- Call to Order 6:35pm
Present
Bob Sterry, president
Aaron Erhardt, treasurer
Debra Elisa, secretary
Sherri Levine
Kate Ristau, Vice President
Juan Cervantes
David Goodrum
Corine Hughes
A Reading by Corinne Hughes:
Ethel Roming Fuller
First female poet laureate of Oregon
“Doing Dishes” - Minutes of October 30 th Meeting
Corinne moved and Sherri seconded approval of the minutes from October 30 th
meeting. - Letter to members: The president has written a letter reaching out to our
members and would-be members to ask questions and also to express their
interest in getting involved with OPA. - Board Member Roles-Board members serve to make decisions for the OPA, but
we also want to invite other OPA members to get involved and help with
important functions such as the contests and planning for and offering the annual
conference. Already, several important OPA functions are performed by non-
board members. - Conference 2024
a. Location—Agate Beach, north of Newport
b. Theme—Need to choose
Something about community/being together
- Send idea to Bob at President’s email
c. Keynote speakers—An opening and a closing keynote
Choose two keynotes that will compliment each other and not be “the
same” - Send suggestions
d. Date–October 4-5: We will also negotiate for a good rate for people to
come a day early or stay and extra day since we will be at the beach.
e. We need ideas for sessions
- Contest Committee Report—committee met in late-November
a. Three Contests
- Youth contest has a definitive schedule: in the spring (Feb-May) with reading in
early June, according to school schedule. - All-Spanish Contest will take place in the summer.
- One adult contest will happen in the fall.
b. Managers for each of the contests: - Corinne will manage the Youth
- Juan will manage Spanish contest
- David and Sherri will manage the Adult, and this contest will be “reimagined” as
seems to best serve the community. - Managers should also ask for help from the board and from others as needed.
c. Managers for each contest should give Bob the dates for submissions ASAP.
d. Committee Managers will Meet Monday, Dec. 18 @ 7pm, and Kate will host
this meeting
- Membership: 305 Members
a. Bob is working on rebuilding the board because Sher Schwarz needed to
resign. He will contact those candidates who received the next most votes
for board service.
b. Outreach to lapsed members:
- contact and remind them to renew.
c. How to increase membership: - use the contests as a way for people to want to join the OPA
- announcements about “Conference at the Beach”
- highlight the differences between this year’s conference and past
conferences - remind people to renew
- tie in the conference rate to membership rate
- write a draft of an invite/something catchy to send around and post on
social media and to send out (debra) - offer special rate for renewing membership
- Membership rate is low but will remain the same for now
- Website updates and other information
- Working toward a central local for all OPA communication
- Emails are available for all OPA Board members
- Safari users continue to have trouble with Wild Apricot
- Webmaster raising rates, but it is still reasonable, at a discount
- Finance
a. Treasurers report: $46,000 balance
MCDC grant money: Some money from a grant needs to be returned
Youth contest: some checks still outstanding
Adult Contest brought in some money $890 left with some checks
outstanding
Publication: $112 from people buying through the website
Fee Waiver Fund: 0 meant for people to attend conference free
b. Forecast: Wild Apricot allows only 500 people on contact list at our current
level, and we have reached this level:
- Better to make the jump to next level rather than kick people off
the list because most of those “non-members” on the list have
been somehow active within the past year. - The cost will increase $90 more a month
c. Bookkeeping: Simply Honest Bookkeeping with Sonia Crawford can put
budget into QuickBooks and work with Aaron to get us started more
cleanly in 2024. - This will make it easier to forecast and offer a simpler process in
the future for OPA’s financial workings.
- Insurance (Read email from NFSPS)
a. One quote from American Family- Bob plans to get more quotes and
wants to have at least coverage for the contest - Any Other Business
a. Clackamas County Lit. Arts judges needed for poetry contest
b. Liaison with All Classical Radio (https://www.allclassical.org/a-new-home-
in-2024/)
c. Cascadia’s location is under discussion
d. Meeting with Bank of America June 6 to confirm chance of names on
account - Next Meeting: Monday, January 8, 2024 @ 6:30
Adjourned 8:30pm
Minutes recorded by Debra Elisa
December 4, 2023