Board Minutes September 12, 2018

OREGON POETRY ASSOCIATION BOARD MEETING: September 12, 2018 (SKYPE)

 

Participants: Lisa, Lynn, Shirley, Joy, Erik, Charles, and Stella

 

President’s report:

 

Lisa has recruited a board member candidate. Jennifer Rood has agreed to join the board if elected. Erik has recruited Alan Contreras as a candidate. Lisa, Joy and Erik’s positions are opening. These will be three-year terms. Erik will run for office again. Lisa and Joy are retiring. Dale is an alternate who is willing to move onto the board if elected. Alan might be a good candidate for the alternate slot. He has work conflicts until January 2019. Dale, Erik, Jennifer and Alan’s names will on the ballot. Membership will be invited to nominate from the floor. Lisa and Lynn will prepare the paper ballot. Motion passed to create the ballot.

 

OPA Website: Shirley has trained to do content, but Tiel will continue doing technical aspects. Content for website will continue going to Tiel until Shirley is finished with conference details. After a review of our website security the board decided no action was needed at present.

 

Verseweavers was not mailed to some 2016 and 2017 winners who were no longer OPA members. Requests to past contest chairs for addresses of contestants will be made. A notice on the OPA website will request any 2016 and 2017 winners not receiving a copy to contact OPA.  Stella volunteered to be more involved with Verseweavers in an effort to catch these details in future issues. Past issues of this publication will be transferred from Eleanor to Dale at the conference.

 

Amy Miller, adult contest chair, reports the fall contest numbers are lower than spring. OPA actually generated a small profit on the spring contest and lost dollars on the fall contest.

 

Stella is collecting OPA mail from the post office while Diane is traveling. This is a critical function while registrations and checks arrive for the conference.

 

Annual report: Only one board committee provided Lisa with a report of their activities. Lynn requested other committees send a few lines ASAP about their work for the report. Lisa should receive a copy. Shirley will provide photos from student awards and photos and a brief message about last year’s conference and the upcoming conference.

 

Treasurer’s report: The board reviewed a detailed financial report. The books balance. A deadline was missed for a grant application to support the student contest. Funding will be pursued with other sources.

 

Current Projects:

 

Membership: OPA now has 308 members. This is an impressive increase. A few Verseweavers were returned by the postal service due to inaccurate addresses. Charles phoned these former members and found two willing to rejoin OPA. OPA is above projected budget by $400+ in membership. It is hoped that the membership will approve a new membership rate proposal. The board discussed an implementation date for the new rate. It was decided that any renewal or new membership made in 2019 would be at the new rate. People signing up for new membership at the conference will receive a year and a half at the old rate. OPA members generally renew in March. Charles advocated to separate renewal date and spring contest dates to simplify tasks for membership chair. The board discussed this idea, but made no decision.

 

U of O Poetry Prize reception. Catering has been arranged. Six readers will be presenting poems. The university will print broadsides and programs. Kim Stafford hopes to attend the reception. The volumes already catalogued in the Oregon Poetry Collection are moving to the second floor browsing room in the Knight Library. This room is open each week day. This is an important improvement over past accessibility. Erik suggested that poets and writers visit the collection and use the books as source material for articles submitted to the OPA website.

 

Student Contest: OPA will use an email blast and Facebook posts instead of a large expensive mailing. A co-chair is needed to handle notification and publication of Cascadia. Stella volunteered to research the tasks that Tiel accomplished in past years.

 

Conference planning progress: The registration number for the September conference now stands at seventy-seven. Sixty of those are paid attendees. Another reminder to members will be done by email and by Facebook. OPA members can share OPA Facebook reminder posts to their own Facebook page.

 

Attrition rate for the conference’s Sunday workshops will probably be similar to past years. Smaller rooms have been arranged to save on renting the big room for another day. Board members will be assigned to each of the two Sunday rooms to wrap-up activities and remind participants to turn in evaluation sheets.

 

Book Room: With fifteen-minute breaks between workshops participants will have plenty of time for browsing the book room and getting coffee. Coffee and tea are available until afternoon. Coffee will be available for evening and morning events. Bruce and Lynn will man the book room. Erik and Shirley will provide relief. Joy will work the registration table.

 

Lynn is preparing the annual report for members. All board members are requested to provide relevant statistics and project details.

 

Erik volunteered to become secretary if he is re-elected to the board.

 

Next Meeting: Sunday, 9/30, 1:15 PM, Umpqua Room, Valley River Inn

 

 

 

Respectfully submitted,

Joy McDowell, OPA board secretary

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