May 31, 2009 Board Meeting Minutes
JWOC Board of Directors’ Meeting Minutes
May 31, 2009
Held in Truckee – conference calling available
I) Open Planning Session: 9 – 11:30am Present: Philippa Nigg Dawn Johnson Larry Kurmel Rebecca Johnson Andrea Ross – Executive Director The group discussed the role of the board looking at how the board and board members can best support JWOC, and then drew from these ideas the standards to be set for board membership. These will be typed up by Dawn, sent out for discussion and finally the board will vote on introducing them. The group discussed setting up the following 4 committees – Executive, Finance, Donor and Fund raising, PR and Publicity plus who would be on each committee to be voted on during the afternoon session. The group discussed establishing a group to be known as ‘The Ambassadors’ which would be formed by inviting people who have shown support, have a continuing interest or have specific ongoing interests, to join. From this group a sub-committee would be formed to represent the group as a Board of Advisors; to be voted on during the afternoon session. II) Board Meeting 12:30 – 3pm Present: As above plus (on conference call): Travis Carley John Walsh Excused: Brandon Ross, Narla Phay, Donna McAleer The attending members of the board unanimously adopted the minutes of the Feb.09 Meeting The attending members of the board re-elected Philippa, Brandon, Narla and Donna to the board. The group accepted Dr. Loren O’Connor’s resignation from the board and suggested he be invited to be an Ambassador. Reports: Executive Director’s Report: Andrea asked for questions arising from the reports that Camilla and Andy had provided. Several directors commented that the reports were well-prepared and informative. Rebecca asked how many of the scholarship students had sponsors. Andrea replied 100% of students have sponsors who have agreed to pay up to 4 years of tuition. The majority of sponsors from last year, when contacted, agreed to continue sponsoring their student. Those students whose sponsor did not re-commit have been given new sponsors. All the students starting in April have new sponsors. Rebecca asked Andrea about the concern expressed in the Laos report re Nicole’s apparent weaknesses on the administrative side of the job. Andrea replied that Nicole’s strengths were in her passion for the job, her excellent relations with the local people including government officials, the village chief, school staff, the scholarship students and the students in the classes, and that she is very involved herself in the programs. Her weaknesses are that she does not have Andy and Camilla’s attention to detail and documenting. Andrea added that the Laos program feels very like the JWOC program did in its early days and suggested that the board had two options when/if it adopts Laos into the JWOC programs: to keep Nicole on working part-time for JWOC as she does now accepting that a future director will upgrade the reporting etc as has happened in Cambodia; or to replace her at the same time Laos is adopted into the programs. Andrea assured the group that based on the amazing response they had received for the position of Manager for the Micro-loan program there would be no difficulty recruiting a replacement at the same salary scale as Nicole is currently receiving. Andrea updated the Board on the search process for a Microfinance Director. Many highly-qualified candidates applied and there has been a first round of interviews with Andrea and Brandon. Hasan has volunteered to interview the finalists and assess their experience and qualifications to specifically manage financial projects. Dawn asked for clarification of the report’s statements on the relationship between JWOC and Journeys Within. Andrea explained that the comments were about the guests’ tours and that Journeys Within will monitor their frequency and size to minimize impact on the local communities. Treasurer’s Report: Larry directed the group’s attention to the accounts that had been sent out and stated that he felt the accounts were basically strong. Dawn asked if there was concern that donations were down compared to the same quarter last year. Andrea said that the Collette foundation donation was not included in donations although it should have been and this would have made the difference very small. She also said that she had received the end of May accounts from Camilla and these showed that at this time donations year to date were up slightly over the same time period last year. Philippa commented that this seemed very encouraging as we had started the year concerned the recession would seriously affect our donations in 2009. Donor Report: Dawn showed the group visuals showing the rise and fall in donations by month. The peaks in October and December were explained by a couple of large donors in each of these periods. Overall the graphs show an increase in the number of major donations and an average growth of 17 new donors/month for 2009 to date. Dawn also reported that the email campaign “Se’s Scholarship Challenge” had a successful 8% response rate from current donors. She described plans to use the donor database for a Lapsed Donor mailing and to initiate a Matching Donor campaign. Andrea showed the group the presentation sent to Clifford Laughton as an example of what is sent to donors of over $5,000. (Attached for those who have not seen it) Voting Items: The attending members of the board unanimously adopted the changes recommended to Special Issues Relating to On-line Voting. Before voting on the amendments to the by-laws the group agreed that the current wording of the mission statement, which was to be included in the amended By-laws, would allow JWOC to help in emergencies in the communities they are serving. Article IV Section 1 in the discussion of board size, agreed to add “ideally an odd number”. Article IV Section 5 the section to be added was reduced to “Consistent attendance at board meetings and participation in on-going business are essential in order for a member to make informed decisions.” Article V the heading was changed to: Committees, Board of Advisors and Ambassadors Appointment to committees was changed from “by a majority vote of the directors” to “by the chair”. With the amendments above the attending members of the board unanimously adopted the changes recommended to the By-laws The attending members of the board unanimously approved the committees as per the morning discussion The group decided that meetings held at Tahoe (in May and August) would best suit the group if the planning session was held on the Saturday afternoon with the more formal meeting being held that evening at 6pm so that members in Cambodia can participate. The next board meeting is Saturday, August 29. All members should plan to be in Truckee for both the formal and informal meetings which will cover strategic planning and budgeting for JWOC. The meeting adjourned at 3pm.
