Board of Directors

November 1, 2008 – San Diego, CA

• Call meeting to order – Tomasa Mauricio – 9:36am.
• Roll Call – quorum met; Elvie Tyler (PIC) and Melissa Padilla (CFO) absent.
• Guests:  none
• Approval of Minutes:
• August 16, 2008 – motion to approve by Joy Brittain, second by Gillermina Martinez.
• Officer Reports:
• President – Discussed HEOA from visit by Heather Valentine at the SoCal PDS.  Some of the items in the Act were not suggested from COE.  SSS grant competition email, the DOE will defer any decisions on the HEOA until after the first of the year.  Positions/people will change.  Will be sending out an email (DOE) regarding what to be done right now (per Matt Benney).  Also questions about tracking changes, definitions of rigorous curriculum, etc.  Negotiations for rule making to happen earlier in the year, and to be aware of when this will take place.  Chapter presidents need to alert their members on the information and dates.  ETS programs need to become more active and vocal.  COE will be working on how to better advocate for appropriations by possibly connecting to Pell to receive more attention.  No specific date has been set for SSS competition.  Site monitoring is in progress, no set schedule for visit and has been difficult to plan for.  Discussed feedback shared from Palomar College which completed their site visit late October.  For California, reviewed SB890, program that will teach student, parents beginning in 6th grade on how to go to college and pay for it.  Provided a hand-out from Heather Valentine on the HEOA and helping to design the new talent search.  Heather Valentine will also be visiting NorCal’s PDS to give a presentation.   
• CFO – absent; sent out report via email prior to meeting.  The $5,000 check from SoCal has been submitted.  COE membership was late in submitting membership invoices, and there will be follow-up on payment. Move funds from maximizer account to avoid fees.
• President-Elect – Connie Baker is the newest service council member.  No report received from research development and technology.  Has been working on preliminary discussion on conference site in Reno.  Will discuss under new business.  Regarding public relations, would like all board and service council members to submit their profiles.  Only 9 received to date.  Emailed and awaiting responses from service council members to have conference calls, instead of meeting.  Many service council committees have action items to implement.

• Past-President :
• By-Laws – one action item listed below.  Changes include (see report with specific numbering/corrections).  The next reading in Phoenix with the corrections.  Discussed changing statement of purpose under articles of incorporation, and will it need to have included the vision and mission statement.  Will contact and discuss specific changes and wording with the Association attorney to ensure appropriateness.  From the previous year’s board, they wanted to do changing in terms of the membership.  Discussed the by-laws and membership types, and change to per project to extend the voting power of members.  Included under new business to further discuss.
• Strategic Planning – completed a draft for 2009-2013, including the vision and mission statement.  Instead of noting 2008-2013, 2009 to formalize and complete.  To schedule time during the next board meeting for review.
• Chapter Reports:
• Arizona – welcome to Sharon Smith as AZ president.  Elections were held in early October.  Reviewed the financial affairs which included WESTOP repaying chapter in installments.  Encouraged members to assist and serve on committees, for the regional conference in Phoenix.  Hoping to incorporate professional development with the chapter meetings in increase participation.  Would like to do an AZ chapter reception at conference, and has invited board and service council.  Will not do a PDS, as they are hosting the regional conference and want to increase attendance.
• Central Cal – discussed treasury account, as they have pending payments from PDS in October.  Working on increasing membership.  Had 31 attendees/3 guests (including WESTOP president) at PDS.  President Mauricio thanked CenCal for their hospitality.  One of the chapter’s action items relates to C-Vent, the chapters’ response to C-Vent is negative as they have many questions.  Had difficulties will inputting information to have members register.  Need to have training, could have happened at PDS.  Will coordinate a training session with Joy Brittain to assist with setting up registration and also training key members and president (will include San Jose colleagues).  Important for president-elects to have C-Vent training at the training post-conference.  The treasurers are trained as well.  Post-conference training to also include Quickbooks.  Next chapter meeting will be 12/5 at SJSU.  There are 2 volunteers who committed to the Fair Share committee.  Tentative date for 2009 PDS is October 7-9, location tbd.  (Tomasa Mauricio suggested to create a FAQ on C-Vent, and Michele Scott suggested to have a conference workshop too).
• Nevada – TRIO community service project with veteran’s hospital, project has kept the chapter busy.  Many regulations and guidelines with having youth on site at the hospital, and how to relate to patients.  Will be good publicity for TRIO, and in connection with Veteran’s Day.  Pre-planning for TRIO day.  Initiative brought up to the chapter, is what do they do with their data.  Encouraging members to let their campus and others know about TRIO programs.  Fortunate to have a data-collection expert on campus (Truckee).  Created a formal publication on VUB data, to highlight TRIO outcomes.  Received an award for the publication on programs.  On website.  Discussing fact books to be created for all institutions/chapter members’ programs.  Has a template for a fact book, and also a template for policy/procedure manual.  Also working on more communication and participation with southern Nevada.  Looking into updating website and developing interactive tools.
• Northern Cal – next chapter meeting is on November 4th, and focus meeting on outreach proposals and excellence awards.  Committee chairs have been added.  PDS will begin on Sunday, November 2nd.  Have included UW TRIO training with PDS.  There will be no on-site registrations due to meeting capacity.  There are approx. 140 members who have registered.  Combining PDS and training an effective tool.  Many attendees coming from other chapters including PIC.  TRIO Day in collaboration with CenCal and other educational equity groups.  Updates need to be made to the NorCal website, but is updated with current information. 
• Pacific Islands – absent, no report.
• Southern Cal – completed PDS, and had 98 participants compared to 65 last year.  Current treasurer resigned, treasurer-elect agreed and assumed the formal position.  Regarding the $5,000 to WESTOP, membership discussed and agreed to give to WESTOP as a gift opposed to creating a repayment agreement.  New webmaster for chapter website, from UC Irvine and will be updating.  Corrections to report, January 30, 2009 at Loyola Marymount, June 30, 2009 at Harvey Mudd College.
• Financial Affairs:
• Discussed priorities of FAC manual, membership rates.
• Action item and recommendation from the FAC to approve the payment to D&B.  Motion (see report) made by Howard Willis, second by Gillermina Martinez.  Discussion on how long or when the chapters are to pay proportional amount.  Need to find out the date of annual/quarterly fees.  Motion passes.  Joy Brittain will work with Melissa Padilla on this item.
• FAC manual has been updated.  Important items, for the corporate card, chapter presidents have access to the corporate card.  Travel request form has been updated to reflect the mileage amount change (.585).   All current fiscal forms are on website and will be updated. 
• Action Items:

