Board Meeting Minutes, January 5, 2006
Following board members present:
Dale Merritt
Julie Knutson
Shawn Hoover
Mike Bachkosky
Wendell Wright
Larry Kimble
Jeff Burks
Jeff Ports
- All board meetings are recorded on CD.
- Meeting called to order by President Merritt, new members welcomed, Julie and Mike.
- Treasurer’s Report from CY 2005, from L. Kimble: Bank Account balance in an interest bearing account in the amount of: $21,235 Last years starting balance $19,601. President will be back up signature on account with treasurer. $10,000 in Certificate of Deposit
- Secretary’s Report: Previous secretary has passed on membership database and the ‘dog’ database from previous secretaries. It was asked if election ballots had been passed on. When materials are received from previous secretary on 1/7/06, copies will be sent to President of previous administration, Jeff Burks.
- Old Business:
ü Outstanding Certificates need to be identified and addressed, anyone not having received certificates from 2004 and 2005 tests; also incorrect certificates need to be corrected.
ü All judges’ books containing test results will be maintained for 4 years by the secretary, motion made by Jeff Ports, seconded by Mike B. and approved unanimously.
ü Interest bearing CD for the organization was decided upon by the previous administration and the new treasurer has initiated the account in the amount of $10,000
ü Jeff Ports moved to put the money in the CD, seconded by Shawn Hoover, unanimously approved.
ü NSF check by old members requires establishing a policy for ‘bounced’ checks. The board discussed various aspects of new policy, resulting in the following: Posting the policy on the website for public view allows legal procedures in handling collections as determined by D. Merritt.. Policy discussed is as follows:
NSF Proposal
- Any NSF check returned to the APLA results in a $35.00 fee to the check writer.
- A certified letter will be sent out to the member stating them they have 30 days to pay the amount of the NSF, plus the $35.00 fee (Cashers Check to APLA)
- If check remains unpaid they become a Member not in good standing.
- At 90 days it gets turned over for collection.
- Memberships will be suspended for one year from the time the money was collected.
- If there is no restitution, there will be a lifetime suspension from APLA membership
Acceptance motion made by Shawn Hoover, seconded by Jeff Burks, unanimously approved; policy will be posted on web page.
- New business
ü Web Site, discussed by L. Kimble. The web designers have done a superb job of creating the APLA website, with significant and increasing traffic. Policy on the website needs to be established by the board.
ü The advertisement policy needs to be determined. A long discussion ensued. The results of this discussion are as follows:
a. Banner ads will be on the site, available for APLA members to advertise at an annual cost of $200. User provides graphics, logos, text, etc. and submits to the web hosts. Motion made by S. Hoover, seconded by J. Burks, unanimously approved.
b. Jeff Burks motioned to request an invoice be received from the web designers to pay for services already rendered. The work has exceeded expectations; S. Hoover seconded, approved.
c. APLA member Breeders and Trainers are listed on the website at no cost, Shawn Hoover moved that members in good standing can post in Breeder, Trainer and Classified listings, J. Burks seconded, voted was approved with L. Kimble’s dissenting vote.
d. For a member in good standing to post a classified ad, dogs at stud, dogs for sale, and the parents of a litter must provide current and valid OFA number and eye CERF. One or more of the parents of any advertised litter must possess an APLA title; any advertised dog must possess at least one APLA title. D. Merritt made the motion, seconded by J. Burks, all voted to agree, only opposing, L. Kimble.
e. Kimble motioned instead to leave out mandatory OFA and CERF requirements for advertising, J. Ports seconded, unanimously disapproved, motion dismissed.
f. The old APLA website is becoming a problem for the new website and the organization, and it needs to be removed if possible. A previous APLA officer owns it. J. Ports motioned a certified letter be sent to the owner, S. Hoover seconded the motion, all approved. Dale Merritt will send a certified letter to old website owner asking them to take the APLA insignia off and remove any association with the APLA.
g. PayPal was discussed as a means to pay for memberships and online entries. Many people mentioned having trouble with PayPal themselves personally. J. Knutson mentioned Merchant Services as another option for accepting credit and debit cards. Jeff Ports moved we establish a merchant services account, L. Kimble seconded, all approved.
h. On board contact listings on the website, J. Ports asked what info should be made available for contact info. Email and phone numbers will be made publicly available, also town and state of board officers. Dale suggested addresses not be mandatory, but all other information be available.
i. J. Knutson brought up the selling of merchandise. Dale Merritt assigned Wendell Wright to find a source of clothing, etc. to sell on website and other locations. L. Kimble wanted to determine how much profit should be made off each piece of clothing. D. Merritt suggested $2 profit on shirts and hats. Hunter patch shirts are popular; J. Ports wanted tank tops for women, long sleeved shirts, etc. Monthly purchases would be summarized and made available to treasurer.
Next item, filling L. Kimble’s vacated Board position. Stephen Paul and Kevin Hollern had tied for the vote, Stephen Paul stepped down. The Bylaws call for the First Runner-up from the previous, 2004 election (Tim Spangler) to complete the remainder of the term if a vacancy occurs. If the First Runner-up is not eligible, then the Board is to appoint any eligible member. The first runner up is no longer a member of the APLA, so the board considered Kevin Hollern because he just ran in the 2005 election. Joe Bubulka was also nominated.
