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North American Serials Interest GroupNASIG Newsletter Vol. 19, no. 4 December 2004 ISSN: 1542-3417 EXECUTIVE BOARD MINUTES Elizabeth Parang, NASIG Secretary Attending: Officers: Members-at-Large: Ex-officio member: Guests: 1. 0 Welcome (Savage) Savage called the meeting to order at 8:17 a.m., welcomed Board members, and reviewed the rules of procedure. Board liaisons to committees will not repeat information included in written committee reports, only present additional information or lead discussion of points raised by committees. Novak volunteered to be the timekeeper for the meeting. 2.0 Role of Board & Requirements of Board Members (Savage) Savage presented a draft statement of Requirements for NASIG Board Members that emphasizes this is a working Board-not just a group of decision makers. Board members refined the draft, agreeing that ideally, Board members would possess many of these qualities, and collectively, the Board as a whole should possess most, if not all, of the qualities. Board members suggested several changes, including that the document should be retitled Guidelines for Board Members because this is an idealized description and not requirements for candidacy or election. The Board also agreed that the final statement should be published in the March Newsletter, forwarded to the Nominations & Elections Committee to use as suggested guidelines in its work, highlighted in a President's column, and that a reminder about these guidelines should be sent out via NASIG-L at the time of elections and noted at the bottom of the ballot. ACTION: Parang [later changed to Geer] will provide final wordsmithing for the Guidelines. 3.0 Secretary's report (Parang) 3.1 Board actions since Board meeting June 16, 2004: 7/21/04: Schmitt moved (Tenney seconded) that the Board approve and support the recommendation of the PPC to add both the poster sessions and the focused vendor demo to the conference schedule as regular, recurring items. The motion passed unanimously. 7/30/04: Savage approved the Nominations & Elections Committee's suggestion to move the deadline on nominations from the usual Oct. 15 to Sept. 15 due to next year's conference being a month earlier than usual (the Bylaws stipulate that the annual election must occur at least 60 days prior to the conference). 8/2/04: Savage approved two suggestions from the Database & Directory Committee: 1) To move the deadline for membership renewal to Nov. 26, which is considerably earlier than usual, in order to ensure only eligible members may vote in the election. 2) To print and mail the membership renewal form only once this year, as a measure to save money and work, with these accompanying changes: a) Include emphasized statements that this would be the only printed mailing, and that the deadline for renewals would be earlier than usual. b) D&D would send multiple reminders to NASIG-L, stressing the earlier deadline, the single mailing of forms, and the availability of a printable form on NASIGWeb. Reminder will emphasize need to be a member to get rate at conference; make sure this is on next year's renewal form. ACTION: Ask D&D to add to its notes the thorough revision of the renewal form to be done before next year's renewal season: The revised form should emphasize the Jan. 31 deadline for receiving the conference member registration rate (a person must be indicated as an active member in the membership database by Jan. 31 to receive the lower rate for that year's conference-consequently, the Treasurer must receive the completed renewal form and payment at least 2 weeks prior to that date.) 8/4/04: Tenney moved (Emery seconded) that we approve the revised Compensation & Reimbursement Policy prepared by Novak and Savage. The motion passed unanimously. 3.2 Action items from June meeting The Board reviewed Action items in-process or postponed. The following changes were made: The Action item stating that PPC and the Board would create more specific AV guidelines was replaced with: ACTION: Page will work with PPC to create more specific guides for AV use and run draft by Board. Novak will get information on Web conferencing from NetSpoke, the company we use for conference calls. The Board discussed other possibilities, including mini bulletin boards. ACTION: Page and Luther will investigate options. 3.3 Board Items Status List Board members were reminded to look at this list periodically and notify Parang or Savage of items that need to be changed or added. 3.4 Rename Executive Board Working Calendar ACTION: Randall will ask ECC to change the name to NASIG Working Calendar to more accurately reflect its nature and usage. 4.0 Treasurer's Report (Novak) 4.1 Report from the Treasurer indicated she had not yet received any Canadian or European renewals. We are unsure if delivery of the forms or completed renewals have been delayed by the U.S. mail. As of Friday, Oct. 15, 2004, 580 members, or about half the membership, had renewed. 4.2 2004 Budget and expenditures to date Novak reported that NASIG had a total equity of $211,033.05 and liabilities of $0.00 as of October 9, 2004. The balance sheet shows a slight increase from last year because of surplus from the conference. Investment account has been up and down. The cost of the conference logo came out of the conference budget instead of conference planning. D&D used Gerald Printing, which submitted the lowest bid; committees should notify the President when printing bids are needed. 