February 24, 2009 Minutes

Present: : Debra Bloom, Brent Burgin, Dawn Hammatt, Dorothy Hazelrigg, Susan Hoffius, Georgette Mayo, Kate Moore, Heather South, Allison Thiessen, Jennifer Welch, Elizabeth West

President Susan Hoffius called the meeting to order at 10:08 a.m.

• Introduction of New Board Members

  The new Board members were introduced: Dawn Hammatt, the new vice president/president-elect; Allison Thiessen, the new treasurer; and Brent Burgin, the new first-year director.




• Approval of January Minutes

  There were no corrections to the minutes of January 9. Allison moved that they be approved and Kate seconded the motion. The minutes were approved.




• Officers' Reports

  A. Director: Georgette reported that the working title for the spring workshop (April 16) is “Taking the Mystery out of Grant-Writing” Registration will be from 9:30-10. Susan Anderson, grant administrator from College of Charleston, will speak from 10-10:45. From 11-12, there will be a panel session entitled “Successful Grant Proposals: Voices of Experience” with speakers Jeanette Bergeron, Mike Kohl, Roy Tryon, and John Sands. Lunch will be from 12-1:30, hopefully with a student presentation of some kind, although Georgette has not yet recruited a speaker. From 1:30-3 will be a session on dos and don’ts, featuring someone from the Charleston Association of Grant Professionals, although the specific speaker is to be determined. Attendees will be asked to bring a grant idea or proposal they are working on. The speakers driving from Charleston will receive mileage reimbursement. The fee for the conference was discussed and it was agreed that it was not a good time to raise the price. Truly Scrumptious, the caterer we have used in the past, costs $13.50 a person and we need to look for something closer to $8.50-$10 a person. The SCDAH designer will help with the brochure. Postage will cost about $250. We will advertise the workshop on the graduate student listservs, with Jennifer Marshall, Palmcop, etc. The registration deadline should probably be about a week before the workshop, so we should try to mail out the brochure by around March 11. Susan and Georgette will get the designed brochure from Heather and have it printed and labeled in Charleston. Jennifer suggested that we could try to do online registration for the first time. If we do, we can mention it in the printed brochure, emails, etc.

  B. Vice President: Dawn passed out a draft brochure for the social in Greenville. It will be a chance to see several institutions in one day, all within walking distance. The date, which is fairly firm, is May 29. The brochure will go into the folders for the spring workshop and will be emailed and mailed out later on. Dawn will also see about getting information from the visitors’ bureau about hotels, restaurants, and a possible baseball game that evening.

  C.Treasurer: Allison reported that she has worked on setting up an account at PayPal, although she still needs to confirm it, which takes a while since we don’t have online banking. PayPal also needs to verify that we are a non-profit organization. Once all that is done, Jennifer can put links and information up on our site.

  D. Membership: Kate had no report. She said that renewal letters need to go out by the end of the week

  E. Newsletter: Laura was absent and did not submit a report.

  F. Website: Jennifer wrote up a position description for the webmaster. Susan will circulate the paperwork so we can vote on making it a Board position. Jennifer is working with Allison on getting PayPal and online registration/renewal possible. Susan said that whenever someone registers for an event, the treasurer will need notification, and the membership director will need it when someone joins or renews membership. Jennifer is going to work with the Archives to see if the server can become .php-enabled so we can include more content on the site.

G. President: Susan reported that she got the grant application for our survey in to SHRAB. The survey consultant that Dawn knows will help us with it. We will have a certain amount of hours of work to contribute to the survey as part of cost-sharing, but it will be manageable.




• Old Business

  Hart Scholarship Review: Elizabeth said that there are a number of different versions of the officer procedure manuals that need updating, so it was difficult to figure out which was the most recent language about the endowment. Originally, the program included scholarships and student paper prizes. No papers were ever submitted, so that portion of the program was dropped. There seems to be a $500 limit for a single award, but we could theoretically give out any number of awards, as long as each one was capped at $500. We may want to revise that language. Kate made the point that the awards will vary due to the number/quality of applications as well as due to our financial status. Debbie looked at SAA’s awards programs, which state that awards will be “up to” a certain amount. Elizabeth suggested limiting award monies to a certain number or percentage of the endowment—5% is often used as a limit. The problem of deadlines, etc. was discussed. If we allocate a certain amount for awards, should that be spread out over the course of the calendar year? Should there be several cycles for different conferences (SAA, etc.)? Susan suggested that the situation was confusing and that we need to get back to basics. Rather than a continuing committee to handle awards, she felt the Board should serve in that capacity. Debbie will continue to work on revising the language, and we will eventually revise the application form, as well as revise the language in our procedure manuals.




• New Business

  Fall Conference: Susan suggested we begin to think of ideas for the fall meeting, which will probably be a joint meeting with Palmcop. Elizabeth mentioned that USC professor Bobby Donaldson is working on research into the Wheeler Hill/Ward 1 area of Columbia, and it is an ongoing research project for his undergraduate classes. They are looking at primary sources and doing oral history projects. She thought it would be a good potential topic for a presentation at one of our conferences. She will ask him about speaking or having some of his students speak. There could even be a brief “teaser” mention of the project at the spring workshop to stir interest in a fuller session at the fall meeting.




• Next meeting

  There was discussion about whether another meeting should be held before the April 16 workshop, or perhaps the day of the social over lunch. Susan said she would call Marie Ferrara to talk about Palmcop’s needs for the joint fall meeting. Their officers will need to be included in our planning. Once she has spoken with her, we will set the date for the next meeting.




• Adjournment

  The meeting was adjourned at 11:50 a.m.