Notes from the EC meeting January 17, 2019 – Loyd Ackerman

In addition to the regular purpose of the EC kickoff meeting it was decided to discuss the issues of the workload, both real and perceived, of the members of the Executive Committee and means to simplify their tasks. The hope that in doing so, other members wouldn’t be so reluctant to take on the responsibilities. Most of the discussion along those lines was centered on the President and the Secretary. At present the President spends time using personal computer assets to provide a PowerPoint presentation to guide the meeting. The Secretary is kept busy during the business meeting taking notes and keeping a log of the items displayed and discussed during show and tell. Proposals were made and discussed. While not all suggestions were adopted, those present have the opportunity to think about the issues involved perhaps to help alleviate some of those issues. The following are issues discussed.

Agenda: We discussed the need to simplify the presentation of the agenda following the format of the By-laws. Proposed was to have a one-page Agenda composed on a simple text editing computer application such as Microsoft Notepad available on all computers. The page would be projected on the screen instead of a PowerPoint presentation and given [or sent] to the Secretary ahead of the meeting as a guide for the meeting minutes.

Suggested Meeting Agenda [mirroring the by-laws]

Any visitors – please introduce yourself

Reports of committees

Old Business

Reports on previously discussed events, happenings, etc.

Does the floor have a request for something else from the past

New business

Announcements of upcoming events, happenings, etc.

Any other new business from the floor

New action items: motions, discussion, votes

Above should be included in the meeting notes by the Secretary

Some discussion ensued considering decorating the Agenda page if the presiding officer chose, but nothing was decided. It appeared that the consensus was to keep the slide simple to simplify the presiding officer’s effort in creating it and keep it easy to understand from the floor. Addendum: Note that this was not adopted as a rule and left to the discretion of the presiding official.

We discussed using more formal handling of discussion during the business part of the meeting. The example of “motion – discussion – vote” was discussed to add to the formalization for purposes of clarity in decisions pro/con on an issue to preclude leaving the issue unresolved.

Secretary and meeting minutes: The role of the Secretary was discussed in light of the by-laws description of responsibility. It was pointed out that the secretary’s task was to document the content of the business meeting. Contention that the listing and description of show and tell items was not included in the secretary’s job description but still needed to be done. It was proposed that another means be used to get that information which minimizes the secretary’s workload in the meeting and a few alternatives were suggested.

Show and Tell: Since the information usually recorded with the show and tell items involves just the person’s name, the item description, material, and finish it was suggested that a form be provided for recording. To relieve the Secretary of this job – and let him/her enjoy the presentations – an alternative was suggested to get volunteers from the membership to log the item by filling in the form.

A suggestion for the recruitment of the ‘volunteers: it would be done by handing two randomly selected persons a clipboard with the form and a pencil. One method discussed for how the volunteers would be selected would be by a randomly sorted membership list and the presiding officer obtaining two numbers from the membership present.

While the idea of a form was accepted, the use of volunteers appeared to not be attractive. Other methods were discussed including having the presenter fill in the form when submitting the item on the table or bringing the information with the item. Neither of these suggestions got much support and the issue was left unresolved.

Nominating committee: A suggesting was made to start immediately in selecting the members of a nominating committee to get them started on selecting officer candidates for 2020. Some discussion ensued on how the nominating committee should be formed and who should be included. The consensus seemed to be that it should be composed of members with at least a few years in the club and that a chairman of the committee should be chosen and given the opportunity to at least be involved in selection of the remaining members.

Programs by members: It was mostly agreed that having members do the program presentations would be a good idea so that members would get to know each other better and get a chance to show off what they did. There was some concern over not having outside presenters so at least a few of those would be included during the year.

More club activities: Workshops, Shop Tours, Seminars, etc. There was general agreement that more of those types of activities should be fostered. To that end Doyle McConnell volunteered to get shop tours started and recruited Richard Gulley for a February shop tour. Doyle also volunteered to hold a workshop in March to get that process started.

EC Meetings: A concern that the EC should meet more often led to an agreement that the president will call for one each quarter to provide necessary adjustments to club operations. A second EC meeting for 2019 was set for Thursday, April 18.

New business: The issue of starting time for club meetings came up in discussion as an example of formality. It came out that some members would rather have the 7 PM starting time returned and it was decided that the issue should be revisited. The committee decided to announce during the February 19 meeting that a vote would be taken by the membership during the March 19 meeting on whether or not to change the meeting time back to 7 pm. It was agreed that this could be a contentious issue and thus the full month given to give time for deliberation. Addendum: Later decided that this should be re-visited at the next EC meeting – tabled with informal mention at February meeting.

Schedule of Events: The regular kickoff purpose of the meeting resulted in an agenda for 2019 Events as follows:

February 23 -- Shop Tour Decherd

March 23 -- Workshop; Turning Peppermills; Doyle McConnell's shop

May 25 -- Turning Bee; Larry Wendland's shop [changed to May 18 due to conflict discovered later]

June 22 -- Picnic and Auction; location TBD

July 20 -- Power Tool Carving Workshop

August 24 -- Tool Sale; Decherd Nazerene Church

September 21 -- Fall Seminar [TBD]

October 12 -- Heritage Days; Tims Ford State Park

December 14 -- Christmas Party -- Decherd Nazerene Church

This schedule has been posted on the Events page of the website for others to review for accuracy. Details will be added as they become available.

Highlighted items resulted from discussions subsequent to the EC meeting date.