4.3 2004 Conference Budget: The 2004 Conference posted an income of $219,618.98 and expenditures of $152,044.40, leaving a balance of $67,574.58. Novak noted that going online only for brochures and registration saved significantly ($3,000 on brochures alone). There was no charge for the meeting rooms, unlike at college campuses; money was also saved on the food expense, and the special event cost was less. The CPC was very careful about expenditures. Preconferences made money, while tours and souvenirs lost money. 4.4 2005 Proposed Budget: The Board spent considerable time on Sunday and again on Monday discussing the proposed budget. Each committee's 2005 allocation request was discussed. In a few cases, adjustments were made after reviewing actual expenses during 2003 and tasks planned for 2005. As usual, all task force expenses will be included in the administration budget. Possible new awards to celebrate NASIG's twentieth anniversary had been suggested by A&R. (See section 7.3.2 for more about these awards.) Lengthy discussion followed about the proposed new awards, the desire to increase the number of conference student grants, the state of 2004 expenditures, and the budget approved for 2005. The Board also approved the proposed paraprofessional award, with minor changes. It was decided, however, that the 2005 budget does not contain adequate funding for adding this new award. Consequently, the decision was made to postpone this award until 2006 with the hope that additional money will be available for it to begin then as an annual award. McKee moved (Tenney seconded) that awards for 2005 will include four Student Conference Grant Awards, one Mexican Student Conference Grant Award, one Fritz Schwartz Scholarship and Conference Grant Award, one Citation Award (a new award), and one Marcia Tuttle award, provided a suitable proposal is found (as usual). The motion passed unanimously. The resulting budget for 2005 was approved. See the 2005 budget later in this Newsletter issue. 4.5 Receipts for membership The statement, "Your cancelled check serves as your receipt," on the bottom of the membership renewal form will no longer be valid once the Check21 changes within the banking industry are in place. The proposed online renewal system must include some kind of printable receipt (see section 9.1.3). 5.0 Conference Planning Committee (Hulbert, Zuriff, Savage) 5.1 Draft of copyright release for artwork The conference logo was presented, admired, and adopted. 5.2 Schedule, events, venues The committee proposed having a more relaxed in-hotel event for opening night and having the key event the next night (Friday). A possible setting would be "Windows on Minnesota," where a meal would have a cost comparable to the museum event in Milwaukee. This would be one of the primary anniversary events. Other possible locations and food options were discussed; the decision about this event is CPC's to make, with consultation of the Board liaison and Treasurer concerning costs. The committee investigated locations for late night socials. Although a parlor suite could be made available, the cost was prohibitive ($800 room rental per night, plus bartender fees.). The hotel has an attractive open-area bar and lobby with plenty of seating, including areas which would accommodate card players, lively discussions, etc., very well. ACTION: Page and Zuriff will contact advocates of the late night socials to request their assistance in planning late night socials using the hotel bar/lobby area. St. Thomas Law School Library has offered space for preconferences; it is located 2-3 blocks from the conference hotel. Hulbert has received many boxes of souvenirs from past conferences that are not specific to those conferences. Every year people buy fewer souvenirs, especially t-shirts. Because this is an anniversary year, the Board members urged CPC to offer a t-shirt anyway. McKee moved (Novak seconded) selling t-shirts and one souvenir costing under $1 in addition to the remaining generic souvenirs. The motion passed unanimously. Web development is proceeding. The Board urged CPC to post the price per room, $109 per night, immediately. Conference information sent to NASIG-L should also be added to the website for non-members interested in the conference. A suggestion was made to use the free search engine offered by Google to non-profit organizations as a "search our site" mechanism on the website. ACTION: Randall will get input from the ECC concerning this suggestion. 