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Board Meeting - August 7, 2008

Board vote via email, 7/30/08

Minutes of the Board Meeting, 8/7/08, at the home of Benj Epstein

On July 30, 2008 the board voted via email to revise the organization's Articles of Incorporation by deleting Article 7. That request has been sent to the Oregon Secretary of State's Office but no reply has yet been received. We made the change at the request of the IRS agent who is reviewing our application for tax exempt status.

The minutes of the previous meeting had been circulated among the board members via email and approved.

Meeting of 8/7/08; attending: Benj, James, Felicia, Rob, Evangelina, Wayne, Dorothy, Jack Meacham

  1. Announcements: Benj explained to us the details of the 'Walk for the Gold' event for the Special Olympics which will be on August 23rd at Alton Baker Park. Members of WCPCA are invited to take part as individuals. Details about the day's activities are at walkforthegold.com. The board endorsed this activity.

  2. The Paypal payment setup on our website is working well at this time, Felicia indicated.

  3. James explained that Bob Crites, whom we had nominated for the Sergeant Shriver Award offered by the NPCA, wasn't selected for this honor. The board was very disappointed because Bob is deserving. James will talk to Kevin Quigly, president of NRPCV, about the matter and let the board know what he learns.

  4. Dorothy reported that she, Rolly, Evangelina, and Felicia have worked on WCPCA's response to the IRS regarding the organization's application for tax exempt status. James and Wayne met with Dorothy yesterday to go over the response which was completed this week. Dorothy sent it to the IRS on our due date, 8/7/08, and it will be received on 8/8/08.

    Dorothy called the IRS agent involved to let her know that the response was on its way. She received a voice mail reply in which the agent indicated that she expected to review the response next week.

    Dorothy explained a new restriction that will influence our funding of humanitarian projects outside of the US. We will be limited to Peace Corps Partnership Projects. Otherwise we have to satisfy the many new Homeland Security requirements to prevent the funding of terrorist organizations. We decided to avoid this requirement at least for the time being.

    The board thanked all of those involved for their work.

  5. Evangelina gave the treasurer's report which is summarized below:

    General FundBeryl's Memorial fund
    Cash in checking acct.$2,745Principal Life Income Bond$20,000
    OCCU 6 mo. CD$2,512.30Money Market$2,612
    Totals$5,257.30 $22,612

    Three year investment in the Calvert Fund for its humanitarian work: $2,000. This investment plus 1% interest will be returned to WCPCA in early September. The board has previously decided to add this amount to Beryl's Memorial fund. That deposit will bring the total in the Memorial fund to approximately $24,612. We'll be close to our initial goal of raising $25,000 for this fund.

    Eugene Celebration: We have paid the fee for the booth and James will pay the fee for the parade on Monday.

    We talked about polling the membership. Felicia reported that with our new software she can create polls that members can respond to online. There is, for instance, a poll now on our website that asks members what kinds of articles they would be most likely to purchase from WCPCA. This poll also keeps track of the responses and that result is available also on the website. Given this situation the board felt that it wasn't necessary to do business with Survey Monkey.

    Next week Evangelina, James, and Dorothy will meet with Charlie Ward, our volunteer accountant, to talk about the organization's federal tax liability. We'll also review all of our Oregon state reporting requirements to verify that we are handling them correctly. The former inquiry is necessary because we've received a letter from the IRS asking us to file but on a form that, we feel, doesn't apply to the organization.

  6. Felicia's gave the communication coordinator's report: Note the previous information about polling. She handed out a draft of information about WCPCA that is for a flier to be handed out at the Eugene Celebration and other events. This informs the public about our organization and invites interested people to join the organization. The information is posted on the board only section of the website.

    Board members are asked to read the information and make any comments, suggestions, etc. to Felicia and Evangelina who will continue working on the flier. We need to have it ready by the second week in September.

    Felicia talked about a request for funding for a program called 'Running for Water' which is in Ghana. The board decided against this due to funding restrictions that are required with the receipt of a tax exempt status. (See previous explanation of this requirement.)

    Felicia is hoping to work with Deb to organize more outdoor activities for WCPCA members. She asked the board's opinion of our cosponsoring these activities with other organizations. The board in general likes this idea. We just have to avoid political activities.

