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2002 executive board minutes
Executive Board Membership, November 2001-November 2002: Nancy Stevens-Brown (President), Kelley Holly (Executive Vice President), Jan Weber (VP Development), Stephanie Siemens (VP Education), Naomi Takemoto (VP Membership), Jen Williams (General Secretary), Judy Baloghy (Treasurer), Marianne Rose (VP Competitions)
March 1, 2002 - Anaheim, CAMinutes of an American Vaulting Association Executive Board Meeting
Anaheim, California
Friday, March 1, 2002
The meeting was called to order by AVA President, Nancy Stevens-Brown. Executive Board members present were Kelley Holly, Marianne Rose, Naomi Takemoto, Jennifer Williams, Judy Baloghy, Jan Weber, and Stephanie Siemens. Guests included Technical Advisor J. Ashton Moore, Amy McCune, Vicki Smith, Teresa Keville, Sydney Frankel, Priscilla G. Faulkner, Devon Maitozo, Sheri Benjamin, and Judy Toothaker.
Executive Vice-President Kelley Holly presented the Financial Review that has recently been completed by Terence McLoughlin of Clare, Chapman, Storey, McLoughlin & Bowen, LLP, Certified Public Accountants. Our financial statements have been declared “in conformity with generally accepted accounting principles”.
As Executive Vice-President, Kelley is in charge of overseeing the National Office. There were two areas of concern:
- In the case of unforeseen accident to befall the National Office Manager, the business of the Association must go forward. The Executive Board determined that in such a case, there seem to be enough people who know the basic operations of the Office (notably Treasurer Judy Baloghy) that critical functions could be maintained. The National Office Manager verified that offsite backups of critical files are maintained.
- Vicki Smith, National Office Manager, is currently working without a contract and has asked that her monthly payment be increased from $1850 to $2000. It was determined that Sheri Benjamin, Kelley Holly, Vicki Smith, and Judy Baloghy will review the job of National Office Manager and ensure that the job description meets the standard 12-point criteria for determining independent contractor status - if necessary by modifying the job description. This group will complete this review within two weeks and return to the Executive Board with a report on their findings.
Kelley Holly moved that the Executive Board endorse the policy of allowing two weeks for any requests of tasks to be performed by the National Office Manager, with large projects to require more lead time. Naomi Takemoto seconded. The motion passed by voice vote.
Nancy Stevens-Brown read a letter stating that the USAE and USET are combining to form a new National Governing Body (NGB) for equestrian sport in the U.S., and that this body will seat a Board of Trustees. The letter requested that the President respond with a written description of the process that the AVA would use to select its representative on this Board of Trustees when the time comes (apparently in 2004). The Executive Board generated this statement:
Recommended selection process for NGB Board of Trustees
Announce the opportunity to all of the AVA membership via website and Vaulting World.
Interested members must submit an application.
Executive Board will receive applications, check references and conduct interviews
Executive Board will recommend a maximum of three candidates to the AVA Board of Directors.
AVA Board of Directors will recommend a single candidate to the NGB.
Naomi Takemoto moved to submit this proposed selection process to the combined NGB. Kelley Holly seconded. Motion passed by voice vote.
The following attributes of a suitable candidate were mentioned by members of the Executive Board:
must be a member (or willing to become a member) of whatever organization (or organizations) compose the NGB at the time they are to take office
must be an AVA member
must be willing to undertake the (unknown) financial responsibilities involved in participating fully in the meeting
demonstrate willingness to attend Annual Meeting of NGB and AVA
demonstrate willingness and a plan for communicating effectively with both the NGB and the AVA
demonstrate experience in the international venue.
Nancy Stevens-Brown adjourned the meeting.
June 24, 2002 - teleconferenceAVA Executive Board Meeting Minutes
June 24, 2002
By conference call
Roll was taken at 4:02PM (Pacific time). The following Executive Board Members were on the line: Nancy Stevens-Brown, Kelley Holly, Jan Weber, Marianne Rose, Naomi Takemoto, Stephanie Siemens, Jennifer Williams. This number is sufficient for a quorum.
Verification of National Office Manager Independent Contractor Status: Kelley Holly reported that she and Sheri Benjamin have reviewed the IRS guidelines for determining independent contractor status and have determined that the position of National Office Manager does meet those criteria. Kelley informed the Executive Board that the critical criteria for making this determination involve the amount of supervision given to the worker. We cannot, for example, pay for training nor give day-by-day supervision of time allocation to the worker; rather, we must assign tasks and deadlines and let the worker allocate her time as she deems appropriate. The contractor must also be the one to specify the working hours (as they appear in the new version of the AVA National Office Contract, for example).
