MinneTESOL
Interest Section Leadership Meeting
3:00-4:00
Minnesota Literacy Council
Present: Patsy Vinogradov (Exec. Asst.), Anita Dualeh (Treasurer), Andrea Poulos (Pres.), Rosie Sharkey (1st VP), Becky Uran Markman (3rd VP), Kim Johnson (2nd VP), Scott Endo (Secretary)
Gincy Vaitkunas, Tara Gibbs (MS Int. Sect. Co-chairs), Clair Wolters (Elem. Int. Sect. Co-chair), Nima Salehi (Past Pres.), Nancy Drescher (Teacher Ed. Co-Chair), Beret Hagen (Teacher Ed. Co-Chair), Carolyn Sayers, Stephanie Somers, Pat Schafer (Adult Int. Co-chair), Dave Bremer (College Co-chair), Debbie Hadas (Sec. Int. Sect. Co-chair), Karla Stone (Sec. Int. Sect. Co-chair),
Welcome and Introductions
Andrea brought the meeting to order at 3:10
- Introductions
- Passed out binders and MinneTESOL Handbook to new IS Chairs and Board Members w/o binders
- Updated contact info. for all IS Leaders and Board Members
- Andrea went over contents of MinneTESOL Handbook
- Andrea went over roles of IS Leaders:
- Rosie is primary contact
- asked that each IS have at least one workshop per year
where? Anywhere (place of employment, library community room, Byerly’s community room, Lehman Ctr., Black Bear Crossing, MDE, U of M, local community college, etc.)
- plan IS meeting at next year’s MinneTESOL Conference
- communicate with Patsy re: communications with IS members
- each IS will have budget (amount TBD—about $250; Rosie will contact IS leaders)
- Discussed who to contact to invite to IS workshop—first IS members and MinneTESOL members, then general public? Andrea mentioned that it is sometimes dependent on space
- At IS Mtgs, IS leaders should bring membership registration forms for non-members
- IS Leaders should contact past IS Leaders for hot topic ideas for IS meetings
- Andrea encouraged IS leaders to have some component aimed at learning for MinneTESOL Conf. IS mtg., not just brainstorming hot topics (e.g. speaker, networking/resource sharing around topics)
- Jincy recommended grouping IS members together for lunch
- Tara and Jincy shared MS IS meeting topics (March, Rosedale Library): Sp. Ed., MS best practices
- Questions?
- Tara asked how to pay for lunch for Lunch-time meeting. Andrea suggested not having meeting over mealtime to avoid expense. Discussed options for affordable lunch food and alternative times, bring sack lunch
- Pat brought up the issue of making it worth it for out-state attendees to come to IS meetings—Andrea suggested making meeting more than hour; Patsy suggested offering CEU’s
- Discussed limits to membership numbers. We would like to encourage
- Andrea adjourned formal meeting at 4pm; Executive Board moved to their meeting
MinneTESOL Executive Board Meeting
4:00-5:30pm
MLC
Present: Andrea, Rosie, Becky, Anita, Kim, Nima, Patsy, Scott
Welcome, Introductions, 2007 overview (Andrea)
- Andrea emphasized the model of respectful group consensus decision-making, and needed prompt response to emails
Brief Updates:
- Executive Asst: membership, finances (Patsy)
Membership
- over 400—adult and secondary IS remain largest
- new MS IS has 19 new members
- Patsy shared difficulty of tracking down those whose emails bounce back—Andrea suggested emailing Exec. Bd. For first contact, rather than Patsy track down
Finances
- Patsy passed out current expense report
- Better situation currently than in past
- Broke even last year; lost over $5000 in 2005—good 2006, largely due to good attendance at conference and increased membership fees
- Haven’t been billed yet for MCTC ($7200), so expenses show larger than true profit for 2006
- Showing positive balance (approx. $13,000 after MCTC bill pd.)
