WA-BC – AFS Chapter

EXCOM Teleconference Meeting Minutes

November 23, 2010

Role call: Mark Pedersen, Jim Shannon, Mark Celedonia, Nicole Casper, and Erin Lowry

Absent: Yvonne Muirhead, Lisa Harlan, Orlay Johnson

Minutes: Approved minutes from the November 9^th teleconference.

Officer Reports

President – Mark Pedersen: Mark provided a recap of Western Division ExComm retreat in Grand Junction CO.

President Elect – Mark Celedonia: Working on 2011 schedule, pursuing check box for chapter: Can put check mark in by default is renewing (reversible); forming adhoc comm

Student Sub-Unit Representative – Nicole Casper (She was in San Francisco) She had been hampered in sending out the email she drafted to all student members. She tried once and it didn’t work and hasn’t tried again, so she is committing to doing that today.  She has incorporated edits that she got from Mark P. and Mark C.

-She’s been brainstorming ideas for starting a student chapter at WWU. Her idea is to host an event on campus, which represents what AFS is about. This would galvanize interest in AFS in a more effective way than just having conversations with people who may be interested. At the event, she would talk about AFS and invite people to join her in a student chapter. She’s planning on drafting a mission statement for the chapter with ideas for activities so that people know what they would be joining.

Initial ideas for event:
-fisheries trivia night as fundraiser for Ecologists without Borders (are we officially supporting them?)
-bringing a speaker to campus (possibly speaker from Nisqually tribe to talk about their salmon recovery program since she knows the coordinator for that)

Any other ideas are welcome. Ideally she’d create a team of people (students, Excomm) to work with on this. She’d be aiming for this event to be mid-February and to have a chapter getting started soon after.

- She asked if there was going to be an action item from last meeting regarding student scholarships to the conference in September. Was someone going to put her in touch with the student coordinator?  She has not done anything with this yet.

Vice President – Yvonne Muirhead: No Report

Past President – Jim Shannon: Continuing work on the 2011 Spawning Run arrangements; helped staff the Pacific Marine Expo on 11/19, and interacted with IPHC, TU, and others.

Treasurer – Erin Lowry: Income/Expense status – WebEx will be billed to Mark Pedersen then reimbursed.  There is a Genetics account with Julie and Keith Underwood still having sign authority – we need to close this and move the funds into our Chapter account. We also need to remove Past President Jim Shannon from Bank of America account signature authority and add current President Mark Pedersen.

Secretary – Lisa Harlan: (sent in report): She voted to approve the minutes distributed. She is willing to help out with the website but doesn’t have a particular area so plug her in wherever.  Regarding the 5-year strategic plan, she’s scanned through it once but hasn’t had a chance to go through more slowly and thoughtfully. She hopes to provide comments to Mark P over the next couple weeks if the time frame allows it.  For the Excom procedure add-ins, she requests additional details on the assignment.

She worked at the Pacific Marine Expo on Saturday with Norma Sands and had opportunities to talk with a fair number of people about the AFS show in 2011.  They felt it was a worthwhile show for our chapter to attend – definitely reaching out to a group who know little or nothing about us!

She is still gathering responses regarding access to archived documents.  The only boxes with documents needing to be archived are the two with Mark P, no one else has come forward with additional documents.  She’ll pass the information on to Bryan Bougher in the next couple weeks.

Communications Officer– Orlay Johnson: Not present

Old Business:

Pacific Marine Expo – This was held November 18 – 20, 2010, and staffed by Mark P, Jim S, Lisa H, Caroline Mercado, and Norma Sands. All said it was worthwhile to do again, mainly educating the fishing industry of our existence and mission. Bert the Salmon had several photo ops with the show participants. Participants will email Mark P their thoughts.

Budget – Discussed proposed budget line by line (See attached modifications), Discussed habitat enhancement project sponsorships – Support of ghost net removal? What is we gave an amount to several local enhancement groups around state to promote our name – auction item supports; buy an item they can use with our name on it. Jim will consider chair a committee to address this.

There is support for chapter publication by members.

Mark C suggested more funds for TBD events ($1-3k). Depending on Chapter income, sponsorships can range from $500-$1,000.

There was support for more funding for student members, both for registration fees and travel, as well as student unit meetings. Integration with support by the WDiv and Parent Society is needed – we need to find out and perhaps piggy-back on the WDiv grant program.

While there was general agreement in spending about $30k, there was a concern about when the Chapter would receive the distribution from the 2011 AGM and the SFF $10k loan. The Chapter would need seed funds for the 2012 facility in January 2012. [Note: Mark P. received a pledge from Cleve Steward that SFF would repay the $10k shortly after the AGM (early Sept ’11) so we would have upfront funds needed for our 2012 Chapter AGM facility.]

Our website needs improving: it is slow and difficult to update by most ExCom members. Orlay, Mark P. and Brian need to discuss for improvement.

Mark P. would like to work with Erin on a spreadsheet of projected and actual expenditures by month.

Archiving – Decisions need to be made based on input to Lisa

Candidates for next election – No names yet, Jim will work on it.

Professional Fisheries Biologist standards –No report

Chapter membership – Mark C has been working on this to get renewing members to automatically check the chapter box.

Position on WA Shoreline Master Program – Mark C is looking to form AdHoc Committee for review of this

Comments on 5-yr strategic plan. – Discussion postponed.

ExCom position procedures add-ins – Discussion postponed.

New Business:

Website Update: Delegation of assignments postponed.

Action Items for next meeting:

Action: Erin/Mark P to get list of UW sub-unit officers and get in touch with them.

Action: All- review budget and comment. Prepare to pass at next call

Action: Erin to prepare a spreadsheet of projected and actual expenditures by month for this fiscal year.

Action: Mark P and Erin get together to change signature authorities on bank accounts: Removal of Jim Shannon and addition of Mark Pedersen.

Action: Decisions need to be made on Archiving – based on input to Lisa

Action: If not already done, Jim and Lisa to email Mark P their observations and thoughts on Chapter participation in PacFishExpo

- Jim Shannon will continue recruiting candidates for 2011-2012 Excom positions.

- Excom should send ideas for the 2012 AGM theme to Yvonne.

- Excom should provide comments on the 5-yr strategic plan to Mark P as soon as possible.

- Excom should provide comments on ExCom Procedures Add-ins to Mark P.

- Yvonne will submit a draft a comparison of the standards for Canadian Applied Biologists and the AFS Professional Fisheries Certification for the next meeting.

Next Teleconference: December 14, 2010, 9:00am – 10:15pm, via WebEx