5.3 Conference budget The proposed conference budget is essentially the same as that for the Milwaukee conference, with the usual increase for inflation. Jumbo postcards will be used this year for the announcements that registration is open, in order to avoid the numerous delivery problems encountered last year. These were caused by the mail-to and return addresses being too close to each other for reliable reading by U.S. Postal Service equipment. AV costs were budgeted the same as last year, when $15,411 was spent. Internet access in the meeting rooms is costly ($500 per room per day), and the Program Planning Committee will promote screen shots over live access (as was the case for the Milwaukee conference). Booths/boards/stands for poster sessions are part of the AV cost; in Milwaukee the cost was $80 per board per day. PPC and CPC are investigating less expensive options for Minneapolis. Novak moved (Emery seconded) that registration bags with the 20th anniversary logos be provided. CPC had been asked if a reduced registration rate would be available to multiple registrants from the same institution. There is no reduced rate for this purpose because NASIG does not have organizational memberships. As usual, the budget will contain a built-in contingency of 10% of the pre-contingency bottom line total figure. Novak noted that the conference is fully insured as part of the Finance Committee budget. The setting of the conference registration rate was deferred until after our Treasurer negotiates the hotel's prices for food on Monday. 6.0 Program Planning (Geller, McElroy, Page) 6.1 Draft schedule The "Quick & Dirty" evaluation summary indicated that attendees were confused about the difference between strategy and tactics sessions. Restructuring these programs would affect the Proceedings and the reimbursement policy as well as, of course, future conference programming. Randall suggested the length of the presentation could determine the name, a distinction used by many vendors' user group meetings. PPC will consider this idea for next year. ACTION: PPC will continue the discussion on program design and naming conventions, and make recommendations as needed. User group meetings during lunch will work if separate rooms are available and lunches can be taken to them. CPC confirmed this will be possible. Geller noted that Networking Nodes have evolved over time. They were originally informal discussions and brainstorming among participants; many attendees now expect presentations. Schmitt suggested using discussion boards ahead of the conference to initiate a Networking Node and change expectations. Lunch connections were proposed as a networking opportunity but didn't work out as conceptualized and will not be offered this year. The proposed schedule essentially follows last year's model. Several adjustments were made, however, based on feedback from last year's evaluations. The vision sessions will be shortened this year to one hour, and the vendor demo expanded to two hours. Other minor changes will make better use of time. The proposed meeting for ECC training, including Web liaisons, may require computer and AV equipment beyond the hotel's resources. If so, it may need to be held outside the hotel (such as at St. Thomas University). ACTION: Randall, Schmitt, ECC co-chairs and PPC members will discuss time and equipment requirements for Web liaison training. PPC will add it to the schedule and discuss possible facilities with CPC. 6.2 Draft program The new Web form for submitting program proposals worked well and greatly simplified the reviewing process. A second call has just been issued that targets specific topics not yet submitted. ACTION: The Secretary will continue to be responsible for the notification letters sent to submitters of program proposals not incorporated in the program. PPC will provide the contact information for these to the Secretary. The program is coming together nicely and will be finalized by November 15th. The Anniversary Task Force will create the third vision session on Sunday morning. Following longstanding NASIG policy, proposals for presentations that have previously been given elsewhere will not be considered. Proposals have been received from non-NASIG members. More cataloging programs might be solicited, because cataloging rated highly among desired topics, as were e-journals and print acquisitions. Last year's conference in Milwaukee was the third highest rated of all NASIG conferences; the highest rated was Trinity in 1991 and the second was Bryn Mawr in 1986. To promote this year's conference, we will send targeted announcements to specific lists and audiences, as well as to midwestern state library associations. NASIG will have a table with membership brochures and information about our conference at the ACRL conference the month before ours. By policy, NASIG does not pay honoraria to NASIG members. The opening night speaker and some vision speakers are typically not members, however, and often have set speaking fees. To simplify their work, CPC's conference budget (which includes reimbursements for PPC's speakers) should include a budget line for speakers' honoraria. Page moved (Emery seconded) allocating $500 to CPC to recruit a local speaker. The motion passed unanimously. Luther moved (Novak seconded) allocating $3000 to PPC for honoraria. Following further discussion, a friendly amendment was made to raise the amount to $5000. Luther accepted the friendly amendment, and the motion passed unanimously. 