Jan Weber asked if we may ask the contractor to provide a listing of tasks completed; Kelley confirmed that we could ask for a week-by-week listing of tasks completed.
The National Office Manager contract:
The next question involves whether the Executive Board wishes to sign a new one-year contract for the position of National Office Manager with Vicki Smith. The new contract would entail an 8% pay raise.
Concerns were raised about whether the major functions of the position are being fulfilled efficiently and correctly.
Jan Weber's research indicates that for comparable nonprofit organizations, the position is already highly paid (without the pay raise). Jan will send out web links to her sources of this information. (See Attachment 1). If we decided to advertise a request for applications for this position, we would have to review and simplify the contract, because it goes into unusual depth in spelling out the responsibilities of the contractor. The current contractor as well as any new applicants could apply for the position.
Jan observed differences between the contract that Vicki distributed to the Executive Board as her “old” contract, and the contract that Jan had on file (signed 3/00). Jan will fax a copy of this contract to Kelley.
Kelley and Sheri Benjamin will review the contract and generate a new proposal contract, this week if possible. Executive Board members will send suggestions and thoughts on the National Office Manager position and contract to Kelley by Wednesday June 26. Thoughts are needed on how we can clarify and verify out required level of performance. The consensus was to not sign the existing contract at this time.
All participants verified their ability to participate in another conference call on Tuesday July 2, 4PM Pacific/7PM Eastern. Nancy will provide us with the call code information.
Nancy will keep Vicki Smith apprised of the Executive Board's deliberation process.
Attachment 1: Web Links from Jan Weber in Nonprofit Office Manager Research
Executive Board members:
Here are the websites which I said I would forward. Please note when doing your research:
1. "non-profit" salary scales are different from "for profit" and recognized to be different in the industry.
2. The job description we are talking about is most in line with the job description "office manager". Membership services job descriptions would have to also do all the duties listed under VP Membership plus have some supervisory or executive kinds of functions. That's not what we can afford to pay.
3. The perk of being a contract service provider is that they set their own hours, can work at home if desired and don't have to drive to the office, etc. etc.
Check out these websites they list job opportunities in the nonprofit sector:
www.idealist.org
www.opportunitynocs.org
www.asaenet.org/main/
July 2, 2002 teleconferenceMinutes of a Teleconference Meeting of the
Executive Board of the American Vaulting Association
July 2, 2002
Acting Secretary: Jan Weber
Executive Board Members on the call:
Nancy Stevens Brown - President
Kelley Holly -- Executive Vice President
Stephanie Siemens - VP Education
Marianne Rose - VP Competitions
Naomi Takemoto - VP Membership
Jan Weber - VP Development
Judy Balogy - Treasurer
Members NOT present: Jen Williams - Secretary
The meeting was called to order at 7:10pm EDT by Nancy Stevens Brown. Nancy Stevens Brown requested that a proposed announcement for the purpose of rebidding the National Office Contract be read by Kelley Holly. (See Attachment) Executive Board members made recommendations for deletions, additions and changes to the proposed document.
It was decided the announcement would be posted in the next issue of Vaulting World Magazine, through the American Horse Publications(AHP) career opportunity announcement vehicle, avamembers@yahoogroup.com and avaboard@egroup.com. The group decided that the announcement would be distributed following notification of the current National Office contract holder, Vicki Smith, that the board would be making available the contract for rebid. Timeframe for release of the revised announcement is:
Release announcement - August 1, 2002,
Postmark/fax deadline - September 1, 2002
Start Date: October 1, 2002
Kelley Holly will email revised announcement, and Nancy will notify Marianne when the announcement can be published in Vaulting World and Jan Weber when to release through the AHP.
Kelly Holly raised concerns regarding reprinting of the rulebook. Nancy will talk to Sue Detol and request her assistance to facilitate this project.
Naomi Takemoto requested that up to $400.00 be allotted from the funds raised from the Annual Auction 2002 for facility rental for the East Coast Equine Symposium. (10% of the total Annual Auction funds, $789.00, were previously earmarked for the Judges Program.) The action was approved by concensus.
It was decided that the next teleconference will be July 16, at 6:00 EDT. The topic will be: certification.
The teleconference was signed off at 8:16 pm EDT.
