New England Archivists
Spring Board Meeting
March 26, 2004
College of the Holy Cross
Worcester, MA
9:00am – 12:00pm
Secretary Tara L. Hurt
The business handled at the March 27, 2004 meeting of the Executive Board, is summarized below. All VOTING is in bold and italics.
In attendance: Elizabeth Andrews, Jessica Branco, Paul Carnahan, Bridget Carr, Beth Carroll-Horrocks, Ellen Doon, Tara Hurt (Secretary), Tom Hyre, Mary Ide, Joan Krizack, Brenda Lawson, Daniel McCormick, Ann Sauer, Karen Spicher, Susan Von Salis, Jane Ward, Rutherford Witthus, Mark Savolis.
Meeting was called to order by Rutherford at 9:00 am.
Minutes from the January 12, 2004 Board Meeting were presented.
Tara made a motion to accept the minutes. Paul seconded .
All members voted in favor of the January 12, 2004 minutes.
The following reports were distributed via email and approved without discussion:
President Report (Appendix A)
Print Coordinator Report (Appendix B)
Development Coordinator Report (Appendix C)
Newsletter Editor Report (Appendix D)
Outreach Committee Report (Appendix E)
Haas Award Report (No Report)
Membership Secretary Report (Appendix F)
Joan made a motion to approve reports submitted via email. Anne seconded.
All members in voted in favor of approving reports..
Note: Reminder that the reports are to be sent out two weeks before the meeting. Good to have Presidents email prompt and reminder.
Vice President Report (Appendix G)
Mary submitted report in advance. Mary has been spending most of her time talking with facilitators that will be heading up planning session at the Fall 2004 meeting. After this meeting she will be sending out a call to have people take part in this one day (Saturday) planning session: she will be planning some up front work so that at the time of the meeting all of the participants will be on the same page. Mary will use NEA Discuss to share with people so that the ideas and themes of this planning session are understood by al of the members. Board members asked about the focus of this one day session and the feedback about this planning process. Mary reported that we have had a lot of feedback about focusing on recruiting of new people: the spring meeting may have some follow up if necessary. Paul asked about how many locations there are for the Spring 2005 conference and Mary reported that the two options are for the Spring 2005 meeting are Mashantucket Pequot Museum and Research Center and Fidelity in Mystic (both in Connecticut).
Immediate Past President Report (Appendix h)
Joan reported that 149 ballots were received: one of which was a photocopy. The board agreed that we need to make it clear that we do not accept photocopies of ballots.
The election results were as follows:
Paul Carnahan – President
Elizabeth Slomba – Secretary
Tom Hyre – Rep at Large
Brenda Larson – Rep at Large
The Board offered a round of applause for Joan for all of her work. Beth made a note that we should send a note via email to remind people, a few weeks before the election, to vote. The voting came to down to several votes so your vote does count.
Secretary Report (Appendix I)
Mary asked that a correction be made to our last set of minutes: the minutes should read University of New England. Tara reported that she will be working to finish things up to pass along to Elizabeth. Tara will be finishing this meetings minutes and the index for the minutes.
Treasurer Report (Appendix J)
Liz has a copy of the budget for 2004: to date 476 paid members have paid for 2004. To date the highest level of members was around the Newport meeting 610 (many town clerks came to the Newport meeting). Liz reported that membership numbers are good and at the end of this meeting we should have even more memberships.
Dan has been working with town clerks and town officials to get feed back about their relationship/participation with NEA. Over 50 % of the clerks who responded said they would like to receive information from NEA about records management. Very few of the clerks said they would not want to receive information from NEA. Mary noted that the Program Committee will be working with museums to draw to draw them into NEA events so bringing clerks in would be great.
Public Relations Report (Appendix K)
Dan has submitted his resignation so Mary, Rutherford and Paul will discuss Dan’s replacement. Dan is hoping to work as ex-officio with outreach to work with town clerks. Dan may submit for reimbursements and the board said they would review and honor submission requests. Joan said an estimate would be helpful so Dan will work on an estimate of the reimbursement he will need. Rutherford noted we should include this in the budget. The Board agreed that we could use NEA Discuss to post a list of open the positions including the Public Relations Coordinator. All of the Board members offered thanks to Dan (over five years of service).
