Wisconsin Fellowship of Poets Board Minutes
February 23, 2002      11:42 AM
Neenah Public Library, Neenah, Wisconsin

Present: Pres. Sherrill; Officers Cofell, Huston, Remmel-Gehm; Jim Alderson, Anderson, Appleton, Belongie, DeKelver, Kolosso, Rafal

President Sherrill called the meeting to order at 11:42 a.m.

Minutes of the November 2001 Board and General meeting were not reviewed due to Roberta Fabiani's absence; will be approved at the Spring meeting.

Treasury reports read, approved, attached; balances as follows:
12/31/02     Literary Fund           $20,956.94
12/31/02     General Account      $ 6,457.78
12/31/02     Calendar Account    $7,610.73

In the General Account, the student contest expense includes cost of a bulk permit in Madison which is good for 2 years, purchased prior to realizing Chris Falk had already purchased one in Minnesota. Now that we have two, something will need to be worked out. Paula Anderson to work with D. B. Appleton and Chris.

Old Business—Reports

Calendar—Lou Roach not present but asked Sue DeKelver to request that any old calendars left after April 1 of each calendar year become the responsibility of the editor of that calendar, beginning with the 2001 calendar. Motion made by Sue, seconded by Michael Belongie, approved.

Literary Fund—Sue reported that there is an additional $959.81 accrued in January. Muse contest running smoothly; full report in April.

Credentials—Karla Huston reported that she had accepted 23 new members for active membership and 3 for associate membership, with 3 pending.

Web Page—Jeannie Bergmann not present but asked Pres. Sherrill to report. She has requested a bio and photo from Ellen Kort to put out on the web but has not yet received them; Cathryn Cofell will follow-up with Ellen. Jeannie is concerned that the discussion forum on our web site is almost completely unused; she asked if she should put us on a listserv on Yahoo. Table for discussion at the next general meeting to determine why it is not being used first.

Jeannie had one non-web issue. At the last conference, some cash from her money envelope was stolen; she recommends that the conference coordinators be responsible for cash handling from all book sales. Since this would require a certain amount of work and commitment from each region, with no guarantees, discussion will be tabled for the next general meeting.

Student Contest—Paula Anderson reported that she and Judy Kolosso completed two mailings to students. The second mailing was due to a DPI list error; the missing names were provided at no charge. Received a total of 1134 entries, 727 from middle school students, 344 from high school students and 63 disqualified. Barbara Bach-Wiig was the middle school judge, Phil Zweifel the high school judge. They created a new category of special merit; there is no monetary award but with so many entries many poems deserved extra attention. Judy and Paula said they would like to give the judges something for their work and asked if this had to come out of pocket or from the treasury. Currently, there is nothing set aside in the General Account; it will be put on the agenda for discussion at the next business meeting. The contest winners' names will be put on our website.

NFSPS—Charlene Sexton not present but she did prepare a report with the NFSPS that was reviewed by Pres. Sherrill and Cathryn; both agreed she did a great job with her report.

Archives—No report.

Regional Reports—None.

New Business

Calendar Editorship 2005—Peter received several nominees for the 2005 edition. Discussion on why we need to do this so soon, when it should be the responsibility of the next President. The Board agreed to hold off on selecting the 2005 editor this year, but to give the list of nominees to the next President.

Financial Support of Arts Organizations—Cathryn made a motion that we table discussion for the Spring meeting, seconded by Sue and approved.

Appointment of New Treasurer—Karla made a motion to accept DB Appleton as Treasurer. Seconded by Michael and approved. A thank you from the entire board to MT for all her hard work.

Membership and Education Committee—No report.

Clarification of Dues—Current dues are $25 Active, $15 Associate.

WFOP/WRWA Meeting—Conference Rotation Schedule was changed in Fall 2003 for Fox Valley Region to coordinate the proposed joint conference. Karla and Cathryn met with Patricia Dunson-Boverhuis and Kathie McGwinn of the WRWA and together they came up with a rough outline of how the weekend conference would proceed; this proposal was distributed for review.

Constitution and By-Laws Committee Report—Per the existing By-Laws, only Officers, Past Presidents and Regional VPs in attendance are allowed to vote on motions, but others in attendance are welcome to participate in all discussion. Prior to making motions and changes, the Board agreed to the following process: Pres. Sherrill will first send a copy of the proposed changes by mail to all those in attendance. Once approved, Pres. Sherrill will send a copy by mail to all additional members of the Board of Directors not in attendance.

All Regional VPs are strongly encouraged to hold a meeting of their members for discussion of the proposed changes, prior to the Spring meeting. The proposed new Constitution and By-Laws must first be read at the Spring meeting. Any discussion or proposed amendments after this reading must be sent in writing to Pres. Sherrill prior to the Fall meeting. A vote on the proposed changes will come at the Fall meeting; this meeting’s planners need to be alerted that they should allow enough time at the general meeting for potential discussion.

Significant discussion on the changes ensued; for brevity, it will not be included in these minutes since all members of the Board will receive a full copy of the proposed changes. Motions made as follows: Sue made a motion to "Eliminate the credentials process and the Associate Member category. All current Associate Members will be renamed Active Members with full Active Member privileges. The Credential Chair will be renamed as Membership Chair and handle all matters relating to new members." The motion was seconded by Karla and approved by a vote of 5 – 2. Cathryn made a motion that "We eliminate the Patron Member category but grandfather in existing Patron Members." The motion was seconded by Michael. After much discussion, MT Remmel-Gehm called the question, seconded by Karla and approved. Michael requested a voice vote: DB Appleton, yes; Jim Alderson-abstain; Michael-yes; Karla-yes; Nancy Rafal-yes; Cathryn-yes. Motion approved 5 – 1 abstain.

Karla made a motion "That membership be open to anyone who wants to join our organization regardless of residency." Seconded by MT. Motion failed. Cathryn made the motion that "An honorary member be modified to be either a corporation which has donated a substantial amount to the WFOP (i.e. >$100) or an individual who is well-known in literary or educational fields and has enhanced the WFOP as a contest judge, program presenter or through publicity." Seconded by DB and approved.

Pres. Sherrill suggested we review the rest of the document line by line with consensus on all additional changes until we do one final vote at the end. As the meeting ran longer than planned, two votes actually were made. Motion made by DB to approve Constitution and By-Laws changes up to Article 5, Section 2. Seconded by Jim and unanimously approved. Motion made by Karla to approve Constitution and By-Laws changes from Article 5, Section 3 through to the end, Article VIII—Amendments. Seconded by Nancy and approved 4 – 1.

Meeting adjourned at 3:05 p.m.

Respectfully submitted,
Cathryn Cofell for WFOP Secretary