- Nima reminded board that we had discussed intention to put aside $ each year to build up budget reserve
2007 Budget Discussion, Approval (all)
- MinneTESOL Conf. expenses by revising last year’s
- $17,000 total estimated expenses
- Interest Sections:
- Adult=110, Sec=85, MS=19, Elem=109, College=53, Teacher Ed.=52
- New MS IS
- Discussed apportioning IS budgets according to membership numbers
$250 per IS x 5 = $1250 / 400 approx. members = $3/member
Adult = $300, Sec=$250, Elem=$250, MS=$100, College=$200, Teacher Ed.=$200
Rosie will inform IS Leaders of revised budgets
- Affiliate Mtg.: Andrea reminded Board of suggestion to cut Affiliate Mtg.; resultant budget is 0
- Affiliate Travel: Andrea advocated for restricted budget for travel expenses, but also advocated for supporting Rosie and Patsy with $500 for International TESOL conference and travel expenses
- Directory: Nima suggested printing every 3rd year; Anita remembered agreement on every other year; in either case, budget is 0 for this year
- ESL/Bilingual Awareness: Essay and Poster contest—committed to $30 per category (5 categories)=$150; also must add postage, other expenses; adding $25 = $175
- Newsletter: on-line, so included in membership
- Special Events: food/drinks, treats, parking, etc. for board meetings, spec. events, etc. Andrea suggested $200 to limit amount to similar to ISs
- State Fair: prizes (pencils, etc.); agreed on amount of 0 to be conservative
- Technology: Nima has been working on MinneTESOL website; Nima and Becky will get together and work on using Dreamweaver to update current website and create the new journal website.
- Grants:
- Andrea suggested grants be at 0
- Kim expressed that grants are important perk of membership and very valuable support for recipients
- Anita expressed the need to keep grants as incentive to join MinneTESOL, good marketing tool,
- Board discussed potential need to change nature of grant to impact students and programming, more than individual professional development
- Andrea suggested Patsy send out to Board how grant requirement language appears, Board sends suggestions for revision
- Kim suggested that grant recipients share at conference and written summary paragraph for newsletter
- Board agreed on $1000 (5 grants at $200 each), with grant due late May/early June for summer project
- Patsy asked that another Board member coordinate grant—Kim agreed to do this.
- Journal: $1000 (see Journal below)
TOTAL = $27,805
Rosie moved that budget be approved, Becky seconded; budget passed, all in favor
- Publications: journal, newsletter (Nima)
- Journal
- Nima suggested that journal be on-line every other year. Expressed that this increases visibility (links, accessible to more people, publicity, economic savings)
- Patsy suggested doing both every year, and hard copies are for purchase
- Question was raised of cost to print (approx. $4) and expected number of sales
- Board discussed advertisements on website vs. journal (also newsletters), as printed journal’s advertisement revenue would be lost
- Discussed number of articles to aim for; suggestion was to leave that to judgment of reviewers
- Patsy suggested that we need to spend money to make on-line product very good; Nima believed this needs to be an amount greater than $1000 to be done well; invest in this now in order to create a template for future use that would be free
- Will return to topic in future
- Agreed to $1000 budget for now
- Advertising (Anita)
- Needs more info.
- Anita shared that it is difficult to get interest of advertisers beyond first-time
- Website (Nima)
- Essay Contest (Anita)
- Anita will send announcement to Rosie to send on to IS Leaders
- Interest Sections (Rosie)
Final Conference numbers (Patsy)
- 428 attendees—approximately same as last year
Conference Wrap-up (Kim)
- Kim reported that all went well
- Becky checking on MCTC invoice
Plans for 2007 Fall Conference (Kim, Becky)
- St. Thomas contract
- Will have more info. on St. Thomas next meeting
- Keynote ideas
- Conference Cmte. Brainstorming ideas for keynote speakers
Bylaws, Handbook (Nima)
- passed out handbook is DRAFT (Rosie will contact IS leaders that handbook they got is draft, not final)
- Board members should email suggestions to Nima by Mar. 1 (if substantive changes, email to all board members)
Meeting adjourned at 5:30pm
Next Meeting: Saturday, March 17 3-5pm Minnesota Literacy Council
Topics:
- Membership
- Question on Lifetime Memberships
- Recruitment/Retention Plans for 2007
- Anita suggested that we need to re-look at membership fees at next meeting
Online Membership/Conference Registration—ACTEVA (Kim, Becky)