Minutes of SWANA Rocky Mountain Chapter Monthly Board of Directors Meeting

7:00 am, August 19, 2008, Telephone Conference

ATTENDANCE:

Present: Kathy Andrew, Debby Barton, John Briest, Roger Doak, Stephen Gillette*, Susie Gordon, Tom Schweitzer, Dick Sprague, Cathryn Stewart, Tom Strickland

Absent: Neil Nowak

Attendance Notations: * - Member arrived after meeting called to order

** - Member left before meeting ended

Minutes are in the order of the agenda and not necessarily in order of discussions.

CALL TO ORDER: Meeting called to order at 7:04 am as 9 of 11 directors present for a quorum.

MINUTES:

July meeting minutes previously approved via email.

ADOPTION OF AGENDA:

Andrew/Doak moved/seconded to adopt the agenda. Motion carried unanimously.

TREASURER:

Gillette reported checking balance as of 1 August 2008 of $10,449.19, savings balance of $19,273.74, e-loan balance (due by 31 August) of $6,153.25 and T-Loan balance of $10,000. All money for the Road-E-O has been received and expenses paid, except for any that may become obligated by board motion to send overall winner to the International Road-E-O in Kentucky (see discussion under Road-E-O below). Discussion held on what to do with the E-Loan which was made to national SWANA and is now due and payable by National to the Chapter. Sprague/Strickland moved/seconded to roll the $7,364.30 E-Loan balance over to a T-Loan to National SWANA. Amount of interest and length of the T-loan was not known. Consensus discussion was this would benefit chapter members as well as supporting improved training at national level. Motion was carried unanimously. Gillette will follow up with National and report back to Briest, Barton, and Sprague on length of the loan and interest rate.

COMMITTEE REPORTS and ASSIGNMENTS:

Membership: Andrew reported 154 members which is 6 more than last year at this time which represents a 4% increase. There is one new member from Summit County, Sam Johnson. Chapter received $631 reimbursement. Andrew unable to find last year's assignments for calling members to update the directory. Consensus of the board members was for Andrew to assign pages to the Board members. She had also sent out last year's survey with updated dates. Board by consensus also excused Strickland from doing follow up calling as he has given a tremendous amount of volunteer time towards the Annual Meeting and the Road-E-O. There is a total of 16 pages for the chapter directory. Gordon and Barton volunteered to do 2 pages each. A question was raised during discussion on nominations about how to approach prospective new members. Among resources would be to send contact information to National SWANA (David Hernandez or Crystal Davis) for follow up information.

Technical Program/Meetings:

Technical Program: Further development and discussion was tabled until after the annual meeting when the new board is seated to develop next year's programs.

Annual Meeting: Strickland has followed up again with the tour areas at Rocky Mountain Bottling Company and National Renewal Energy Laboratory. He will follow up with the Buffalo Rose on the drink tickets after a decision is made on the number of tickets per person. Discussion held on how many attendees may be driving to/from the meeting location. Consensus reached that one “free” drink ticket per attendee would be offered.

Early bird registration is still 5 September however a discussion was held about extending the deadline date if response is sluggish. To date only 6 registrations have been received.

Speakers will be requested to send their power point presentations to Doak by 25 September. If the presentation are greater than 5 MB, a disk will have to be sent. Sprague will send instructions on how to compress photo presentation which may help bring down the size for email transmissions. Speakers will need to send in registration information to Gillette to provide meal counts.

Moderators for the sessions will be assigned during the 16 September Board meeting. Moderators will be responsible for getting bios from the speakers. Bus numbers from registrations will be needed no later than 18 September including payment. If early bird registration extension is granted, the consensus was to have cut off as of 15 September. Currently there are two buses that are reserved – a 30 and a 35 passenger.

To date there is one sponsor donating $1000. The sponsor has also donated an additional $1000 for scholarship use. Gordon has begun calling on past sponsors and has asked for names of potential new sponsors including table top displays. The budget goal for sponsorship is $6,600 which is a 20% increase from last year.

Scholarship: No scholarships have been received for meetings, training registrations or educational use. Information on the scholarships should be made during the Board members calling of directory updates (see membership discussion above).

