January 12, 2004
America Online
Dulles, VA

Attendees:

Cindy Loison, President
Lisa Forester, Secretary
Kurt Cowles, President-Elect
Nancy Streeter, Communications Director
Judy Carter, Treasurer
Bonnie Little, VP, Membership
Sarah Cower, Registration Coordinator
Maggie Chan, Certification Rep
Mary Saily, Asst VP Programs
Amy Lourenco, VP, Programs
Evelyn Kaiser, Diversity & Workforce
Judy Perrault, Past President

Agenda:

The November 2003 and Transition Board meeting minutes were approved.

Treasurers Report

Judy Carter reported that the bank account balance is $16,248.74.

Membership Report

Bonnie Little reported that she had a transition with Robin Spivak. Bonnie is going to follow up with Robin regarding the e-mail to members letting them know they can renew membership at the chapter website. The 2004 Directory Update will be done in May after annual dues have been received. Bonnie did not have a current membership count but will provide that to Cindy, who needs it for the Chapter Activity Plan, which is due January 31st.

Programs Report

Amy asked Judy Carter to let her know when she receives sponsor checks. Amy advised that speakers are booked from January through June and she’s working on an August topic. Sponsors are booked through April, and for June and October. A representative from the Women’s Center contacted Amy. She’ll refer her to Evelyn Kaiser.

Communications Report

Nancy advised that she maintains the mailer/mailer list and needs member names and e-mail addresses to keep her list current. Bonnie should let Nancy know of all new member information, including name, title and company, as well as e-mail address. She sends three notices on chapter meetings. In addition to meeting notices, Nancy maintains the chapter website, which includes past minutes and meeting information. Nancy asked that anyone with information on HR-related training, for example, should pass it to her for posting on the website. She needs information about all chapter events. Please let her know if you see typos on the website , see things that are outdated and need removal, or if you have suggestions on how to improve the website. Lastly, the deadline for the Chapter Newsletter is the Friday before the Chapter meeting. Nancy needs information on the next month’s meeting, sponsor information along with a link and Chapter Discussion group information.

Diversity and Workforce Education Report

Evelyn Kaiser advised that she will introduce community service, non-profit speakers before each chapter meeting, and they will briefly discuss their programs as an effort to educate attendees who may be unaware of the services offered.

Old Business:

a. Member Survey. Mary Saily said she needs an excel spreadsheet with names and addresses of current members in order to distribute the survey and get results. There was discussion on the survey questions. Mary said she would do some further work on this.

b. Chapter Discussion Group. There were 29 attendees at the discussion group on “Orientation Programs”. The board discussed charging a nominal fee ($5.00) to attend these discussion groups. It was decided, though, to table this since our bank account is very healthy right now and we don’t really need the money. The February topic is “Using Technology in Recruiting”.

c. Demographic Questions. Kurt Cowles advised that the questions need to be quantifiable in order to quickly report responses. Questions which could result in 35 different answers will be hard to quantify. Amy suggested that some attendees may feel disconnected if they are unemployed and asked to report how many people are in their department, etc. Kurt said many of the proposed questions can be answered by all. Cindy Loison envisioned that meeting attendees would respond to the demographic question during their introduction and that the proposed questions would be ones that all could answer. The board agreed that we’d try the first demographic question at the January chapter meeting. Judy Perrault suggested that we should offer answers to pick from. Cindy and Kurt said they would discuss this further before the chapter meeting and work out any last-minute details.

New Business:

a. Maggie Chan advised that the January chapter meeting was pre-certified.

b. Eileen Taylor passed on information about last year’s Certification Course. She’d heard from nine of the fourteen in the course that they had passed the test. Maggie said she would follow up on the others and let Nancy know the details for the newsletter.

c. Maggie suggested that we consider recognition for National Louis University, who provided the room and projector for the certification study course. Maggie suggested we might want to provide them with a plaque. Another idea was to donate books or a subscription to a periodical if they have a library. Maggie said she would check on that and report back at a later meeting.

d. Kurt suggested that we recognize members who pass the certification exam. We know who participates in the study group, but some members may take the exam but not enroll in the study group. He asked if we could compare a list of people who passed the exam with our own membership list to determine who in our chapter passed the test. Cindy said she could ask at the chapter meeting for anyone who passed the test to identify themselves.

e. Cindy will talk to one of our board members who told Judy Perrault that she’s unable to attend any of our Board meetings. Cindy suggested ground rules for Board members: attend Board meetings; sit at chapter meetings at tables with non-Board members; and, talk to non-members at chapter meetings and encourage them to join the chapter. All Board members agreed with these ground rules.

f. Amy asked if a National SHRM representative will speak at our Chapter meetings each year. Kurt suggested that we ask the SHRM National President to speak every other year, and ask another representative to take the opposite years.

g. Amy advised that NOVA SHRM does an orientation for new members on what National SHRM offers, etc. Judy Perrault didn’t think we get enough new members to do an orientation more than a couple times a year. We could do something similar in a handout, on our website, or in our newsletter.

h. Bonnie suggested that we set out brochures and other chapter items at our monthly meetings. Kurt said that we do put out some of these things and that Board members could help by directing people toward the items.

i. Cindy reported that we must re-negotiate a hotel contract starting in June. Judy Perrault advised that our current location cannot accommodate morning chapter meetings. We’ve contracted for dinner meetings for all of 2004.

j. Kurt advised that he attended the Leadership Conference in November 2003. He heard that we should update our by-laws. He received a copy of them from National SHRM and they are very outdated (1986). Judy said that Don Nagley may have a more recent version. Kurt said he’d send a soft copy to Board members and ask for volunteers to work on updating them. Send Kurt an e-mail message or call him if you can work on this effort.

k. Cindy and Kurt will set a date in March for the Board to go out to a restaurant with spouses/guests.

l. Cindy asked if the Board meeting location was okay for this year’s members, and all agreed. The February meeting will be at AOL on Monday, February 9th.

Questions or Comments? Contact the President

Previous Board Minutes