OPA Board Meeting

Monday, November 7, 2022

1.  MEETING CONVENED AT 6:33PM

Present

Sue Fagalde Lick, President

Nancy Christopherson, VP

Efrain Diaz-Horna, Membership

Melissa Boderick Eaton, Treasurer

Debra Wöhrmann, Secretary

Lauren Mallett

Jade Rosina McCutcheon

Bob Sterry

Lorna Rose Hahn

1. MINUTES FOR THE OCT. 9 MEETING WERE APPROVED.

1. APPOINTMENT OF A NEW BOARD MEMBER: BOB STERRY

1. OFFICER REPORTS

1. President (Sue):
2. NFSPS Presidents’ Meeting, Nov. 6, 2022

Only ten state societies sent a rep. for Slam–including Oregon.  

Next years’ conference in Iowa: June 21-26

First three days are the slam contest.

Theme: “Catch Poetry, Stage and Page”

A shared database is being created to help associations share ideas.

Talk of using OWL as a tool for hybrid meetings—and Melissa offered to investigate OWL for OPA.

IPA (Iowa) has a monthly podcast—collaborates with other orgs.

Illinois has 7 chapters, and Colorado has 5 chapters

• Sue read for Poetics Corvallis last Monday and met lots of young people who were enthusiastic. (Host invited Sue to stay at his house, fed her breakfast—and she recommends this venue.)

• VP Report (Nancy):   No report
• Secretary (Debra): Need Rana Tahir’s mailing address and will send a hard copy of October’s minutes to both Melissa and Rana for their use in transferring Treasurer’s duties.
• Treasurer (Melissa): Bumpy transition, but she just received a big box of papers. She and Rana will go to the banks (Portland/Bend) simultaneously to make the transfer happen.

Melissa can’t get into the OPA email and hasn’t heard from Rana, previous treasurer.

• Historian Position: Vacant—with discussion of whether the historian will remain a board member’s position. Change requires a vote by OPA members.

Sue said purpose of the Historian is to create a database so anyone can see past presidents and other history of the organization.

• COMMITTEE REPORTS
• Social Media (Lorna): Facebook is where we see most of our traffic. She sometimes posts on Instagram, but Twitter is not a good fit for OPA.
• Membership (Efrain): David and Efrain are trying to get in touch. Sue suggested Efrain create a new dedicated email address for OPA work.
• Adult Contest (Nancy)
• All winners and judges have now been paid.
• Spring contest begins Feb. 1
• Youth Contests (Lauren):
• Next contest will open Feb.-May
• Manningham Trust Student poetry contest—Hard to manage their guidelines, but Lauren has reached out to families and young poets to support them.
• Webmaster (Jade/Sue): Who’s doing what is still unclear.
• Jade is happy to work with Stacy—who is a paid, non-member.
• Sue emphasized that Wild Apricot is not a part of website management and is used only for signing up for an event, membership, etc.
• Many outstanding posts need to be either posted or, if too old, deleted.
• Sue has been trying to pull together a list of what’s happening around the state—to post on the web
• Jade and Sue plan to be in touch about how to manage the web.
• Nancy reiterated that she will post all contest info.

• Old Business
• Post Office Box: Debra will pick up mail but needs info on how—plus key or code.
• OPA Materials: Rana has materials that need to be picked up, and Efrain will contact her. Materials will be used at in-person events when we have them.
• Certificates of appreciation for retiring board members: Efrain is working on a design and will send his ideas out this week to all board members.
• Free Memberships for young prize winners need to be given—Sue said she would do it.
• Banta awards have been delivered—and Lorna needs to be reimbursed.
• Post-Conference Poll: Sue thinks the poll should have been given at the conference.

Few responses: 29 out of 70 attendee.

• Next Year’s Conference:
• Efrain suggests a hybrid-conference (Zoom and FB) in future, and Sue and others noted that many organizations are doing this now. OPA has the money to hire tech. support for offering a hybrid. Sue said the recent national conference was a hybrid and well-done. The plan is to investigate this further.
• Bob suggested that such a conference could rotate its location around the state.

VII: NEW BUSINESS

1. Big Foot Regional Poetry Slam (connected with Slamlandia)—they’d like OPA to be a sponsor: No plans were made.
2. Mid Valley Group is applying for Marion Cultural Development Corporation grant (Eleanor Berry is handling this).  
3. Event Planning
4. Open Mic— “Holiday/Anti-Holiday” event

Tuesday, Dec. 13 – 7pm is on the calendar

• Bob suggested something at Artichoke Music (new events manager): He was asked to host a spoken-word night. (SE Portland)
• Bob is also on the Literary Arts Committee (Clackamas County) and would like help with the Writing Contests the organization will sponsor.

Nancy will send Bob some information.

• Verseweaver: Two Zoom readings, Readings for the winning poem

Tuesday, March 14 

Thursday, March 16

• National Poetry Month – Will need to plan events

Debra suggested the Kennedy School as a fun place to schedule an event (Portland)

• Oregon Poetry Collection sponsors at the University of Oregon in Eugene would like to do an event with OPA: No plans were made.
• Portland Book Fest – OPA could have a table next year

VIII. OTHER

1. OPA Adult Contest for 30 and Under category—in response to Debra’s concern over dropping the category: Nancy responded that keeping the category is costly and not financially feasible given the scant number of participants. Young writers may submit work to any or all of the contest’s five other categories. The Spanish Language category will also be dropped. Participation numbers in both categories have been very low despite Nancy’s best, repeated efforts to advertise, invite, and encourage participation.
2. New Board Members:  Bob suggested finding a board member who is young and someone from a diverse community. This led to a long discussion about origins and the complex possibilities for offering a contest that would be “inclusive”.
3. Change: Efrain talked about his experience with Spanish-language poetry and the changes in the community in the U.S.—and the changes across the Americas and throughout the world.

Hispanic Origins of Oregon has recently been published by Western Oregon University.

• Connecting with Youth: OPA already has connections with U. of Oregon, and maybe we can find a young person to join the board.

Next Meeting scheduled for Tuesday, December 6 @ 6:30 p.m.

MEETING ADJOURNED: 8:10

Minutes recorded by Debra Wöhrmann