Minutes of the Spring Meeting
of the Heartland Chapter of the American Society for Indexing
April 9, 2016 10:00 am
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Attendees
Marilyn Augst, Margaret Hentz, Meredith Murray, Mary Peterson, Shelley Quattrochi, Carol Reed, Cathy Seckman, Devon Thomas.
Minutes
The minutes from the October 3 meeting were approved as amended.
Treasurer's Report
Margaret Hentz said the chapter has $2600.31 in its account. Income was $375.00. Expenses for the fall meeting were $588.23. The beginning balance was $2813.54. The treasurer's report was approved as written.
Co-President's Report
Co-President Carol Reed said election ballots will be up by the end of next week and thanked the Election Committee (Roseann Biederman and Rachel Shaw) for contacting all of the members. Meredith Murray agreed to run as Co-President; Margaret Hentz and Mary Peterson agreed to run as Treasurer, and Devon Thomas agreed to run as Secretary. Mary Peterson withdrew her nomination.
ASI Conference: Carol Reed reported that several Heartland members plan on attending the annual conference in Chicago. There was discussion about the details of sponsoring a break as a chapter and co-sponsoring another break with the Chicago/Great Lakes Chapter for an additional sum of $125. (In the fall meeting, we approved up to $500 for sponsorships.) There was discussion on how the two chapters can mutually support each other.
Chapter Guidelines for Membership Outreach: Carol reported that the ASI membership committee is working on guidelines to standardize the process for contacting and following up with members.
Chapter Tax Status: The chapters are out of compliance with their tax-exempt status. A new structure will likely have to be used. The function and purpose of the chapters would not change, but the structure and financial handling will likely change. Devon Thomas added that a similar situation exists with the SIGs. She said the board is working on presenting revised by-laws for member approval as the next step. After the national by-laws have been approved, the chapters will need to adjust their by-laws to reflect the changes.
Newsletter and Website Report
We currently pay $12/yr for the website. The committee is considering changing from a newsletter format to a blog format. It would allow for more frequent contact, increased traffic to the website, and greater ease of production. There also seems to be a general trend towards shorter pieces. The articles would still be indexed. There was discussion about the attractiveness of the idea, how it affects the by-laws, keeping the content solid, handling comments, and archiving. There was also discussion about potential content and the use of Facebook.
Membership Liaison/Programming Committee
Cathy Seckman reported that there are 23 members, which is a little low. There are two new members. She noted that there is a pattern of people joining and dropping membership. Marilyn, Shelley, and Margaret offered to be contacts for the new members. There was discussion about how to follow up with new and potential members.
There will be a fall in-person meeting but with a flexible program so we can change if necessary. We will focus on using members for speakers. There was discussion of scheduling, topics, and the potential of working with the Chicago/Great Lakes Chapter.
Strategy Committee
The Strategy Committee has started meeting via Slack.
New Business
There was discussion about Go To Meeting and other virtual meeting software. There was concern about how to accommodate virtual meetings for larger groups affordably.
Next Meeting
It was suggested that a poll be sent out to the members to set the next meeting date.
Meeting was adjourned at 11:21 am