L. Kimble proposed Joe Bubulka as the board nominee, based on his experience, his dedication to the organization his level of participation, and his contributions on the website. Much discussion about the two potential nominees, Kevin Hollern and Joe Bubulka and their relative level of APLA experience and contributions. J. Burks asked about having board positions representing various locations in the US, Dale mentioned that has been investigated but wasn’t feasible given the low membership numbers. No other names were introduced or said to have indicated any interest in the nomination, leaving the two individuals subject to vote. A vote was taken around the table, resulting in 3 votes for Kevin Hollern, 4 for Joe Bubulka, with one abstention. Joe was elected to fill Larry Kimble’s vacated position as Officer. It was a difficult discussion and a difficult vote for the Board, but a decision had to be made and new business addressed.
More discussion resulted and the option to rescind the vote and throw the vote out to the membership was subsequently discussed. J. Burks motioned to rescind the vote based on insufficient preliminary discussion of the candidates. By-laws themselves do not call for a special election, but that the board nominate another candidate and make the decision internally. It was also determined that Kevin Hollern had submitted an application to run for an officer position. The acting secretary, seeing that no one had filed for the treasurer position moved Kevin Hollern’s nomination to the treasurer position, after asking him if that was okay with him. Through an error on L. Kimbles part, Kimble inserted the wrong nomination in the envelope sent to the acting secretary. The acting sec. had received a nomination not for treasurer position but board position.. Once Kimble rectified the error by explaining what happened to the sec. the acting sec. moved Kevin back to an officer position, without his awareness. This was a difficult situation for the board to assess.
Dale Merritt moved to put the decision back to the membership to vote for the candidates for the vacant board position. Dale did not care whether new people were nominated or the board nominated board people be voted on, but suggested the election be thrown open to the membership to nominate and then vote. The timeliness necessary for this election was discussed, as it would be difficult to get done in time before things begin to occur. Dale wanted the new member on board by March board meeting. The board would open the board position for nomination and vote, open to the previous nominees and any other interested members. Julie was asked to draft this decision for placement on the website to inform the membership. Nomination letters are to be emailed to Jeff Ports by Feb 1, 2006, and the vote could occur the following week, with ballots about by Feb 1 and returned by 25 Feb. This eliminates any perception of a buddy system method of dealing with the internal board vote.
Rules committee not ready to present the new rules.
New Hunt Test committee of Shawn Hoover and Mike Bachkosky was established by Dale, to review requests for tests, determine feasibility of tests, locations, dates, resources etc. and approve all APLA test events. Both board members agreed to function on the new committee. 3 test requests had already been received, and were approved by the board:
Higginsville, MO April 8, 2006 single
Orchard, CO April 29-30, 2006 single
Elkhart, IA May 20-21, 2006 single
Motion made to accept by L. Kimble, seconded by J. Knutson, unanimously approved. It was agreed to post this on the website as soon as possible. L. Kimble motioned to accept the Illinois test without a date yet assigned, seconded by J. Ports.
J. Burks at this point had to leave the meeting to go to work.
Hunt Test packet will be given to the web designers for hunt test secretaries to download once their tests are approved. Within the packet is all the info necessary to put on tests.
Dale Merritt wants to establish a head judge seminar to be given to the head APLA judges so that the head judges can give seminars in various locations in the country. This will eliminate the inconsistency in the interpretation of the rules and the setup of tests.
Julie asked if the board would consider allowing dogs with UKC registration in lieu of AKC registration. There was a short discussion of the merits of various registering organizations, resulting in a decision to allow AKC, CKC, UKC registrations to run in APLA events. L, Kimble motioned to allow UKC or CKC registration in lieu of AKC registration. Proof of registration will be required, but will be required only for dogs at a certification level. After that, the proof of registration will stand on record. Seconded by Shawn Hoover, all approved.
Date for next Board meeting was agreed to be 2 February, Thursday.
The next newsletter will be sent out to all members current at the end of 2005. It will have a chance to renew memberships and get the fall results from 2005 Hunt Tests. All old members have a 90-day grace period to renew before being removed form mailing list.
Jeff Ports thanked everyone for one of the best board meetings he had been in, the positive approach taken by all and the progress made. It was agreed that all meetings should contain some ribbing of Jeff Ports, even by those who don’t know him well.
All running certification dogs must present their registration papers at the event sign in, if not already mailed to the hunt test secretary. The copy of the official registration papers will be inserted into the dog’s file and sent in with test results. The copy can be mailed to the hunt test secretary, or given directly at the sign in. All copies of registrations will ultimately reside in the hands of the hunt test secretary.
Dale motioned to adjourn the meeting, all approved and said good night.
Addendum to the Meeting Minutes
After having made the decision to throw the election of the vacant board position to the membership, one of the nominees let the Board know they had no interest in a subsequent election and would not run. In light of this change, Dale moved that the initial vote for the position stand, and asked for input from each Board member. Based upon the results of this action, it was determined that Joe Bubulka be instated as an Officer on the Board.