Business Meeting Minutes
July 26, 2007
10:00 to 11:45 AM
Millenium Knickerbocker Hotel, Chicago, IL

Call to order. NLTAPA President Lisa Harris called the meeting to order at 10:15 AM.

Roll call. Secretary Patsy Anderson recorded the following Centers present at roll call for this meeting: AL, AR, CA, CO, CT, DE, FL, HI, IL, IA, KS, KY, LA, MA, MI, MO, MS, MT, NH, NJ, NC, ND, OH, OK, PR, RI, SC, SD, TN, UT, VT, WV, WI, WY, AK-TTAP, CO-TTAP, MI-TTAP, Northern Plains-TTAP, Northwest-TTAP, OK-TTAP. Absent at roll call: AK, AZ, GA, ID, IN, ME, MD, MN, NE, NV, NM, NY, OR, PA, TX, VA, WA, NV-TTAP

Bylaws changes and vote. Harris summarized Tuesday's discussions about the draft bylaws, as follows:

1. Members discussed pros and cons of allowing centers to change regions without approval of EC and members. General consensus was to keep the approvals.
2. Received a comment to only change regions when in interest of the Centers involved and the Association as a whole.

Harris recommended the following (underlined) changes to the draft bylaws to address the above member input:

3.4.2 Changes in regional composition
Subject to approval by the members, Individual Centers may change their Regional designation at any time, and whole Regions may merge or be created at any time, if the change is in the best interest of the Centers involved, and the Association as a whole. A request to change region requires an affirmative vote by three-fourths of the Active Center Members in the originating region and in the receiving Region. The results of this vote shall be presented to the Executive Committee of NLTAPA to draft a bylaws change to Paragraph 3.4.1 herein. The proposed change shall be presented to the membership for a vote, following the procedures for by-laws amendments as specified in Article 8 herein.

Motion: Richard Rolland moved and Larry Sellers seconded to approve the NLTAPA bylaws as originally distributed, without the above changes.

Discussion:

• Richard Rolland - The phrase "in the best interest of centers" is ambiguous.
• Steve Pudloski - understands Richard's concern, however, likes the intent of the wording; might need to make a clarification.
• Jim Burati - Might be irrelevant since a majority of centers have to vote on the change.
• Larry Klepner - asked: Does the change include individual Centers changing regions, regions combining and new regions being developed? (Lisa Harris confirmed that the wording did taken into consideration all these potential changes).
• Jim Burati and George Huntington suggested changing the phrases "may change" and "may merge" to "may request to change" and "may request to merge."
• Richard Rolland suggested removing the words "as a whole" after the end of the word "Association."

Amendment to the motion: Larry Sellers moved to amend the original motion to include the suggestions by Harris, Burati, Huntington and Rolland. Bruce Drewes seconded. The motion to amend passed without opposition.

Amended wording:
Subject to approval by the members, Individual Centers may request to change their Regional designation at any time, and whole Regions may request to merge or be created at any time, if the change is in the best interest of the Centers involved, and the Association.

Vote: The original motion to adopt new bylaws, as amended, received unanimous approval.

Treasurer transition

Harris said she received a suggestion from Sally Collopy after Tuesday's me mbership meeting to add a requirement to audit the books when the books are transferred from one treasurer to another. There was some discussion among the members about the expense of an audit and if a review would suffice instead, given NLTAPA's simple bookkeeping system.

Motion: McNinch moved that the Executive Committee explore options for reviewing or auditing NLTAPA's books and that a report would be made on these options at the TRB meeting in January. Richard Rolland seconded the motion.

Discussion: None.

Vote: The motion passed unanimously.

Election results

NLTAPA Secretary Patsy Anderson announced that 49 ballots had been received from the members, and the results of the election are: President Marie Walsh, LA LTAP; President-elect Kevin Burke, IL LTAP; Vice President Donna Shea, CT LTAP. Anderson congratulated the new officers.

Report on revising selected NACE Action guides.

This item was covered during the NACE partnership report; no further discussion needed.

Presentation of National LTAP Achievement Award.

Lisa Harris presented NLTAPA's National LTAP Achievement Award to Patsy Anderson, director of the Kentucky LTAP.

Move TRB meeting to Saturday

The Executive Committee recommended moving the NLTAPA-TRB meeting to Saturday to allow for more LTAP interaction and to not interfere with other meetings on Sunday of interest to LTAP members.

Motion: Bruce Drewes moved and Dan Cady seconded to move the NLTAPA meeting to Saturday.

Discussion: Members were generally in agreement with the change, with the meeting's start time left up to the Executive Committee, and a 10:00 am start time for small group discussion to be considered. A few centers expressed difficulty in getting to Washington on Saturday.

Vote: The motion passed, with three Centers abstaining (CA, SD, WY) and no Centers opposed.

New business from the members.

Two items were brought forward:

1. Sharing of information about peer exchanges.

   Motion: Ben Colucci, PR LTAP, moved that centers who have participated in Peer Exchanges be asked to give executive summaries at NLTAPA meetings at TRB to provide some lessons learned. The motion was seconded.

   Discussion:

   • A concern was raised about having the presentation be mandatory; centers should instead be offered an opportunity to present their report (but it would not be a requirement)
   • A suggestion was made that the NLTAPA business meeting was not the appropriate venue for that type of presentation, it would be better presented in a concurrent session during the annual LTAP conference.
   • A suggestion was also made that all written reports from Peer Exchanges be posted on the clearinghouse website.

   Vote: There was no vote; after discussion, Ben Colucci withdrew his motion. Kevin Burke suggested that he and Colucci work on a session for the 2008 national LTAP conference to provide an opportunity for centers to share their peer exchange experiences.

2. Jim Burati suggested having just one NLTAPA business meeting at the LTAP annual conference instead of breaking it up into two, because the second meeting is generally less well attended. Members generally favored this suggestion and the EC agreed to consider it.

Thank you to outgoing elected representatives

Harris thanked Patsy Anderson (Region 4) and Bruce Drewes and Stuart Thompson (both of Region 9) for their service to NLTAPA.

Install new officers and elected representatives.

Harris welcomed new officers Walsh, Burke and Shea and new regional reps Larry Sellers (Region 4) Doug Wright (Region 6) and Laura Melendy (Region 9). Ed Stellfox was elected by Region 3 to another three-year term.

Thank you to Lisa Harris.

Patsy Anderson made a presentation to Lisa Harris for her service as President of NLTAPA. Lisa passed the gavel on to Marie Walsh.

Thank you to the conference planning committee and Region 5.

Harris thanked Patsy Anderson, conference chair, and the conference planning committee, Kevin Burke and his staff as on-site hosts, and the rest of Region 5 for helping make the conference a success.

Invitation to LTAP 2008 Conference in Colorado.

Renee Koller led a presentation about Breckenridge, CO, the site of next year's conference. She noted that condo suites will be available for sleeping arrangements, as well as individual hotel rooms.

The meeting was adjourned at 11:45 AM.

Minutes by Donna Shea and Lisa Harris. Approved for posting by the Executive Committee on December 5, 2007.