• Unfinished Business:
• State Initiative Grants/Chapter Excellence Awards (COE) – forwarded to chapter presidents to apply for the grants.  Chapters must match the amount funded.  Former resource development chair wrote and was funded.  This amount was used for the Education Summit in Burlingame, CA conference.  These monies can be used for events, and to promote programs.  Encouraged AZ chapter to apply for this, and can facilitate an Education Summit there.  AZ chapter president to work with Brian Aguilar for writing and submitting proposal.  Chapter Excellent Awards is to recognize and award best practices for programs.  Being recognized for work already being done, opposed to planning a program.  Last year, WESTOP did not have any proposals submitted.  December 30th deadline for State Initiative Grants, and April 30th for Chapter Excellence Award.
• Statement of purpose was questioned by public relations service council, feeling that it should be focused solely on TRIO programs opposed to non-TRIO entities.  Reiterates how WESTOP needs to focus and promote association as an educational equity association.  Statement of purpose will continue to be open, and not closed solely to TRIO programs.
• Chapter Fair Share Chairs – communication was made to chapters to have 2 Fair Share chairs to assist with making this goal.  Two chapters have already identified their chairs Arizona and CenCal.  A new formula has been created by COE on the Fair Share goal.  California must make goal to have entire Association make goal.  Members will need to be reminded that their contributions are tax-deductible. 
• New Business:
• 2011 Conference – 2010 conference will be in Long Beach, CA.  Rotation has gone off when CenCal chose Las Vegas for conference.  Need to go back on track with the rotation.  Board should get started on researching locations for potential locations.  Next year’s board will have to select and approve this contract.  Discussion on Sacramento, for political connections, longer drive from airport; Reno, for amount of rooms and options of hotels.  In considering a location, important to think about cost and further profit from conference.  Reno seems to be the most cost effective, ease of flights to hotel/conference location, and excitement.  Considering the date, given the weather changes.  Key members in Nevada will be contacted to do research on availability and costs.
• Membership – prior (last year’s) board/committee suggested changing student membership rates to include pre-college, undergraduate, and graduate student (UB alum) rates.  This would need to be a by-laws change.  Also change of rates based on institutional and size of the staff and number of projects, although the programs only have one vote.  Again a by-laws change.  Current membership committee should be involved in any consideration of changes for input.  Comments about the previous board/committee’s ideas included that graduate students can be anyone, doesn’t have to solely be from a TRIO program.  Tiered system of student membership is confusing.  Also, discussion was on the confusion of voting.  Some of the due dates outlined seem too punitive (ie: late membership being $1,000).  Problem with members not paying on a timely manner causes problems with conference registrations, processing difficulty, and timing to include on voting roster.  Recommendations to have a banner or alert put on the website for members to see the due dates, and membership association fees.  Also to include what members receive as a benefit of membership.  Keep membership instructions as simple as possible.  Notes will be forwarded to current membership chair to discuss with committee members for feedback.  Would need to have for board meeting in January 2009.  Will still need to have specific notification as outlined in the by-laws. 
• Scholarship – (Jose Martinez-Saldana father’s death/he would rather have scholarship in his father’s name started instead of sending flowers and other; education was very important to his father for his children to further their education) discussion and idea to create a scholarship for students.  Questions included who would be eligible, what grade level, would it be annual and on-going or one-time, how much?  This discussion should serve as information sharing, and not to make a decision at this time.  Other members may perhaps want to do the same.  Have to consider the implications.  Sitting-COE chair brings certain urgence, as we rarely have a WESTOP sitting-COE chair.  Perhaps contributing to a scholarship fund that is already established, something from their local community may be more meaningful.
• Announcements:
• Next board meeting will be January 9-10 in Phoenix (arrive by January 9th no later than 12pm).  Friday will be to visit conference hotel site, and to work on the strategic plan.  Meeting will be at the ASU campus.  President Mauricio will be sending out information on meeting.
• When emails are sent out by President Mauricio, board members must respond to them.  This is important information or as a confirmation that email has been read.  Also chapter presidents should forward many important emails to memberships.  Board and SC are to submit reports electronically and on-time.
• Adjournment – motion to adjourn by Joy Brittian, second by Michele Scott.  Adjourned at 1:15pm.

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