7.0 Committee Reports 7.1 Site Selection (Luther, Page, Tenney) 7.1.1 Denver presented a strong bid for the 2006 conference and has good hotel choices. Luther, Page, Tenney, and Savage made a site visit that was largely financed by the competing hotels and the Convention and Visitors Bureau. The hotels have been very responsive in answering subsequent questions and are aggressively competing for our business. Emery moved (McKee seconded) to accept Denver as the site for the 2006 conference; the motion passed unanimously. ACTION: Tenney will continue negotiations with competing hotels to get the best possible deal for NASIG, with the goal of having a fully executed contract in place by December 31, 2004. Page and Luther are investigating a number of sites for 2007, including New Orleans, Washington, D.C., Calgary, Montreal, Toronto, other sites in Canada, and elsewhere. Page and Tenney attended an "affordable meetings" conference in Washington, D.C. where they made several good contacts and gathered valuable information, including numerous cost-saving measures. Several cities and individual hotels represented at this meeting have already contacted us expressing interest in hosting our conference in the near future. 7.2 Archivist (Parang) 7.2.1 Our deposit account with the University of Illinois will pay for adding new materials to the archives and for photocopying and mailing by archives staff for any official NASIG business. McKee noted that anyone could access the archives, not just NASIG members. ACTION: Parang will double-check with Seymour-Green as to whether confidential material is included in the archives; we believe anything identified as confidential by NASIG can be accessed only with written permission from the Board or NASIG's archivist. 7.3 Awards & Recognition (McKee) The Committee has been updating the library school contact spreadsheet; the publicist has agreed to send out NASIG award announcements to these schools utilizing the list. A permanent change in procedures will be CPC making hotel arrangements for award winners to ensure all gratis hotel rooms are being utilized to reduce NASIG expenses. The committee's recommendation to increase pocket money for the grantees/awardees (from $50 to $75) was accepted by the Board and included in the proposed 2005 budget. Emery moved (Tenney seconded) that the Board accept the A&R Committee's proposal to reduce the committee from 16 to 12 members beginning with the 2005/2006 year. This committee size would be able to absorb the work for the proposed new awards smoothly. The motion passed unanimously. 7.3.1 Mexican Student Grant Procedures for this award will be the same as in past years. However, if procedural problems of previous years, which resulted in unnecessarily exorbitant expenses, are not resolved this year, the award may be eliminated after the Minneapolis conference. 7.3.2 Special awards for 20th anniversary Savage had requested the committee consider creation of two new awards for the 20th anniversary conference: one would be an award for a long-term serialist and the other would be for a paraprofessional. The committee's co-chairs wrote and submitted descriptions and application forms for both suggested awards. Depending on final decisions to be made on Monday about the general operating budget, the Board endorsed both awards with a few minor modifications. 7.3.3 Conference Student Grants The desire to increase the number of Conference Student Grants to pre-2002 levels was discussed. As with the proposed new awards, this decision was deferred until after the final decisions about the general operating budget for 2005 to be made on Monday. 7.4 Bylaws (Tenney) There were no items to discuss at this time. 7.5 Continuing Education (Luther) Luther noted that CEC's budget has decreased yearly for the past several years. In 2000 it was $19,000; this year it as $7,200. She has spoken with the committee about generating money with programs; a task force could investigate this possibility. The Board should ask the committee to produce a five-year plan to become self-supporting and to create a new group to create original programming. ACTION: Savage will set up a special task force to create two new continuing education programs that will also be revenue generating; this task force will report to the CEC co-chairs. 7.5.1 2005 list of events and budget Money given to outside groups needs to be for a specific serials topic and NASIG must be publicly acknowledged as sponsors or co-sponsors. We will stop providing funds to other organizations for receptions during their meetings or simply to co-sponsor meetings. 7.5.2 Online continuing education The committee has a task force to look at electronic/online continuing education scenarios; these tools tend to be expensive. The meeting adjourned for the day at 4:45 p.m. and resumed the next morning, Monday, Oct. 18, 2004, at 8:15 a.m. 8.0 New Board member to replace Carol MacAdam The Board used the previous day's discussions about Guidelines for Board Members (see 2.0) as the basis for this discussion. It was also agreed that given the short amount of time left for this vacant position (approximately 7 months), a person who has previously served on the Board or who knows NASIG inside and out was needed. A lengthy list of names was considered and narrowed down to four. Each Board member then anonymously ranked the four. Parang collected the rankings and compiled the results, using a weighing method to assess each candidate's total of 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th place rankings. ACTION: Savage will offer the appointment to the person with the highest ranking, and if necessary work through the list in order by rank until (hopefully) the appointment is accepted. [Note: The appointment was offered to the Board's first choice, Beverley Geer, a few days after the meeting. She accepted the offer and began serving immediately.] 