March 2019 Board Meeting Minutes

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AZTWS Board Meeting

Conference Call Minutes

March 25, 2019

3:00–3:41 p.m

[Download the PDF]

Present: Jessica Moreno (President), Andrew Jones (President Elect), Haley Nelson (Treasurer), Valerie Horncastle (Recording Secretary), Emily Scobie (Corresponding Secretary), Melissa Merrick (Board Member), Holly Hicks (Board Member), Clarissa Starbuck (Web master), Kinley Ragan (Historian)

Board members absent: none

Action items

  • Andrew will get Haley set up on all of the accounts.
  • Holly will talk to Haley and Andrew about getting checks sent to UA and NAU for travel reimbursement to JAM.

Motions

  • Approval of February 25, 2019 board meeting minutes – moved by Melissa, seconded by Andrew; passed.
  • Motion to approve University of Arizona and NAU receipts for travel reimbursement to JAM. Total cost was $871. Holly motioned, seconded by Emily; passed.
  • Meeting adjournment – moved by Valerie, seconded by Holly; passed at 3:41 p.m.

Proceedings

Old Business/Previous Action Items

  • Andrew will get Haley set up on all of the accounts. Ongoing
  • Andrew will make sure we have a complete list of people that payed for AZTWS membership during the JAM registration. Done
  • Holly will finalize pricing, photos, and inventory of SWAG for the website. Ongoing
  • Brian will send out outreach for articles for the newsletter report. Done
  • Jessica will check with the Fisheries society about a mid-April deadline for updating the JAM manual. Done
  • Jessica will send out an email on the proposed bill for the restoration of Arizona state parks funds. Remove – Bill passed on March 12th
  • Tiffany will update the operations manual and send to Jessica and Andrew for review. Ongoing
  • Tiffany and Jessica will send updated board member contacts to TWS. Done
  • Jessica will ask the JAM planning committee about setting up a single website for JAM, rather than each chapter hosting its own. Ongoing
  • Jessica will discuss website options with Andrew (e.g., pointing our domains to WordPress rather than using GoDaddy). Ongoing
  • Jessica and Chris will work to set up an online membership and communication system for our chapter. Ongoing – Jessica will send out a link to board members so everyone can update their profiles. It will then get sent out to all members. The free version of Member Planet will only allow us to send 100 emails a month. This doesn’t even allow us to send one email to all of the members. We could export the member list and then send out emails through gmail. The other option is to pay $150/year fee for Member Planet. This option would allow us to send out 1000 emails/month. Which amounts to about 5 emails to all members. For now we will start with the free version so everyone can update their profiles and we will revisit this topic next month.
  • Tiffany to create bylaw wording for board member removal (fold this into Operations Manual revision?) Ongoing – move to Operations Manual revision instead of action items
  • Contact Holly if you want to help with planning the techniques workshop. Ongoing
  • Contact Jessica if you know of any good candidates for the Conservation Affairs Chair, Opportunities Chair, Social Media, or Webmaster position. Ongoing
  • Other Old Business? (All)

Current Business

  • Treasurer’s Report (Andrew)
    • Andrew is working on the audit with Haley and working on getting all of the accounts in her name.
    • A maximum of $500 was offered to the student organizations for travel. University of Arizona and NAU have already submitted their receipts. We will be reimbursing UA for $500 and NAU for $371. Holly will talk to Andrew about getting them checks. We are still waiting to get receipts from ASU and Prescott College.
  • Online Shopping (Jessica/Holly)
    • We are currently waiting on an updated inventory after JAM. Photos of merchandise have been completed.
  • Newsletter Report (Brian)
    • We received one very good feature article (our Neck of the Woods) from Dr. Paula Rivadeneira – an extension scientist working in the food safety-wildlife field. Paula noted that if anyone is interested in collaborating (wildlife) to reach out to her.
    • We received student materials from U of A, as part of their contract exchange for JAM travel support; we are still awaiting material from NAU (Holly has the details)
    • Brian drafted a “Meet your new 2019 board” for the Newsletter
    • Next submission deadline for the summer issue will be Friday June 14
  • JAM 2019 planning (Jessica)
    • JAM manual edits are ongoing.
  • Board and Award Nominations (Jessica)
    • Andrew will be taking over this responsibility.
  • Chair positions (Jessica)
    • We have several chair positions that we need to fill soon.
      • Webmaster (starting in May)
      • Conservation Affairs
      • Opportunities Chair
      • Social Media Outreach
      • Continuing Education – Stan would still like to be involved, but he could use some assistance
  • Diversity (Jessica)
    • We have a spreadsheet with ideas for increasing diversity in membership and on the board. Jessica will make sure new board members have access to this document on google drive.
    • One new idea, is that when we publish, under the study/site area mention the tribe that lived in that location.
  • Membership Report (Jessica)
    • Nothing new to report
  • Webmaster’s Report (Clarissa)
    • Clarissa leaves May 15.
  • Opportunities Report (Valerie/Callie)
    • Jessica and Valerie were able to solve the posting issues.
  • BioBlitz (Scott not on call)
    • No new updates
  • Conservation Affairs (Jon not on call)
    • No new updates
  • Borderlands Foundation for Understudied Plants and Animals (Kay)
    • They currently have a jackrabbit diet study going on and have obtained funding for 2 rabbit studies in Mexico.
  • Techniques workshop (Holly)
    • The wildlife techniques workshop is scheduled for April 13th . There are currently 52 out of 60 people signed up for the workshop. All of the classes have been lined up. Main classes include Animal tracking (instructor: Brit Oleson), Telemetry (instructors: Scott and Tiffany Sprague), Fisheries Techniques (instructor: Brett Montgomery), Capture Techniques (instructor: Christopher Carrillo), and CODA Net Gun/Necropsy Lab. Optional classes include field preparation, herpetofauna walk, wildlife id, bat mist netting, geocaching, and a bird walk.
  • Student Liaison Report (Holly)
    • Holly received summary reports and receipts from UA and NAU. We are waiting to get information from ASU and Prescott College.
  • Operations Manual (Tiffany not on call)
    • No new updates
  • Other new business
    • The Women of Wildlife (WOW) steering committee submitted a plan for a WOW symposium at the national meeting in Reno and it was accepted. The symposium topic is work-life balance.
    • Melissa attended the Southern Arizona Research Science and Engineering Fair and presented awards to two students. One was a high school student, Chloe Burkholder, who completed data analysis to determine how the placement of a carpenter bee (Xylocopa californica) nest within a sotol stalk (either being above or below the height of the plant’s leaves) would impact the likelihood of it being preyed upon by birds. The other was a sixth grader, Preston Stricker, who looked at the relationship between water temp and dissolved oxygen and streamflow and dissolved oxygen as it related to native fish. These two students received a certificate and if they are interested can spend a day in the field with a biologist.
    • We need to think about what we want to accomplish this year. What do we want to do in addition to our current activities? We need to get these ideas added to the agenda this year. Think about this topic and bring ideas to the next meeting.
    • Next meeting is Monday, April 22, 2019 at 3:00 p.m.

3:41 p.m. adjournment