Board of Directors’ Meeting
Wednesday, November 10, 2010
Meeting Minutes
Attending: Kenneth Howard, Alan Ours, Julian Jackson, Al Lawson, Doug White, Lee Gilmour, Chris Hobby, Tom Couch, Jean Lord, Gordon Maner, Paul Radford, Steve Durden, Isaiah Hugley, Janice Eidson, Andrea Arnold.
Kenneth Howard called the meeting to order and called on Alan Ours to provide an invocation. Following the invocation, Kenneth asked for a motion to approve the minutes from the March Board of Directors’ Meeting. The minutes were unanimously approved with no changes.
Julian Jackson reviewed the September financial statements with the group. Janice Eidson advised that two major expenses had been paid since the September statement. Those two items being the $4000 contribution to ICMA and the other cost of the dinner and other expenses incurred for the ICMA Conference.
Julian then reviewed three proposed budgets for 2011. One budget with no increase in dues payment, one with a $25 increase in dues payment and one with a $25 dues increase and the addition of corporate memberships/sponsorships.
Kenneth asked the board to put the proposed budgets aside for further discussion of dues increase and the corporate sponsorship information.
Kenneth reported that he had asked several members to submit proposals for a dues increase structure. The officers met in late September to discuss the proposals and decided to recommend an across the board of $25 increase for all. A motion was made and seconded to present the $25 to the membership. The motion was approved.
Next, Kenneth reviewed a proposal to realign the GCCMA District, to try to make representation on the board more in line with the number of members in each area. The new map breaks out the metro Atlanta area. After some discussion, a motion was made and seconded to approve the new district map. The motion was approved. Kenneth informed the board that this would be a change to the Constitution and Bylaws, and would therefore require a 2/3 vote of the membership.
The Corporate membership, Sponsorships and Exhibitor proposal was reviewed and discussed in detail. The board felt that more detail should be developed before presenting the proposal to the general membership. Kenneth asked for volunteers to serve on a committee to flesh out the idea. Chris Hobby, Isaiah Hugley, Doug White, and Julian Jackson volunteered to serve and Kenneth said he’d chair the committee. Suggestions were made to look at the Florida model and also to review the programs of ACCG and GMA. Kenneth asked that this line item be removed from the general membership meeting agenda.
Jean Lord made a comment that she got calls from interns and students asking about a reduced meeting registration fee for the convention. She asked the board to consider the request.
Andrea Arnold reported on the recent ICMA conference. She said attendance had been great in San Jose. A few things that she wanted to share with the group were that the Ethics committee at ICMA was working on guidelines for Executive Compensation (to include salary, retirement, special benefits, etc.) She also reported that Marta Perego was working on an agreement that ICMA will be asking state groups to enter into with them. ICMA is also changing the nominating process and hope to create more diversity on their board and committees. They also plan to add a third international Vice President.
Andrea also announced that ICMA had just announced the call for proposals from the southeast region to host the 2019 ICMA Conference. Kenneth Howard then passed around a letter of interest and the RFP to the board. GCCMA has expressed interest in hosting the meeting in Atlanta.
Janice Eidson reported that the 501C(3) application had been approved by the IRS and also that Officers and Directors’ Liability Insurance had been obtained, as requested at the spring meeting. Janice also reported that new website was receiving approximately 7000 hits per week, most on the membership page.
Gordon Maner made a report from the Carl Vinson Institute of Government. He said that Laura Meadows was unable to attend due to the workload of planning the Biennial for legislators and the Newly Elected Officials Institute for ACCG. He reported that Dennis Epps had moved from the Archway program over to the Institute. He also announced that a replacement for Harry Hayes had been selected and would soon be announced. Gordon also announced that he would be retiring January 1, but would continue to work on a contract basis with GMA, ACCG and GCCMA until a replacement was appointed next spring/summer.
Jean Lord reported that attendance at the Fall meeting was at 107, a surprise due to the economy. She also asked the board to mark March 23-25 (Athens) on their calendar for the Spring meeting and October 26-28 (Augusta) on their calendar for the Fall meeting.
Kenneth then asked the representatives from GMA and the Carl Vinson Institute to exit the room while the board discussed administrative services contract proposals.
After a 20 minute private discussion, Kenneth called for the adjournment. Alan asked that the idea of reduced registration be discussed, but suggested that the sponsorship committee should consider this issue also.
The meeting was adjourned.