  7. We talked about possible fundraising activities and several ideas were put forward. The board was especially enthusiastic about Jack's suggestion of writing a cook book with recipes from the host countries of our members. We liked the idea of a cook book that included identifying sources for unusual ingredients either locally or online, short descriptions of the country and/or the typical occasion for the dishes included, and photos.

    James asked Wayne, the fundraising committee chair, to develop this idea with the committee and think about having a cookbook ready to be marketed in the fall, 2009, in time for holiday purchases. Wayne agreed to have the committee work on this matter and return to the board with further ideas.

  8. Membership: We agreed to talk in detail about membership issues at our September meeting. We feel that we can approach this subject better when we know if we have received tax exempt status or at least when we'll receive it. Topics that we need to discuss include recruitment and the dues schedule. James would like to write a personal letter to previous and prospective members as part of a possible fall recruitment campaign. We need to recruit members before printing a membership directory for the fall.

    Dorothy has been out of town so there was not a report on current membership numbers.

  9. James reported about possibilities for non-profit organizations to have free tables at both the Saturday Market and the Holiday Market. The board is interested in pursuing these possibilities to publicize the organization and to sell merchandise. We'd like to coordinate any work in this area with the U of O Peace Corps recruiter.

  10. Jack Meacham was in charge of identifying prospective projects for funding. He explained how he polled and met with board members to select a Peace Corps Partnership project to receive the $700 that the board had already set aside for this purpose. The first choice, a bee keeping project in Uganda, has already been fully funded. Thus the board selected another project to fund which is a school garden fence in Gambia. The project needs $707 and the board agreed to fund it fully.

    This is a project to build a fence around a school garden to prevent livestock from entering the area and destroying the garden. The money will be used to purchase materials. The fence will be built with donated labor from the community. We'll ask the PC more about the project and request photos.

    Note: Since the board meeting Evangelina has contributed the funds and they have been acknowledged by the PC.

  11. Eugene Celebration: We reviewed our plans to take part in the Eugene Celebration on September 12-14. WCPCA members and interested parties will be encouraged to march in the parade on Saturday morning, 9/13, and then to staff a booth on Saturday and Sunday, 9/13 and 9/14. We have no activities on Friday, 9/12.

    People who will work on setting up the booth are: James, Benj, Evangelina, Josh. We need more volunteers to staff the booth and to take it down as well as to organize items for the parade. James is coordinating the activities and inviting people to contact him to volunteer time. We expect the new U of O recruiter to take part and to supply some visuals and literature to hand out.

    We agreed to purchase several more flags, up to a cost of about $100, to carry in the parade. James will work on this.

    Evangelina will work on printing information regarding WCPCA to hand out at our booth at the Celebration. She's also interested in purchasing candy to hand out during the parade. The board agreed to this.

  12. We discussed the frequency of our potlucks and other social gatherings. There was some interest in having a potluck with a program each month except possibly during the summer. Jack suggested alternating a potluck with a program and purely social gatherings of different types including attending a movie, etc. The PC recruiter organized such gatherings during this last year. We'll continue this conversation at another meeting.

  13. We have a sign up sheet at each potluck and Benj offered to contact new people who attend a potluck.

  14. We discussed the procedure for the election of officers that will take place this fall. Articles VIII of both the constitution and bylaws explain that each year we need to have a nominating committee of 1 to 3 members and that the election must take place at a November meeting of the general membership. This could be at a potluck.

    We agreed that Wayne and Dorothy will organize a nominating committee of members who are not on the board and that nominations will be announced to the membership in October. We felt that there should be a general encouragement of the membership to nominate board members and also, consistent with our policy of several years, that the nominating committee should avoid contested races. There are ample opportunities for interested members to serve WCPCA as officers or at large board members. We also note that board members must be paid up members of the organization.

  15. We discussed one potential advertising activity for WCPCA: having the name of the organization and photos flash on the screen at the Bijou before the scheduled film. No decision was made pending a full consideration of such matters. This would cost $125 for one month.

  16. Coming potluck and other meetings:

    September 4th: next board meeting at 7:15 pm at Dorothy's home.

    September 13 nd 14: Eugene Celebration activities.

    September 19, 6:00 pm: Potluck at Benj's home.

    October 9th: board meeting at 7:15 pm at Rob Dwan's home, 887 Sunset Dr., Springfield; Rob's home is a geodesic dome on Kelly Butte in Springfield.

    James will work on scheduling a program for the September potluck.

Minutes by Dorothy
Approved 8/13/08 via email.