NEASIS Board Minutes, March 21, 2001

Present: Nicole Hennig (Chair), Jonah Jenkins, Beata Panagopoulos, Vince Kimball, Michelle Knight (student chapter rep.), Pat Flanagan (minutes), guest: Beverly Colby

Previous Action Items:

-Beata will contact non-NEASIS members from the Wireless program about membership

-Pat will check the chapter web site for missing meeting minutes and send the files for them to Darcy

-Vince will set up PayPal

-Michael will find out what the status of the newspaper scanning project is

-Michael will send Jonah a list of local IA attendees

-Michael will research the costs of some speakers he knows of

I. Minutes from the February meeting were approved with minor changes

II. Extending NEASIS borders - Beverly Colby, guest

Beverly, Kris Liberman, and Martha Moore have been working on this project. Kris sent information on what she had learned: Two approaches are possible for extending borders. The formal process would be for NEASIST board members to propose the extension at Chapter Assembly. If we chose the formal route we should discuss the idea with Metro NY first. The informal approach would just be to contact members in areas without formal chapters. When people join ASIST they are offered the option of joining a chapter at no cost. Many don’t pick a chapter if there isn’t one in their area. These members in upstate NY and Canada could simply be contacted and invited to join our chapter. This is the approach the LA Chapter has used successfully.

There are 79 members in upstate NY and 6 in Montreal. Since we originally talked about including all of eastern Canada we should get the numbers for that whole area.

The board determined that the best path might be a blending of the two approaches above. Invite NY and Canadian members to join. If we receive a large indication of interest, we could then propose the official chapter extension at Chapter Assembly with the responses as a “survey of interest.”

Action Item:

-The Subcommittee will draft an email that could be sent to these prospective NY and Canadian members. Components of the letter to be:

• examples of NEASIST programs and how members can be involved
• the fact that it’s free to join a chapter
• that we’d like to hold programs in other locations in members there are interested in hosting them
• examples of how we have collaborated in past to plan programs
• Replies of interest should be sent to Beata
• Mention the IA oriented program we hope to offer this fall

-The Subcommittee will contact HQ for names to send the letter to

-When ready, Beata will handle the mailing

III. Reports:

Membership:

We now have 271 members. Twenty three members are from SIG/IA.

Beata signed the contract with Lydia, for developing the FileMaker Pro set up for the membership database. She will be showing Beata a prototype soon.

Program Committee:

The fliers for the Awards Dinner are ready to be mailed. The speaker will be Jean Camp from the Kennedy School at Harvard. They will be mailed on Friday, March 23^rd; listserv notices will be posted following. The Board approved a speaker’s fee for Jean Camp. Nicole, Beata, and Michael will be the nominating committee for the Chapter Member of the Year. They will also ask Candy Schwartz for suggestions for Student Member.

Action Item:

-Beata will have certificates prepared for the recipients

Transcription of the Wireless program is complicated by the technology. The maximum words permitted is 10,000, but the tape has many more than this on it. The first speaker alone is about 5,000 words. Much content is superfluous and can be edited down. Anne Cushing will work with the speakers to pare the text down which will hopefully remedy the problem. Michael Jimenez is continuing to build the bibliography started for the program. It will be published in the Bulletin.

The East Coast component of the Distance Learning virtual conference is complete. The Research Channel has agreed to broadcast on its full channel, so there is potential for five million people to view the program. Title is still being determined.

Treasurer:

PayPal: Our NEASIST checking account has to be verified to set up PayPal and this is still underway. Vince is experimenting with some test deposits to be sure the system works before we use it for programs. The test run is another PayPal set up requirement.

Funds Report:

Checking Accounts……….$10,445.54

CDs……………………….$12,838.37

Total………………………$23,283.91

Student Chapter:

Michelle reported that the following Student Chapter events are scheduled:

o March 29 - E-Books

o April 17 or 18 - Clifford Lynch is coming to speak at Simmons

o A career panel is being scheduled. Possible dates are April 19, 26, or 27; speakers still being sought. It will be an evening event.

Michelle also forwarded information about student help being needed for the planned fall IA program. Response was positive.

IV. New Logo for NEASIST

Discussion about the need for a new logo, and one that represents the change to NEASIST. It was agreed that some means needs to be found to emphasize the NE portion as in the previous logo.

Action Item:

-Jonah will contact someone he knows about possible typefaces and designs

[Note that since this conversation HQ indicated a continuity of typefaces between chapter and national would be helpful during the name change period and we agreed electronically to support this effort.]

V. PayPal Update - see above Treasurer’s Report

VI. Student Travel Award Update

Beata reports that submissions are being received.

Next Meeting: April 18 (changed to April 25^th), Barker Conference Room, MIT, 4:30-6

Addendum:

Current Action Items:

-The Subcommittee will draft an email that could be sent to these prospective NY and Canadian members.

-Beata will have certificates prepared for the recipients

-Jonah will contact someone he knows about possible typefaces and designs (information about it at interrobangletterpress.com.)