9.0 Committee Reports, continued 9.1 Database & Directory (Emery) 9.1.1 Database conversion: The committee is working with the Online Registration Team (ORT; see section 10.3 below) to convert the membership database from the current MSAccess platform to an .asp pages compatible platform. This is necessary for enhancements to the online registration system that ORT will create in the next few months. (This may also support additional functions such as online voting.) An access issue exists due to a firewall. Testing will begin soon. The database will become Web accessible and would allow information for non-renewed members to be retained (currently, these records must be purged annually). 9.1.2 Continue print Directory? The print Directory is a large expense (approx. $6,000 per year). The Board discussed whether the need for the print version outweighs the cost of printing and mailing, and the huge workload it imposes on the committee, particularly in light of the searchability of the online version and the easily printed PDF version which is also available on NASIGWeb. The committee will maintain the Directory online but will most likely shift to distributed maintenance. The Board discussed an approach that would encourage members to decrease reliance on the printed Directory in favor of the online version, without forcing anyone to do so. The Board decided to reverse the current approach in favor of a one-year trial of a new approach. Instead of assuming each member prefers a printed copy unless specified otherwise on the renewal form, the assumption will be each member is comfortable with the online version unless specified otherwise on the form. The option related to the Directory on the renewal form will be revised accordingly. Consequently, next year's renewal forms, combined with usage statistics for the online version, will provide hard data about preferences of the membership as a whole. This information then will be weighed against the production costs and staff time needed to produce the printed Directory before making a final decision about continuing or discontinuing it. [Note: During 13 of the 15 months between July 2003 and Sept. 2004 (two month's data within this time frame are missing), the online Directory was accessed 20,048 times!] ACTION: Change the question related to the Directory in the NASIGWeb renewal form (currently printable only) to "Check here if you want to receive a printed copy of the Membership Directory." ACTION: Discontinue sending printed copies of the Directory to new members. 9.1.3. Online membership/renewal Online new membership and membership renewal functions would eliminate $772 in postage each year, additional costs for printing of forms, costs for stationery, a huge amount of work each year for the Treasurer and D&D, provide convenience for members, allow automatic receipts in place of the disappearing cancelled check option (see 4.5), and tie in well with enhancements to the online conference registration system. Implementation of online renewal should not delay work on the ORT project enhancing the online conference registration system (see section 10.3). Implementing online registration is built into the ORT's $3,500 budget (included in the administration portion of the proposed 2005 budget) and will move forward. 9.1.3 D&D proposal re: separate membership committee McKee noted that the Public Relations and Outreach Task Force had investigated this proposal last year and stressed the need for a public relations committee. Emery noted that member services are also needed. Luther stated NASIG needs an initiative to connect with the vendor community and invite them back. The Board was uncertain of D&D's intention with their recommendation, however. ECC may eventually take on maintenance of the database of members as it moves online. In that case, the Board will need to revisit D&D's charge to see if there remains a need for this committee. 9.2 Electronic Communications (Randall) Board members expressed appreciation for the committee but indicated that training and work needs to be more distributed within it. There is a lack of experienced people volunteering for this committee, and perhaps certain functions need outside support. In particular, each co-chair provides a huge amount of the committee's hands-on work, which must make it very difficult to function as a co-chair as well. Can the roles of production worker and co-chair somehow be split to ease the burden on the co-chairs and distribute the committee's work more evenly? ACTION: Randall to ask the ECC co-chairs to consider possible ways to a) distribute the tasks of list managing and website maintenance among the committee members, b) provide or arrange for training to support these changes, c) develop their co-chairing functions further, and d) identify how such changes would affect the committee's overall functioning and future. 9.3 Evaluation and Assessment (Schmitt) Schmitt noted that a large amount of time is needed to process evaluations. The task force for online evaluations should be picked soon; the current software is getting outdated. The 2004 conference evaluation report indicated that complaints were largely the same as always, with food being high on the list. There were fewer complaints about accommodations, however. The conference had 603 attendees, and 271 evaluation forms were submitted. PPC suggests streamlining the form when it moves online. The task force to be created for investigating online survey software will be charged to begin its work by reconsidering what is needed from the conference evaluations. 