Nominations: Bruce Philbrick has indicated he would not be able to devote time to serve on the SWANA board but appreciated the invitation. The Board members discussed a need to include smaller haulers and collection interests on the Board but it seems to be difficult to get someone with time and willingness to serve on the Board. Ballot has to be sent out by 29 August to meet the Bylaws deadline of not less than thirty (30) days before the annual meeting. Briest will continue to work on this project and plans to get out for review by the end of the week.

Legislative: No legislative activity at this time. Sprague sent out a summary on Flow Control issues which may have some impacts on balancing public benefits with interstate commerce. CDPHE is involved in revising regulations on Section 9, Waste Impoundments as well as Compost regulation. A status report will be provided to the next Solid Waste Commission meeting.

International Board: No additional report from last month.

Web site/Webmaster: Implementation date for the revised webpage is 31 August (or sooner). Updates for Road-e-O and Annual Meeting have taken more time. A suggestion was made to have a small demonstration on the web site for the members during the annual meeting showing the new improved feature. The winter and summer newsletters have not yet been posted to the website. Sprague will forward copies to Doak to send to the webmaster to post.

Newsletter: Discussion was held on whether a short fall newsletter should be developed and sent out to the members after the annual meeting, especially to pique those that did not attend. Sprague recommended a short update should be posted to the website instead. Barton commented that a brief email directing members to check on the website for after the annual meeting report would encourage more use of the website by members.

OLD BUSINESS:

Road-E-O: Strickland reported on the Road-E-O held 26 July was successful with 26 participants. Laurie Batchelder Adams, Patty McClellan and Cathryn Stewart provided much assistance during the event. There was a good sized cheering section present during the event. Strickland estimated about 100 folks were in attendance overall. The grand winner is Andrew Stewart from the city of Loveland. Costs for Mr. Stewart to represent the chapter at the International Road-E-O were estimated as Registration - $225, Travel (air/rental car) - $614.77, Lodging - $297, and per diem of $266 for a total of $1402.77. The city of Denver plans to send two participants and Strickland has checked costs and the $1402.77 appears reasonable. The chapter Road-E-O had a profit of $1,791.42 after all monies due and expenses paid are accounted for as confirmed by Gillette.

Gordon/Schweitzer moved/seconded that the Colorado Rocky Mountain Chapter sponsor Andrew Stewart to attend the Intentional Road-E-O in Kentucky in the amount of $1,402.77. Discussion held on Mr. Stewart being a member of SWANA. He has already joined and provided proof to Strickland of his membership. Motion carried. Briest extended a big thank you to Tom Strickland for all the volunteer work he has done for two years on the Road-E-O. The Board concurred in the appreciation. Gillette/Strickland will follow up with the City of Loveland on how best to send the check, whether reimbursing the city or Mr. Stewart.

NEW BUSINESS:

Request to use the chapter's email to send out a request for Vendor: Stewart had received a request to send an email out to the chapter's members asking for resources on recycling pallets. Discussion held that the Board is all volunteer and the chapter has not set up protocols on how to handle such a request. National has technical committees and assigned paid staff to send out technical questions to members but the chapter has not grown to that point. Members have also indicated a desire to receive fewer emails. The consensus of the Board was to not allow the use of the email list to get recycling information. Doak commented that the individual could contact CDPHE as a list of possible recycling resources is available from them. Stewart will convey the results of the discussion to the individual with recommendations on how to further proceed.

Outstanding Colorado SWANA Chapter member: Briest reminded everyone that nominations or selection of an outstanding SWANA member is due for presentation at the annual meeting. In the past Board members have received the recognition but any SWANA member is eligible. The requirement for consideration will be the individual's contribution to the organization and chapter and support for the SWANA mission.

CAFR Zero Waste Project Volunteers: CAFR is looking for volunteers to help during the Democratic National Convention in Denver 25-30 September 2008 to help meet the high waste diversion goal set.

Solid Waste Disaster Cleanup Planning Grants: Gordon reported that $7,500 from the RREOF surcharge paid by the state landfills has been earmarked to be made available to any community needing to do some preplanning on cleanup after disasters with a goal of increasing waste diversion. She also reported that the Research Fund grants will be due in September.

Next Board Meeting: The next Board meeting will be the third Tuesday, 16 September 2008 as a face to face. HDR will host the meeting at 7 am and provide a means for calling in for any Board member unable to attend.