Executive Committee Meeting Minutes
Conference Call
Tuesday, December 13, 2011
6:00 pm
Present: Ron Grasso, Andy Hochberg, Sean LeBlanc, Adam Martignetti, Michaella Morzuch, Kim Sherman and Petra von Ziegesar
Absent: Tom Campbell, Andy MacDougall, Carole Mansur, and Ron Spicer
Staff: Deb Goodhind
Call to Order
The meeting convened at 6:05 P.M.
Meeting Minutes
Motion: by Michaella Morzuch, seconded by Sean LeBlanc, to approve the minutes of the November 15 Executive Committee meeting. The motion passed unanimously.
President’s Update
The chancellor search committee has completed development of a leadership profile and is now inviting applications from both internal and external candidates. The committee will review applications in early 2012 and invite select candidates for interviews in February.
Four finalists for the executive director position have been identified by the search committee for a second round of interviews on campus. Candidates are meeting with staff, board member, and other campus constituents during their visit. The search committee will reconvene on December 21 to review constituent feedback and develop a final candidate listing for consideration by Mike Leto.
Executive Director’s Report
A contract with the Association’s new affinity credit card partner, Capital One, has been finalized effective December 1, 2012. Staff will meet with Capital One representatives in the coming weeks to begin developing a marketing timeline and associated materials.
Staff is working to plan a number of events in the coming months. Highlights include a pre-game alumni reception around the Frozen Fenway hockey game; various events in Florida planned in partnership with the UMAF Board, President’s Office, and regional alumni networks; several alumni events around the country to introduce the new football coach; and, a black alumni reunion weekend.
Diane Barstow ’92 has accepted the new position of Alumni Business Development Manager and will begin work at the university on January 3. Diane has nineteen years of professional service in sales, development and marketing with both for-profit and non-profit organizations, as well as significant experience managing revenue generating programs, corporate sponsorships and marketing activities.
February Board Meeting Agenda
Committee members discussed the initial draft agenda for the upcoming board meeting and suggested several revisions to the proposed timeline. The upcoming board meeting was originally scheduled for February 11; however, due to scheduling conflicts, committee members agreed to reschedule the meeting to Saturday, January 28 if a majority of board members are available to attend on that date. Deb will poll all board members in the next day or so.
Bylaw Amendments
Deb provided a brief overview of proposed bylaw amendments, which included: adding the Vice Chancellor and Assistant Vice Chancellor for Alumni Relations as ex officio, non-voting Board members under Board Composition; revising the Committees section to only include current governance committees as approved by the Board last May; revising the Volunteer Code of Conduct section to reflect the document’s new name as proposed by the Volunteer Code Task Force; and changing the required notification period from 30 to 15 days under the Amendment of Bylaws section.
Committee Participation
Deb noted that staff liaisons have experienced some difficulty in the past few months with overall committee member participation, often resulting in lack of quorum to vote at committee meetings, or in some cases, meetings being completely cancelled last minute due to lack of attendance. Appreciating that committee members have many personal and professional commitments in addition to their volunteer responsibilities, Deb asked committee members – as volunteers, themselves – for their feedback on how to best address this concern. Suggestions included utilizing Doodle polls to schedule meetings, and sending out meeting reminders and materials a few days prior to the scheduled meeting. Committee members also suggested that as committee chairs, they and staff liaisons could work to increase scheduling flexibility and offer more meeting times during early evenings when most volunteers will likely be available to participate.
Volunteer Membership Investments
As approved by the Board of Directors in May 2010, Life, Legacy and Sustaining members in good standing are eligible for nomination to the Board of Directors, voting in board elections, serving on the Board as an elected or appointed director, serving as a regional or affinity network officer, or serving as a member of any Board committee. A Sustaining member in good standing is currently defined as an alumna/us having made a minimum membership investment of $50, or $25 for new graduates (up to two years after graduation), on a current annual basis. The Association’s bylaws state that the minimum membership investment requirement shall be established by the Executive Committee, and approved by the Board of Directors.
Committee members discussed the current definition of a Sustaining member in good standing and recommended maintaining the previously approved $50 and $25 investment level requirements at this time. Making a financial commitment is an important part of volunteering for any non-profit organization, and many other non-profits require much larger contributions from their volunteers. In addition, regional and affinity network programs benefit from the resources generated through the Association’s membership program, so it is an important role of our regional and affinity volunteer leaders to promote membership investments to their constituents. It will be difficult for them to effectively do so if they are not current Life, Legacy or Sustaining members in good standing.
Committee members agreed that staff should notify any current Board members, regional or affinity network officers, or committee members who are not in compliance with the membership investment requirements and ask them to promptly submit their required investment, ensuring their ability to continue participating in their assigned volunteer role.
Committee Reports
Alumni and Student Programs
The Volunteer Resources sub-committee of the Alumni and Student Programs Committee has begun reviewing and assessing new online resources for regional and affinity network leaders.
Audit
None
Business Development
The committee is reviewing possible financing models in relationship to the current membership program and working to develop an initial recommendation for discussion at the next Board meeting.
Communications and Marketing
The committee will meet later this month to begin developing policies for issuing public statements and utilizing social media. The committee will also learn more about a new social media application that campus community members could download to their mobile devices for UMass-related information.
Finance and Investment
As recommended by the Association’s investment management consultant, the committee approved and coordinated reinvestment of the membership reserve funds into a number of brokered certificates of deposit, with the intention of generating sufficient income to offset the annual costs of maintaining Life and Legacy member benefits.
Government Relations and Advocacy
The committee is scheduled to meet in the coming weeks to discuss the new advocacy network being spearheaded by the university’s Office of Government Relations.
Nominating
The Nominating Committee will utilize new online software to collect and review all director nominee applications this year. The committee plans to ask all current directors to submit a minimum of one director nomination as part of their role as a Board member.
Scholarships and Awards
The committee is scheduled to meet later this week to finalize selection of the Distinguished Alumni Award recipients. Michaella noted that the Scholarships and Awards Committee utilized the same software referenced under the Nominating Committee report and found it to be very effective and much easier than the prior manual review process.
Volunteer Leadership and Development
The committee will focus on developing a position description for board members and identifying various materials and resources for new director orientation in the coming weeks.
Diversity and Inclusion Task Force
The task force plans to utilize the university’s recently released definition of diversity as a foundation for developing a definition for the Association. One of the task force members, who also works for the university’s training department, suggested the possibility of developing a diversity training session for the Board, which the task force will discuss further at their next meeting.
License Plate Task Force
Task force members have completed developing a case for campus support and associated marketing plan and timeline. Next steps include promoting the project to campus leadership and determining associated budget ramifications.
Signature Event Task Force
None
Volunteer Code Task Force
The task force has completed drafting a revised volunteer code of conduct and will begin working to revise the review of board member conduct policy.
Old Business
None
New Business
None
Adjournment
Motion: by Michaella Morzuch, seconded by Adam Martignetti, to adjourn the meeting. The motion passed unanimously.
The meeting adjourned at 7:30 p.m.