OPA Board Minutes, August 16, 2022

Minutes of the Oregon Poetry Association (OPA) Board Meeting of August 16, 2022

The meeting was scheduled to begin at 6:30 pm via Zoom.

Present: Sue Fagalde Lick (President), Nancy Christopherson (Vice President and Adult Contest Chair), Dan Liberthson (Secretary), Rana Tahir (Treasurer and Webmaster), Dave Mehler (Membership Chair and Publications Liaison), Efraín Diaz-Horna (at-large)

Not Present: Lorna Rose-Hahn (Membership Co-Chair, Outreach Chair, Events Committee Chair), Priscilla Hunter (Historian), Lauren Mallett (Cascadia Contest Chair)

I. Sue called the meeting to order at 6:38 pm.

II. Approval of Minutes

Approval of the July 12, 2022 OPA board meeting minutes was moved and seconded, and the board voted unanimously to approve.

III. Officer Reports


A. President’s Report (Sue Fagalde Lick)

1. Sue attended an event in Manzanita featuring Oregon Poet Laureate Anis Mojgani, who read, took questions, and interacted with the audience. The event included a Poetry Walk, in which poems were displayed around town on plaques that were raffled to fund poetry-related activities.

2. The OPA was unfortunately not represented at the Willamette Writers Fair in Portland as no one could make it there.

3. The Mid-Valley Poetry Society, very active thanks to Eleanor Berry, will present an event on August 28 at a Salem winery that will include poetry readings with a musical accompaniment. Sue will participate. Details are on the OPA Facebook page.

4. Rana has the OPA promotional materials and will transfer them to another board member after she leaves the board in October.

B. Vice President (Nancy Christopherson)

The Verseweavers 26/2021 reading of July 26 was attended by 19 participants. Susan Woods Morse was introduced and recognized for her contributions to the 2021 anthology as OPA’S Adult Contest Chairperson. The Verseweavers 26/2021 reading of August 9 was attended by 17 participants, including three of the contest judges. Dale Champlin was introduced and recognized for her contributions to OPA as the Verseweavers and Newsletter editor.  

C. Secretary

No report.

D. Treasurer

The OPA’s net worth is 46,984.60

E. Historian (Priscilla Hunter)

Priscilla’s report follows:

This afternoon my granddaughter Stella Solaas and I (mostly her) successfully got my computer and me up to a maybe still slow but working speed and I’m ready to start storing 2022 files in the developing categories of this year’s online OPA Historian Book “vault” at my Google Drive.

Basic Info on our Historian Book Storage Vault at [email protected], recovery email (during my term) [email protected]. Can’t remember the password of this gmail account right now, but I’ll look it up and try to get it into the minutes or a preserved place somewhere so the next historian can have full access from startup.

Profile Info in Google Services: No photo. Name: Historian OPA, Birthday: 21 March 1956 (no known reason), Gender: (Rather not say).

What’s in the Vault?

The OPA Historian Book for 2022 is my initial focus as historian this year and I’ve now opened it in a Gmail Drive storage “box,” currently as just a skeleton form. I’ve already set up a couple of folders for repeating activities to get things started; so far I have only set in the storage space two folders, one to hold Meeting Agendas and one for Adopted Meeting Minutes. I have put sub-folders in each using the meeting dates I have in my calendar. These folders still have no content.

I assume that these two initial folder categories will be side-by-side with very interesting others that I will make for the 2022 “book.” The folders will be the repository for documents that board members write or sponsor and then submit to the historian for inclusion in the OPA historical record. The folders in each year’s section of the OPA Gmail Drive vault will contain information and evidence about OPA or related activities relevant to each of the named areas of interest and responsibility and that are submitted for the Historian Book.

I imagine the book’s “table of contents” (if we ever get one) to chronicle, point to a year’s permanent record of board-sponsored activities such as annual and other reports to the Board, special projects, contest organizers, descriptions, winners and judges, workshops, readings, membership lists, various kinds of achievements the board wants to recognize, and OPA collaborations, but I am still learning the OPA organization and this list of potential activities doesn’t need to limit informing categories in any way. With the help of the board, the 2022 Historian Book can be organized to fit and preserve our real experience as an active, well-thought-of poetry organization.

