Board Meeting - May 8, 2008

Minutes of the WCPCA Board meeting, 5-8-08, at the home of Artis Spriggs

Attending: James Cloutier, Evangelina Sundgrenz, Rolly Thompson, Wayne Thompson, Deb McLaughlin, Rob Dwan, Artis Spriggs, Dorothy Soper

The minutes of April's meeting had already been circulated and approved via email.

James called the meeting to order at 7:15 pm. The first item of business was officer updates.

1. James explained that Charlie Ward, a local accountant and RPCV, has agreed to give us advice about accounting matters pro bono.

2. James reported about his trip with Joe Hindman to Seattle to attend the 2008 Peace Corps Expo which took place on May 4th at Seattle Pacific University. This gathering is one of two regional meetings that replace the annual NPCA conference. The expo was jointly sponsored by the Peace Corps and the National Peace Corps Association (NPCA), in cooperation with the Seattle Area Peace Corps Association (SEAPAX).

Over 400 participants took part in a main program, one of three break-out sessions and exhibits from 18 different organizations. This year's theme was "Peace Corps: Serving Communities at Home and Abroad". Speakers included the NPCA's president, Kevin Quigley, who emphasized the organization board's interest in serving the needs of local RPCV groups. Details of the meeting are available on the NPCA's website.

James explained that he was pleased to meet representatives of the national organization as well as those of other local groups. He found it helpful to talk about membership issues, program activities, and fundraising.

We discussed the NPCA's annual Sergeant Shriver Award for Distinguished Humanitarian Service. This is the period for making nominations and the board enthusiastically supports nominating Bob Crites, a former WCPCA member, for the award this year. Of particular importance is Bob's Kids Helping Kids program which has given scholarships for elementary and high school education to Brazilian and Tanzanian children in need for over ten years. (Note: Bob later agreed to be nominated.) Rolly and Wayne will work with Bob and the board to submit the necessary information.

We noted that in 1999 a former WCPCA member, Julia Demichelis, received the award. Further information about this award is available on the NPCA's website.

2. Evangelina presented a detailed treasurer's report for our accounts at the Oregon Community Credit Union and our investments.

Checking account at OCCU:

Current balance is the checking account is $3,594.
Business Savings (required by OCCU): $5.00

April activity:

Primary expenses in April were for food for the NOM party, $236. This will be reimbursed by the PC Recruiting office in Seattle.

Revenue total for April of $388 came from memberships and $250 raised from the sale of calendars, cards, and tee shirts. At the board's direction Evangelina withdrew $2,000 from our checking account and closed our business account, which we didn't use, and which contained $509. These funds plus $2.79 from Beryl's memorial account were combined and used to purchase a 6 month CD described under investments below.

Investments:

OCCU: a six month CD for $2,512 at 2.710%; maturity date 11/5/08.

Beryl's memorial funds: These have been invested with Edward Jones Investments as follows:

We've purchased a twelve year bond at 6.05% interest for $20,000 with Principal Life Income Fundings. We also have a money market account with a balance of $2,612.98 earning 1.76% in interest.

Evangelina confirmed that our organization will be eligible to participate in the Oregon Community Foundation's Endowment Partners Trust once we have gained 501 C3 status and have $25,000 to create an account. There had been some question about this but we now know that this opportunity is available only to nonprofit organizations. Other types of organizations are required to invest much more to start their accounts.

Evangelina recommended that the board create a subcommittee to guide the use of the proceeds of our investment of the funds in Beryl's memorial account.

The board accepted Evangelina's report.

3. Dorothy reported that we currently have 67 paid memberships. For April there were five new memberships that came to us from memberships taken about with NPCA. Dorothy will send an email to welcome these new members and Felicia will add them to our email list.

We looked at the list of memberships newly expired and about to expire of which there were sixteen. Board members agree to contact people that they knew on this list. Dorothy will contact the others.

4. Rolly reported that the IRS is now reviewing 501 C3 applications that were submitted in December, 2007. Ours was submitted in January, 2008, so were hoping that it soon will be reviewed.

5. Several board members who have been working at the street fair at the U of O noted that WCPCA could use a handout for such occasions to explain the organization and invite RPCVs to join. The task was referred to the communications subcommittee.

6. We worked on identifying subcommittees and assigning chair people to them. The board asked the chairs to identify committee members. Each subcommittee's first task is to identify its goal and present that to the board for approval.

The subcommittees and chairs that we agreed to are the following:

Subcommittee	Chair(s)
Communications	James, Felicia
Activities	Deb, Artis
Fund raising	Rolly, Wayne
Financial planning	Dorothy

Dorothy asked if others on the board would like to be on the financial planning subcommittee. James, Evangelina, and Rob volunteered. We set our first meeting for Saturday, May 17th, 10:00 am, at Dorothy's house. Dorothy will send a separate email to give further details.

We agreed to ask for subcommittee volunteers at the potluck on May 9th. We have names from some previous volunteer lists and the subcommittee chairs will contact those people.

7. Coming meetings/activities:

Our next board meeting will be on Thursday, June 12th, at 7:15 pm, at Dorothy's house, 4430 Pinecrest Drive. Full directions to the house will be in the reminder at the beginning of June.

There won't be a potluck in June. The Thompsons will host a picnic at their farm on Saturday, July 12th, at 2:00 pm.

8. The meeting was adjourned about 10:00 pm.

9. On the following day we agreed by email to the following:

Rolly should order 200 calendars from the Madison RPCV group to sell as a fundraiser.

Felicia should proceed to create a page for WCPCA on Face Book.

Minutes by Dorothy 5/13/08

Added note: At the potluck a new member, Jack Meachem, volunteered to join the financial planning committee. Also, a membership committee has been added in board email discussion.