9.4 Newsletter (Simser) Simser reported that Web usage data provided by bee.net indicated that hits on the main index page doubled after the username/password requirement was dropped. At the conference, she informally gathered comments concerning the online Newsletter from conference attendees. Simser asked the Board for clarification on content for the conference photos website. Earlier this year, the Board recommended including photos with people rather than only scenery. She also noted that she'd had some difficulty with submission of digital photos; many did not transmit well. ACTION: Randall to ask ECC to review the site and provide guidelines concerning content to the website manager. Simser noted that Savage's request for CEC to routinely route information for the NASIG Calendar has not yet been realized. ACTION: CEC must funnel information to the Newsletter for the Calendar. 9.4.1 Relationship between Newsletter and archives: Simser reminded the Board that while the Newsletter itself is archived as an official publication of NASIG, its content is not systematically used as the official record of reports for archival purposes. This is in keeping with the 2001 report on electronic archiving at: http://www.nasig.org/committees/archivist/elecrecs.htm She noted that in discussions with Seymour-Green (NASIG archivist), Parang, and Tenney, some gaps in archiving the history of the organization may exist and that no clear archiving guidelines are documented. ACTION: Those involved will continue their discussion online. 9.5 Nominations and Elections (McKee) The committee received 77 names for consideration. The committee completed its Strategic Plan review. As a new task the committee could take on to support implementation of the Strategic Plan, the committee suggested a change to the instructions concerning candidates' position statements. This would add the words, "especially those outlined in the 2003 Strategic Plan," so that the instructions would read: POSITION STATEMENT: (This should reflect your view of the major issues relevant to NASIG, especially those outlined in the 2003 Strategic Plan, and your commitment, interest, and anticipated contributions to NASIG. Please limit to 200 words.) The Board accepted the committee's recommendation and thanked the committee for being the first committee to review its charge in light of the new strategic plan. 9.5.1 Reference calls The Board and the committee are considering codifying and regularizing N&E's reference-calling procedure; the committee has used such calls some years and not used them during other years. A shift from quantitative to qualitative information is needed. Nominees would be told reference calls would be made to individuals who had been in charge of NASIG groups the candidate had worked with in the past, such as chairs of committees, Board liaisons for committees, Board officers (for nominees who have previously been Board members), etc. The committee will decide at which stage in their process they will make reference calls. The same number of calls will be made for each person still being considered at that time. The same questions will be used for each person in a specific position's pool of nominees. The committee is very determined that the new petition process will be implemented this year, for the first time, without a major "hiccup." All petition candidates are required to submit the same type of position statement as slated candidates. The Board agreed that each petition candidate will be indicated as such on the ballot. The petition process could result in a lengthy ballot, increasing printing and postage costs. 9.6 Proceedings (Randall) As always, the committee's biggest problem is getting papers from the presenters. After discussion of several options and alternatives, McKee moved (Page seconded) that if the speaker(s) do not submit a paper within 30 days after the conference OR agree before the conference for their presentation to be tape recorded, NASIG will not reimburse them for expenses. The motion passed unanimously. In answer to the editors' question of whether papers should be due at the time of the conference, consensus was that this was not practical, but that all papers should be due at the same time: 30 days after the conference. 9.7 Professional Liaisons (Schmitt) One purpose of our professional liaisons is to gather information that Simser may use for the Newsletter calendar and columns. Schmitt did not find documentation for liaisons' reporting, so she created a form and provided deadlines. She also found volunteers to fill several vacant professional liaison positions and found several others to replace people who have been professional liaisons for years but done little in those roles. 9.7.1 ALCTS/NASIG Synergies Discussion was tabled due to the meeting's time constraints. 