Respectfully Submitted,
Jan Weber, VP Development
August 22, 2002 teleconferenceMinutes of an American Vaulting Association
Executive Board Teleconference Meeting
Thursday, August 22, 2002
The meeting was called to order at 6:03PM EDT. The following Executive Board members were present: President Nancy Stevens-Brown, Executive VP Kelley Holly, Secretary Jen Williams, VP Competitions Marianne Rose, VP Membership Naomi Takemoto, VP Development Jan Weber. Additionally, VP-Development-Elect Sheri Benjamin was present. VP Education Stephanie Siemens signed on at 6:07PM. Treasurer Judy Baloghy signed on at 6:12 PM.
The only order of business was to discuss the applications which had been submitted for the position of National Office Manager. Kelley received 21 applications before the closing date of August 15, 2002.
After discussion of the stated qualifications of the candidates, five were selected for further screening. This screening will be done via teleconference of each candidate with a subcommittee consisting of Kelley, Sheri, and Nancy. This further screening will include an assessment of each candidate's skills, as well as confirming their ability to have regular National Office phone hours during the business day. The hours of 9AM to 1PM Pacific time seem to be optimal. The goal will be to narrow the field to two candidates, whose references and background we will check.
The meeting was adjourned at 7:12PM EDT.
Action Items:
Nancy: will send each candidate a letter thanking them for applying, when the selection process is near completion.
Kelley: in consultation with Nancy's and Sheri's schedules, will contact each of the five final candidates to set up a time for the tele-interview.
Sheri: will lead the tele-interviews.
Marianne: will email approximately 20 Filemaker questions (designed to probe a candidate's understanding of the software and good database practice) and their answers to the interview subcommittee.
Judy: will email approximately 20 Quickbooks questions (to probe the candidate's understanding) and answers to the interview subcommittee.
September 30, 2002 teleconferenceMinutes of an American Vaulting Association
Executive Board Teleconference Meeting
Monday, September 30, 2002
The meeting was called to order at approximately 8:00PM EDT. The following Executive Board members were present: President Nancy Stevens-Brown, Secretary Jen Williams, VP Competitions Marianne Rose, VP Development Jan Weber, VP Education Stephanie Siemens. This constitutes a quorum of the Executive Board.
The only order of business was to discuss the telephone interviews of the final two National Office Manager candidates (which had been conducted earlier that evening by the same group of Executive Board members).
After discussion, the majority of Executive Board members felt that the position should be offered to candidate Janet Brown. Nancy Stevens-Brown will contact Ms. Brown to officially offer her the position.
Miscellaneous Items Decided with Email Discussion4/1/02: via email
Request to waive 45-day-advance requirement for AVA Recognition of April 21 2002 Woodside Competion
Marianne Rose notified the EB that the OC for the Woodside Competition (scheduled for April 21, 2002) had failed to apply the required 45 days in advance for AVA Recognition of this competition (Standing Rules, page 25, Section V. A.1). The competition is USAE Recognized.
The waiver was granted.
7/1/02: via email
Request for allocation of auction money for East Coast Judges Forum
Naomi Takemoto proposed the EB vote to approve spending up to $400.00 of the $800.00 raised by the auction and approved for the Judges Program to be spent to offset the cost of travel expenses and accommodations for the Forum Director for the East Coast Judges Forum. Management intends to use registration fees to cover these expenses as well, but wants authorization to spend the funds this way in case receipts are insufficient. This issue was discussed at the 7/2/02 phone conference, and authorization to allocate the funds to support the East Coast Judges Forum was approved by consensus.
7/1/02: via email
Request for authorization to charge $20 for Board Member lunches at November Board Meeting.
Naomi Takemoto writes: “In order to get the meeting room at the Mallory without charge, we need to guarantee $500.00 of catering. I would like approval to charge $20.00 per Board Member attendee, which would cover this cost.”
This was approved.
9/18/02: via email
Request for waiver of 45-day-advance requirement for AVA Recognition of October 19-20 Valley View Competition.
Virginia Hawthorne notified the EB that the OC of the Valley View competition scheduled for October 19-20, 2002 had failed to apply the required 45 days in advance for AVA Recognition of this competition.
This waiver was granted.
11/19/02: by email
Request for authorization for overtime pay for National Office Manager
Nancy Stevens-Brown notified the EB that Judy Baloghy has received a bill from Janet Brown for $2500 for the catch up work from Sept. 1-Oct. 15.