Education Committee Report (Appendix L)
Karen noted that this meeting did very well: only one workshop was closed due to no registrations. All other meetings had good attendance. Preservation did the best (100%) and the committee is looking to add this topic as a regular workshop. This meeting only had half day workshops but looking to develop full day archives workshop. Joan noted that the committee should try to offer the cancelled workshop again: it was the first time offering it so it would worth trying again. Board agreed to try again.
Joan mentioned that she did an Archivist Show with an Asian American Group and it was great because she shared where to get archives information. The group discussed having a Primer Workshop “Talk to an Archivist” (share your issues, problems, questions). Karen said the group is looking into a workshop like program for members and non members. Planning Fall 2004 sessions and looking at some traditional workshop and some seminars. Two questions: 1) SAA workshop at MIT advanced program for (co-sponsor) members: our commitment we arranged for facilities and mailing labels, MIT donating refreshments and in turn we get one free registration. Mary asked if ARMA has a list serve that is used to post the SAA workshop’s? Karen will make a note to find out what lists it goes on and if Public Relations Committee takes part to get word out. Paul moves that we give our labels to SAA to publicize the advanced electronic workshop we are co sponsoring. Joan seconded. All members voted in favor. 2) Also labels are needed for the NHPRC symposium: NHPRC Symposium free at northeastern. Liz motioned to get free set of labels. Anne seconded. All members voted in favor of giving labels.
For the Arrangement and Description workshop at JFK, we need to do our own publicity and our own mailing. The committee would like to have one registration fee for $45 for members and non members – one fee would keep it open as possible to include everything and also get manual that they can take away. Joan commented that it is good to give people who are members a discount so she would support two different fees but not have a large gap: $45 and $50 or $40 and $45. For example if there is a slight differential we could wave the non members get a discount to join if they join. Setting the cost at $45 covers the honorarium cost (30) and the cost of the manual ($15). One free registration needs to be given to the JFK staff member. Karen noted at $45 fee we will break even if 10 to 15 people attend. Susan noted that if we want to have younger people join then we need to have the differential so we can get people to join with reasonable costs. Joan motioned to charge members fee of $40.00 and non member fee of $45 and the option of joining NEA for the rest of fiscal year for ($60.00) $15.00. Paul seconded the motion. Discussion followed. All members voted in favor of the fees. Flyers have been made and Elizabeth Slomba will cover the cost of creating and producing the flyer.
Joan motioned to give money for postage mailing and labels. Mary seconded the motion. The mailing can be done through bulk mail or to Diane and get into Boston 024 area code.
All members voted in favor of mailing flyers. The committee will contact Debbie for mailing labels.
2004 Spring Local Arrangement / Program Committee Report (Appendix M)
Mark reported 190 people registered for conference. One session was cancelled (Promotional Technical Writing) speaker has pneumonia. Things are going well. Only complaint is that people were looking for breakfast. The board asked that once the day is over if the committee could provide the total number of registrants and an idea of how many came for both days.
Hale Award Report (Appendix N)
Eleven applications were received for the Hale Award: this was great but made it very difficult to measure and make a decision. One application was withdrawn: 8 applications were to attend conferences and workshops and 2 were for research work/applications. Bridget noted that group will discuss / review the matrix used to measure participants. It was very difficult to decide with the current matrix. Tracy Messer from the Mountain Foundation received award. It was noted that with NEAdiscuss and NEAannounce we will continue to get more and more applications. Paul mentioned that it would be good to talk about having have two awards: one for research related work and one for workshop and conference needs.
Membership Committee Report (Appendix O)
It was noted that 4 out of the 5 members terns expire after this meeting. We should use the lists to post vacant positions: Mary can use one posting to list all available vacancies. One current member Chelsea Sheperd could be chair but has not committed. Membership directory committee that was appointed to move NEA toward electronic communications has found that we do not have current email for many members so membership directory is still in the works. Beth feels that a directory should be sent out as a PDF file to NEA members and not available to the public on line. A form has been drafted to get all current email contact info. Will use list serve to remind people to send out forms. As noted above the committee no longer exists after this meeting: Beth can make formal recommendations for a new Chair. Rutherford noted that it should be left to the group to decide how to create and distribute directory.