9.7.2 SSP Matchmaker Proposal SSP has invited NASIG to participate in a program connecting small publishers with librarians. NASIG's Strategic Support Task Force will begin a project soon to investigate possibilities of expanding our mentoring program. This SSP proposal may fit well with it; NASIG and SSP would be pooling resources. The liaison asked if the Board would allow SSP to make an announcement in the Newsletter. ACTION: Schmitt will contact October Ivins of SSP and indicate we need to await the report of the Strategic Support Task Force. 9.8 Publications (Emery) Emery reported the committee has been revitalized. 9.8.1 Charge/purpose of committee The co-chairs feel they have a nebulous charge. The committee is working on the page, "Information for Authors." The committee wants harmonization of all publications, especially in terms of their metadata. They suggest creating a publications group to handle all publications: Newsletter, Proceedings, Handouts, and NASIGuides. ACTION: Ask the committee to rewrite its charge and bring it back to the Board; it should emphasize that its focus is not on writing (authorship) by committee members. 9.8.2 NASIGuides The committee is excited about the NASIGuides. The ISSN Guide will be posted soon; it has been sent to Regina Reynolds for her comments. Two more NASIGuides are in process. 9.8.2.1 Request for subjects/topics for more guides ACTION: Board send feedback about possible topics to Emery. 9.8.2.2 Marketing plan The committee is adamant about not charging for Guides; they want the Guides to be open to all not just NASIG members. The committee feels there is no need to market extensively; they will send notices to the publicist as the Guides are made available. Charging for online publications would provide "webenue." Emery read the statement against charging prepared by the committee. The Board indicated branding should appear on every page. Copyright should remain with the author, with NASIG having non-exclusive rights to distribute. In marketing the Guides, NASIG should get credit for its effort. 9.9 Publicist (McKee) McKee reminded the Board to inform all committees that NASIG does not courier membership brochures; two weeks advance notice is required. 10.0 Task Forces, etc., Reports 10.1 Anniversary Task Force (McKee) The Board accepted nearly all of the suggestions for celebratory activities the task force proposed in its report. Parang reported that the archivist has t-shirts from previous conferences; Board members suggested the archivist should get professional photos taken of the t-shirts for the physical archives and the online conference photo archives. Then the t-shirts could be used for an exhibit at the 2005 conference and then possibly for a quilt. The task force will work with CPC on the Friday birthday celebration. ACTION: Request archivist have photos taken of conference t-shirts. ACTION: Savage will forward to CPC the task force's plans for celebratory activities for the two groups to coordinate efforts. 10.2 History Task Force (Tenney) The task force would like to ask via NASIG-L for volunteers to be interviewed. The Board agreed but cautioned the task force to remind people to respond to the task force and not to NASIG-L. 10.3 Online Registration Team (Novak, Schmitt) This team's charge overlaps with that of D&D. Schmitt reported that the member vs. nonmember conference fee is locked into a person's status in the member database. In implementing online registration it will be necessary to strengthen the communication flow between Treasurer and registrar. One problem to be addressed is how to look up people in the member database; an accurate and consistent way to identify each person is needed. In the future, the system could use the membership number that now only appears on the membership renewal form. The written report presented several options for online conference registration. Option one is more restrictive. If people don't match the member list, they will have to contact membership in order to register for the conference at the member rate. The task force anticipates meeting the deadline date. Training at the conference allows communication to take place between the new and old committee members and allows transfer of the laptop. An Internet connection in the registration area of the hotel would cost $500 a day, but in a hotel room it is only $10 a day; therefore, the connection will be in the CPC room. 10.4 Strategic Support Task Force (Savage) This task force has been slow getting started but has several projects assigned. 10.5 Translators Resource Team (Schmitt, Savage) Savage reported that the team is completely set up and has been given their first project: translating the Strategic Plan into both French and English. 10.6 Online Survey and Evaluation Task Force (Savage) This task force has not yet been appointed. 