September 2017 Board Meeting Minutes

Sept. 14, 2017 at Silver Tee in Hamilton

President Cheryl Long called the meeting to order.  Present were Judy and Al Karchner, Karen Stotz, Cheryl Long, Sophia and George Jonson, and Gene and Fran Elleman.

Secretary’s Report: Minutes of the secretary’s report were approved as read

Treasurer’s Report: Cheryl reported for Bob Poe that we have $9,732.92 in our treasury

OLD BUSINESS

• Fran reported that 32 people attended the July 16 picnic at Armco Park.
• Karen Stotz reported that 19 people attended the Aug. 31 Indiana-Ohio State football game watch party at the Clubhouse Sports Grille where the staff was very accommodating.
• Cheryl, Gene, and Fran attended the Alumni Leadership Symposium Sept. 8 at the Fawcett Center in Columbus.  It was a great atmosphere for a very informative event, providing us many helpful ideas for our club.

NEW BUSINESS

• Colin Veatch has replaced Beth Uniacke as our Regional Engagement Officer
• Gene has 25 people signed up for the Ohio State-Michigan game bus trip with Reynold’s Travel
• Karen reserved a room at Voice of American for our  Dec. 14 Christmas party. She will have the same caterer as last year, Destiny’s Caterer.  Judy Karchner agreed to buy poinsettias for the table decorations.
• Members are encouraged to vote for the new alumni association constitution starting Sept. 15.  A motion was made and passed to raise our annual dues to $20 for a couple and $15 for a single.
• George Jonson agreed to become a board member
• The next meeting is Thursday, Oct. 12 at the Clubhouse Grille in Monroe

Last year we qualified for the Gray status. We discussed several project ideas for this year that could qualify us for the Scarlet status next year. We have already turned in two functions that qualify for category 1. The picnic was submitted as a student sendoff function and the game watch will also satisfy one requirement.   Gene suggested that we volunteer at Matthew 25 in April, during volunteer month, for the community service category.  The Alumni Association will possibly provide T-shirts for us if we participate.  We are considering having a speaker from the Hamilton Fitton Center for the Creative Arts at one of our meetings which would meet our requirement for the Arts category.

The Alumni Association will reimburse our club up to $50 of expenses for each board meeting and up to $250 for each category one event except networking which can be reimbursed up to $500.  All club reimbursements must be submitted through the Doc-U-Sign approval process.

We discussed ideas listed below that would satisfy other categories.

Student Recruitment: care packages for incoming freshmen in April before final exams

Networking: mentoring or pairing up students with alumni

Arts: a play or concert

Diversity and Culture: a movie such as “Hidden Figures,” “Race,” or a cultural festival

Programing for all ages: brunch, beer bash, wine tasting, Young’s Dairy

Cheryl suggested that we organize some of these ideas into a calendar of events.

Cheryl will check out an association provided interactive map which shows demographic data for alumni including address, age, gender and major to utilize this data to attract more local alumni to our events.  She suggested giving out small gifts or having raffles at our game watch parties and other events. We also discussed the importance of communicating via social media and our website. Erin Howell will assist us in this area.