a Board meeting and she then emailed them to ask if they would be willing to serve.
Motion unanimously approved.
After some discussion, the Board decided that Georgia Stuart-Simmons would compile all the information regarding the annual business meeting—including the election and dues increase proposal—and ask members to forward their ballots to Gail Carlson to tally.
The Board decided to move the Awards nominations deadline back to September 20 to permit more time to encourage submission of nominations. The next newsletter should include information about how the annual business will be conducted and the fact the September 6 Awards deadline has been pushed back..
The following timeline was set:

ESP newsletter deadline:      August 30, 2002

ESP newsletter published:      September 13, 2002

New ESP Awards deadline:      September 20, 2002

Election email/mail to members:      October 1, 2002

Deadline to return ballots to Gail:      October 18, 2002

Awards Recognition.

Gail Carlson said the Board had developed a list of potential nominees last year.
Karla Spencer said she would forward the list to Gail to help in contacting potential nominees this year.
The Board discussed handing out awards at regional meetings. For the Friend of Extension Award, Tom Henderson suggested selecting someone and arranging a time to present the award and take photos to put on our web site.

New Business

Nominations.

The positions up for election this year are President-Elect (field staff), Secretary and Annalist.
The Board suggested several possible nominees for positions, including (in alphabetical order) Beverly Coberly, Eldon Cole, Nancy Flood, Janet Kline, Beverly Maltsberger, Karma Metzgar, Susan Mills-Gray, Rebecca Travnichek.
Gail Carlson pointed out that the person nominated for Annalist should have web skills.
The terms for the officers to be elected were clarified: The President-Elect position is a one-year term, with the person becoming President the following year. Both the Secretary and the Annalist positions are two-year terms.
Roxanne Miller asked when the new term for officers would begin. The Board agreed the new term for ESP officers would begin November 1, 2002. The term for President-Elect would end October 31, 2003, or at the 2003 ESP Annual Meeting (if UO/E Annual Conference is held in the fall of 2003). The terms for Secretary and Annalist would end October 31, 2004, or at the 2004 ESP Annual Meeting (if UO/E Annual Conference is held in the fall of 2004).

National Endowment Campaign contact.

Georgia Stuart-Simmons announced that the National ESP Board has initiated an ESP Endowment Campaign to raise $500,000 in pledges by the 2003 Galaxy Conference in Utah and the realization of funding by 2007. The purpose of the fund is to strengthen financial support to provide scholarships for professional development and graduate study, internships, educational materials, research, and recognition.
She said each chapter is being asked to identify one or more individuals who would be willing to contact ESP members in the state. She asked for suggestions for Missouri.
Barbara Brown-Casady, Don Henderson and Jim Ollar were suggested.
Georgia Stuart-Simmons said she would contact Barbara first. Tom Henderson said he could contact Don and Jim if needed.

Professional Development.

Tom Henderson asked if it would be possible to offer some type of professional development opportunity in spring 2003 to permit people time to request Loan and Fellowship awards.
Gail Carlson said individuals could also apply for National ESP Mini-Grants.
Karla Spencer said that earlier discussions about doing training via ITV had identified interest in a fundraising topic. She said she had not been able to identify anyone who could present on that topic.
Tom Henderson said that the UMC campus has begun a fundraising campaign to raise $600 million. He said some staff have been hired to lead that effort and that one of them might be available to offer a presentation on the topic.
Karla Spencer said she would be willing to help set up a spring 2003 professional development opportunity pertaining to fundraising. She mentioned the possibility of offering the training to outside organizations for a fee. She said she would work together with Ina Metzger on the project.
Tom Henderson offered to help find a speaker.
Gail Carlson suggested Gary Baker in Kansas City as a possible speaker.

National ESP Conference auction.

Georgia Stuart-Simmons said National ESP is requesting two items for the auction this year at the National ESP Conference in Kentucky, October 17-19, 2002. She suggested we send the 4-H Centennial bear in addition to the item not used last year when the national meeting was cancelled. The Board agreed.

Announcements

Newsletter deadline.

Georgia Stuart-Simmons reminded the Board that the next ESP newsletter deadline is this Friday, August 30.

National ESP Conference.

Georgia Stuart-Simmons said she and Wilma Jean Lower would represent our chapter at the National ESP meeting to be held October 17-19, 2002, in Lexington, KY.

Meeting adjourned: At noon by President Georgia Stuart-Simmons.

Respectfully submitted,

Roxanne T. Miller, Secretary

Web Manager: Bob Schultheis
Webster County Extension Center
Email comments to: schultheisr@missouri.edu
Last revised: 11/05/09