This year wanted to finish the directory but want to do what is in the best interest of members. All agree we want directory issue taken care of. Beth would like to stay on the membership committee and she was member of the directory task force so this will help the new group from starting from the beginning. The board agreed to leave unresolved until hear from web group. It was noted that if we are moving toward greater membership recruitment then we need help to organize the membership effort with the President and the Vice President. Chelsea sounds great as a possibility for the Chair position because she has strong technical expertise. Note: Liaison to committees need to be replaced this meeting.
2004 Fall Programming (Appendix P)
Mary noted that there is a chance that the planning session might take some of Friday afternoon. Friday is slated for the afternoons and mini sessions and workshops are also on the schedule for Friday. The conference will have some sessions of interest to Maine Museum attendees. There will be mini sessions on Friday AM and PM along with regular all day workshops. The Local Arrangement group consists of Cally Gurley, Chris Bean, and Leah Wisee. Karen noted that the traditional workshops will be offered on Friday. The committee will have everything ready by June meeting.
2004 Fall Local Arrangements
Chris and Cally will work with Mary to come up with a proposed budget by Monday.
Email Coordinator Report
No report
Web Committee Report (see Old Business) (Appendix Q)
Anne and Jessica reviewed the report and highlighted several issues.
1st Issue – The structure of the Web Committee is such that the committee is required to gather all content and this is a major issues. In light of this the committee used the current descriptions to construct the proposed descriptions/positions.
2nd Issue – The Board needs to decide on a way to manage web site more professionally in the future. The meeting participants went into a free flow discussion of going to a pre- paid service and also the distribution of providing content. Ellen mentioned that she has experience using a professional producer / publisher for the newsletter and this works well in her experience. Tara mentioned Bryant Associates as the company who does the NELA web site and this works well. The group discussed using the same person who does our newsletter (Steve Culp). Joan mentioned take a pole of the board to see what sense of the board is with moving to hire a professional web host.
Recap – Hearing that sense of the board, the board will investigate hosting and will do it if we can afford it: the board needs some quotes and quotes for various Teirs for example a cost to maintain site and also give us template for submitting material AND system to verify that information. The group should talk with the newsletter committee because the system works well and has taken a long time to develop. It was noted that once all of these decisions are made there needs to be a follow up with new job descriptions. Jessica noted that if we move to another hosting site we need to have a redirect from the Tufts site. After this meeting Jessica need to get answer to Kathleen because she is ready to move: needs to happen fast to replace her. Post this as separate NEA Announce to get a new person. Rutherford will post for a new person. Ellen will work with Newsletter set up to draft something for using Steve Culp. Committee will pull together details in order to get quotes for the decision to hire hosting source. Joan concerned and noted the long term issues of using the site as a temporary archives in the sense we need to have information available and at a later date. Jessica noted nothing is deleted now so as we progress we can handle that issue. The Board will make a decision at the June meeting. Rutherford thanked Jessica, Anne and Kathleen, for all of their work.
Old Business
Recommendations for the NEA Web Committee
See Appendix Q – Above
Meeting planning group
The board talked about getting this group together but Rutherford will talk with Mary about this matter and bring this back to the board members.
New Business
NEA design/logo for stationery and web
Rutherford announced that the NEA design logo has lost the curly mark in the logo. All stationary will be here tomorrow.
The following positions/liaisons were appointed:
Liaison to Education = Brenda Lawson
Liaison to Outreach = Tom Hyry
Liaison to Membership = Bridget Carr
Liaison to Newletter = Bridget Carr
Liaison to Web = Anne Sauer
Liaison to Hale = Bridget Carr
New positions are needed for the following positions:
Print Coordinator – Diane Yount
Newsletter – Ellen ends in July / Kris could take over in October
Public Relation – Dan McCormick
Membership - Debbie Richards
Next meeting date and adjournment
The group discussed the location of the June Board meeting: possibilities are WGBH, NEDCC, Old Sturbridge Village or the American Antiquarian Society
The group decided to meet at NEDCC Thursday June 17th, 2004 from 10:00 – 2:00. The optional Date is Tuesday June 15th, 2004 10:00 – 2:00.
The meeting adjourned at 11:55 AM.
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