AZTWS Board Meeting
Conference Call Minutes
December 17, 2018
3:00 – 3:51 p.m.
Present: Tiffany Sprague (President), Jessica Moreno (President Elect), Andrew Jones (Treasurer), Valerie Horncastle (Recording Secretary), Holly Hicks (Corresponding Secretary), Melissa Merrick (Board Member), Audrey Owens (Board Member), Brian Blais (Newsletter editor), Clarissa Starbuck (Webmaster)
Board members absent: none
Action items
- Tiffany will review the Google Drive list of potential future newsletter articles.
- Jessica will send out the Ballot for board nominations this week.
- Jessica will put together an announcement for a social media chair to help promote diversity.
- Tiffany will coordinate with Ginny Seamster about putting together a survey for the students about the student mentor lunch.
- Jessica will look into a Google survey that can be emailed out for the student mentor luncheon.
- Jessica will ask the JAM planning committee about setting up a single website for JAM, rather than each chapter hosting its own.
- Tiffany will send out additional information on the Wildlife Corridors Conservation Act of 2018
- Tiffany will send Andrew the request for BFUPA membership payment.
Motions
- Approval of November 26, 2018, board meeting minutes – moved by Andrew, seconded by Melissa; passed.
- Meeting adjournment – moved by Valerie, seconded by Andrew; passed.
Proceedings
Old Business/Previous Action Items
- Brian will explore setting up a Google Drive list of potential future newsletter articles and reserve of articles to use when needed. Done
- Audrey will write a small blurb for the winter newsletter on the fall mixer. Done
- Jessica will re-announce the call for award and board nominations. Done
- Tiffany will reach out to people who nominated someone for an award last year who were not selected. Done
- Jessica will discuss website options with Andrew (e.g., pointing our domains to WordPress rather than using GoDaddy). Ongoing
- Jessica will ensure that the template for the online membership and communication system was sent out for review. Ongoing
- Jessica and Chris will work to set up an online membership and communication system for our chapter. Ongoing
- Chris will contact the parent chapter for an updated list of current paid members. Ongoing
- Andrew will send Chris an updated list of current AZTWS members. Done
- After MemberPlanet is updated, Tiffany will ask Chris to download member names from the parent society monthly. Ongoing
- Holly will work with Jessica on making an inventory of our promotional items (hats, tshirts, etc.), pricing, and photos for the website. Ongoing
- Jessica will let Holly know we don’t need models for the photos of our promotional items available for purchase. Done
- Andrew will send out the quarterly report. Ongoing Tiffany will send out the 2017 annual report. Done
- All position leads will send annual report items to Tiffany by Jan. 16, 2019. Ongoing
- Scott to review revised sections of JAM manual to determine what revisions are still needed; incorporate existing revisions into manual. Ongoing
- Tiffany will remind committee heads about reviewing revised sections of JAM manual. Ongoing
- Tiffany to create bylaw wording for board member removal. Ongoing
- Other Old Business? (All)
Current Business
- Treasurer’s Report (Andrew)
- Andrew is working on the quarterly report.
- Andrew will determine if we should reimburse the NM chapter for JAM expenses at the meeting or before.
- Online Shopping (Jessica/Holly)
- Holly has completed the inventory, but would like to compare it to Tiffany’s numbers.
- Newsletter Report (Brian)
- The deadline to submit articles is this Friday. Brian currently has 3 short articles for the winter newsletter and is waiting on two more. Holly received the student voice submission and is currently reviewing it. Valerie will contact Carol Chambers about the jumping mouse article.
- JAM 2019 planning (Tiffany)
- Early registration ended. January 15th is the second call for papers.
- There will be no printed abstracts in the programs. The Arizona chapter will be doing the program, but Bill will handle the printing and delivery.
- The NM chapter is currently short of silent auction items. Please let Jessica know if you have any items to donate.
- The plenary speakers will be Dave Foreman and Katherine Heyho.
- Board Nominations (Jessica)
- We currently have a candidate for each of the board positions. There are 3 candidates for the board member position and one candidate for all other positions. Jessica will send out the ballot this week. She is just waiting for the final member list from Chris to be able to send out the ballot by email and the bio for the corresponding secretary position. She will send the ballot to any new members who join via PayPal before the ballot deadline.
- Award Nominations (Jessica)
- Jessica sent an email to the executive team with nominations. There were 3 nominees for the professional service award and one nominee for each of the other categories. The team needs to make a decision by the end of the week so plaques can be made.
- There are two options for the award plaques. The tile awards are a 6×6 tile in a metal frame with a name plate underneath. The other option is what we used last year, a wooden award with a medallion. The difference in cost would be around $200 for the tile award and $125 for the wooden plaque. We spent $175 last year on awards. We determined that we should continue using the same ones we have used in previous years for consistency.
- There is the possibility that we could give 2 awards in one category if people feel that both nominations are well qualified. Just let Jessica know if you want to vote that way and Jessica can make the final decision.
- Diversity (Tiffany and Jessica)
- The board re-discussed ways to promote diversity, equity, and inclusion. We plan to highlight (through social media) some of the underrepresented voices such as TWS WOW, TWS EGDWG, Native Outdoors, Latino Outdoors, etc. We would like to have a separate committee chair for social media outreach with special emphasis on diversity. Holly can help out in the beginning. We will discuss this at the annual business meeting and see if any students or recent graduates might be interested in the position. We will also put an announcement in the newsletter, post on Facebook, and the volunteer section of the webpage. Jessica will put together the announcement.
- Tiffany will coordinate with Ginny Seamster about putting together a survey for the students about the student mentor lunch at JAM. The goal will be to see how effective the lunch was and ways we could improve mentoring. Jessica will look into potential google surveys for this that could be emailed out.
- Membership Report (Jessica)
- Still working on Member Planet. Need to upload the member list. Jessica will send it out for review to a few board members sometime in the beginning of January. Once everything is approved she will send it out to all members.
- Webmaster’s Report (Clarissa)
- Clarissa offered to help Jessica with updating the JAM page. We discussed having a separate website for the JAM instead of something slightly different on each of the groups’ pages. This would be a coordinated effort between all 3 organizations. Jessica will bring up at the next JAM planning meeting.
- Opportunities Report (Valerie)
- Nothing new to report
- BioBlitz (Scott not on call)
- Nothing new to report
- Conservation Affairs (Tiffany)
- The board discussed the Wildlife Corridors Conservation Act of 2018. The parent society is encouraging chapters to get involved and write to congressional leaders. Tiffany will send out additional information.
- Borderlands Foundation for Understudied Plants and Animals (Kay)
- BFUPA is an Arizona-based foundation to conduct natural history investigations of understudied plants and animals in the American Southwest (including Mexico). They currently have two projects underway, a jackrabbit diet study and a bobcat rehabilitation project. BFUPA currently has a goal of acquiring $5,000 in funding for these two projects. They are also providing seed money and personnel for a waterfowl migration study at the Tres Rios Water Treatment Plant and have written proposals underway for a white-sided jackrabbit study in Mexico. Additionally, they are publishing Caire’s dissertation on the Land Mammals of Sonora through the Journal of the Arizona-Nevada Academy of Sciences. They are requesting that annual dues of $100 per individual/organization be paid to support these efforts.
- Student Liaison Report (Holly)
- U of A submitted the student voice for the winter newsletter. Prescott College has not been very active this year. Embry-Riddle is interested in attending JAM.
Valerie motioned to adjourn, Andrew seconded. 3:51 p.m. adjournment