11.0 NEW BUSINESS 11.1 Conference registration fee Following negotiations with the hotel, the maximum cost for food was set at $98,000 for hotel meals (which do not include the Friday evening anniversary event). Adjusting CPC's proposed conference budget for this amount, reducing the AV cost to last year's actual costs, adding in $5,500 in honoraria for speakers, and adding a 10% ($19,000) contingency fee, resulted in the projected budget for the 2005 Conference being $208,500, about 10% more than last year. The Board anticipates 550 registrants. The Board decided that tiered pricing would be used for all future conferences. Tiered pricing includes higher rates for nonmembers than members, and daily rates high enough that it would be more expensive to register for two full days at the daily rate than for the full conference at a member rate. Novak moved (Tenney seconded) setting the registration rate for NASIG members at $375, charging nonmembers $475 ($25 higher than last year), and keeping day rates the same as last year. The motion passed unanimously. It will be noted to NASIG members that the member rate for the conference did NOT increase. ACTION: CPC, the publicist, and the President will all publicize the January 31 deadline for new memberships and membership renewal in order to qualify for the member conference rate. (Note: A person's current membership must be recorded in the Membership Directory by Jan. 31 to receive the member conference rate. In order for this to be possible, the Treasurer must receive the person's form and payment at least 2 weeks prior to Jan. 31. This factor will be included in all publicity.) Rather than have NASIG organized tours that tend to lose money, the CPC will set up a threaded discussion focusing on commercial tours and will have links from the conference site to such tours. 11.2 Financial Plan Savage distributed copies of the President's Corner column on Financial Planning. Savage, Schmitt, and Emery will draft a financial plan. Discussion revealed that NASIG needs a financial plan for the following reasons:
Need long-term projections for income and expenses. Need to track trends in spending and income. Need recommendation of how to improve budget allocation process. Need ideas for new sources of stable revenue. Novak recommends putting $35,000 of the 2004 conference profit into the Schwab savings account. Savage stressed NASIG should use one-time money for one-time expenses, not for recurring, basic expenses. Membership dues should support NASIG's general, annual, recurring operating expenses; fundraising could support publications, grants and awards, continuing education, etc. Board members discussed whether conference attendees' registration fees should subsidize other activities throughout the year.
Most conferences have made money. Pittsburgh lost over $5,000. The Board needs to aim for a better perception among the members of the real financial situation of the organization. One way to do this would to include the CPC budget in the Newsletter. 11.2.1 Relationship between fundraising, membership dues A financial plan should include a combination of raising membership dues and a fundraising plan to endow functions the members are interested in supporting, i.e., student grants. The financial plan needs to be geared towards the longer term. Goals of the financial plan would be stability and the ability to undertake new initiatives, such as online surveys, online voting, and online evaluations. Fundraising could be a significant component of a financial plan, but clear goals should be set. Any dues increase needs to be in line with other financial issues and should coordinate with other major issues of a plan. Dues should be raised to cover the operating budget. McKee moved (Emery seconded) that the Board initiate the process of raising the membership dues to $75, with the vote to be included with the 2005/2006 Board election. The motion passed with 7 yeas, 1 nay and 1 member absent during the vote. Page moved (McKee seconded) that the Board also initiate the process of raising student membership dues to $25 and creating a retiree rate of $25. The motion passed with 8 yeas and 1 member absent during the vote. The Board will use NASIG-L, the Newsletter, and the President's column to publicize the need for a dues increase and include a rationale with the ballot. ACTION: Page will write a draft text for each of these two ballot measures for Board review before sending the final version to the Bylaws Committee. 11.2.2 Fundraising 11.2.2.1 Continue drawings? The Board agreed to hold another fundraising drawing at the 2005 conference. This drawing will be for a free conference registration at the 2006 or 2007 conference and a year's free membership. The Board is continuing this fundraiser because the initial one in 2004 was enthusiastically received by the conference attendees and raised $1,425! Approximately $1,100 remained after deducting the winner's free 2005 conference registration and membership dues; this money will be used to fund an additional 2005 Conference Student Grant. ACTION: McKee volunteered to run the drawing ACTION: Savage will ask the CPC to check with the Minneapolis Convention and Visitors' Bureau to ensure we comply with all relevant Minnesota regulations. 11.2.2.2 Add donation line to membership and renewal forms There was not enough time to make this change to the renewal form before this year's earlier renewal cycle began. Additionally, because this raises many financial and legal issues which are new to NASIG, this decision has been postponed so it can be made within the scope of the fundraising portion of the upcoming financial plan. 11.2.2.3 Other fundraising methods This has also been postponed until creation of the financial plan. ACTION: Denise will email Martha Burke about how much time would be needed to create a t-shirt quilt. The Board agreed the following agenda items would be handled via the Board list: 11.6 NASIG/Mexico issues There being no further business, Savage adjourned the meeting at 4:45 p.m.
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