Next Steps

Whenever I receive an email from a board member, or from another validated OPA representative who submits a new document for inclusion in the Historian Book, that document must be a Word document and must be submitted as an email attachment.

Please submit documents for the historian book to [email protected].

The submitter’s email should briefly inform me of the nature of the activity being reported and provide any necessary or useful information about the attached document to be saved or the activity it describes and intends to document.

With that information in hand, I will find or, with the submitter’s help, create, an appropriate folder for the document, adjusting the folders’ and subfolders’ organization as needed. If I am baffled by any document, I will ask for clarification for from the submitter or the board before storing it in the 2022 book.

IV. Committee Reports

A. Social Media (Lorna Rose-Hahn)

No Report

B. Membership and publications (Dave Mehler)

OPA currently has 338 members.

C. Adult Contests (Nancy Christopherson)

The Fall contest is underway, with 22 submissions so far (16 from members 6 from nonmembers). There are no entries yet for the 30 and under and Spanish language categories. Nancy has put a notice about the contest on the University of Oregon systems. She intends to drop the 30 and under category from the contest next Spring due to low submissions.

D. Youth Contests (Lauren Mallett)

No Report.

E. Webmaster (Rana Tahir)

There are still problems with Wild Apricot. Rana has added a link to enable cookies and a warning about issues using Safari with Wild Apricot. People will be prompted to register using Submittable if they have problems with Wild Apricot and Dave will enter the data from Submittable into Wild Apricot.

V. Old Business:

A. Nominating committee/elections (Dave Mehler, Emmett Wheatfall, Lauren Mallett)

Dave will put out the ballot with nominees around Sept 1.

B. Banta committee (Lorna Rose-Hahn, Jennifer Rood, Efraín Diaz-Horna)

A link on the website provides a form for the nomination, but is not working. Rana will fix this.  Nominations have been sparse. Sue will try to get the ball rolling.

C. Conference Planning

The conference committee (Dave, Sue and Rana) have chosen the workshops, created a tentative schedule, and set prices ($45 for members, $55 for nonmembers). There are 8 confirmed presenters and we are waiting for 2 more. Dave has links to Submittable for people to use if they can’t register on Wild Apricot. He will manually check the ones on Submittable and enter the data on Wild Apricot. Everything is set for the conference except for the Banta nominees.

The Library Undergraduate Poetry Prize winners selected, who get $500 from OPA, were promised a reading at the conference. After discussion, it was decided to schedule their reading immediately after the last workshop.

VI. New Business

Dave assembled a fee waver proposal and motion, as follows:

Regarding fee waivers, for conference, membership and contest entries, I’m envisioning 3-5 in each category, and that we put it out there on the website to make people aware these waivers might be offered (whether this is offered as a donation by the organization, or someone decides to sponsor through allocated donations for these waivers) or both.

I am assuming these waivers will be for people facing economic burdens or hardships who would choose to participate in the benefits of the organization but are unable to do so.

We would post something about the availability of the waivers on the OPA website.

We would also make OPA members aware that they can now donate to fund these waivers and specify how they want their donations to be directed: to sponsor conference, membership or contest entry fees for those who cannot afford them.

The Membership Chair or Treasurer could field these requests, and waivers would be awarded anonymously when

1) a person inquires
2) someone nominates another to receive this aid
3) the board becomes aware of a need or to actively seeks members or non-members to received the award.

Funds from donations designated for sponsorships would be set aside to draw from for the sponsorships.Motion by Dave: I move that we set up a fee waiver infrastructure to publicize and begin accepting donations/sponsorships from the membership, and also for the treasurer to allocate a category of budgeted funds to use to waive fees (3-5 awards to start) in each of the three following categories: membership registration, conference registration, or contest entry fees. Criteria for consideration for fee waivers would be anyone the board becomes aware of via personal application or nomination who is in economic hardship and who would benefit from participation in the OPA but cannot afford the fees.

Dave commented that the total amount set aside to fund the waivers would be about $1000, which would be contributed by the Treasurer, after which donations and further contributions from the treasury would be added as necessary.

VIII. Announcements

The next board meeting will be on September 13 at 6:30 pm.

IX. Adjournment

The meeting was adjourned at 7:21 pm.

Minutes recorded and prepared by Dan Liberthson, Secretary

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