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Pat Reilly called the meeting to order at 1900 on June 22, 2002 in the theater of Litton Reeves on the Campus of VA Tech. And welcomed those attending.
The minutes of Annual Meeting 2001 were approved as corrected.
Sybil Przypek reported that at the end of VMGA's Fiscal Year 2002 our net worth is $19,414.75. The report was accepted as presented.
President’s
Report
President Pat Reilly reported:
1) The Board is continuing to have meetings with Dr.’s Barrett and Umberger. The next meeting will be held sometime around September 11th.
2) This past year the VMGA decided to support the Flora of Virginia project with both a letter of support and a donation of $500.00.
3) George Graine received a letter from Andrew Gerakis. Pat had George share the letter with the membership.
4) People who have been presented VMGA stars were recognized. Stars were presented to Gregory Evans, for work on the newsletter; Ann Gorrell, Vice President; Kerry Goldmeyer, Immediate Past President; and Jim Scibek, Secretary
Ann Gorrell reported that the VMGA sponsored three major education events between June 2001 and June 2002.
On Saturday, July 28, 2001, VMGA co-sponsored with the Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation (VDCR), and the Prince William Unit of the Virginia Cooperative Extension (VCE), “Homeowner Nutrient Management Training for Master Gardeners.” The training was held at the Bull Run Regional Library in Manassas and was free for Master Gardeners. The morning training provided 3 hours of continuing education credits for 22 individuals.
Seeing the need for education in plant problem diagnosis, VMGA held a seminar on “Damage Control: Learning How to Deal with Problems in the Landscape” on Saturday, November 17, 2001, at the Albemarle County Office Building in Charlottesville. Peter Warren, VCE, assisted in the arrangements. Charging only a nominal fee, 68 were in attendance for 4 CLE credits.
Another event was held on March 16, 2002, at Sandy’s Plants in Mechanicsville. “Gardening With Nature” brought 32 attendees in a limited space for 4 CLE hours.
Ann thanked the following for all their support: Cheri Haggerty, Margaret Van Winkle, Julie Cochran, Mike Holmes, Debbie Hamilton, Nicole Call, Lenore Plissner, Frank Reilly, Joan Clements, Roddey Jones, and Anna Moore. And a special thanks to Pat Reilly.
Florace Arnold reported that she has two goals:
1) For the Newsletter to be published on a regular basis as stated in the newsletter. That is, articles should be submitted by the 1st of Jan., Mar., May, July, Sept., and Nov.
2) Let everyone know that this newsletter is for you, about you, and by you, and she would like to have a paragraph from each of the units about a major activity or event you are preparing. She also needs short articles from members to include in the newsletter.
Feel free to contact Florace with suggestions and complaints and ideas you might have to make this a newsletter that you will be eager to receive.
Julie Cochran reported that as of June 15, 2002 we have 321 regular members and 60 life members for a total of 381 members. We are currently in a renewal cycle. We have had 14 people take advantage of “Renew for Two”. Renewing for two years at a time saves the VMGA both time and money. Please keep changes in Emails, addresses, etc. coming in to us.
If your unit needs mailing labels, contact Julie and she will be happy to run them off for anything needed.
Members: Kerry Goldmeyer, Karen Sacasky, Pat Reilly and Chair, Frank
Reilly. The duties of Unit Support were rolled into the Communication Committee
just prior to last year’s Annual Meeting.
The Unit Support Committee is available to help units and local
associations with organizational problems, questions and resources. If your Master Gardeners are conducting
something new, another group may have already tried it. Asking the Unit Support Committee for help
could save you from reinventing the wheel.
In the past year we have been asked to help with:
1.)
Selection of By-Laws to one new
local association
2.)
Incorporation and tax questions
with 4 others
3.)
Policy concerning acceptance of
advertising for a local associations newsletter, and
4.)
Organization and administration
of a scholarship/awards program.
Members: Julie Cochran, Cheri Haggerty, Alice Nicolson, and Chair Frank Reilly. The duties of the Communication Committee are to foster communications throughout VMGA and all MGs in VA. We administer the Web site, send messages, facilitate the communication and work of the Board members, and help to produce and disseminate certain products like the MG College Promotional CD, and the Membership List.
1.) The web site costs $249.00 annually for rent at the server, and $15.00 per year for our name registration.
2.) More than 15,000 viewers have visited the web site in the past year. The average viewer visits about 4 pages at the site. We have had viewers from many foreign lands such as Malaysia, Singapore, Belarus, Estonia, Netherlands, Finland, Ireland, and a prize to the person who can locate Cocos (Keeling) Islands on a map for me.
3.) Our most popular pages vary throughout the year. The top ten for any given period of time always include: Hort Updates (prepared by Chuck Hoysa), Links (managed by Cheri Haggerty) and Calendar (managed by Alice Nicolson). Last year our Calendar page had 2340 different visits. If your local association isn’t using this page to advertise your local activities, you are wasting a valuable marketing tool. I can almost guarantee that your group is squandering this free resource, because we seldom receive any calendar updates from Master Gardeners.
4.) The web site sponsors links to local associations, and will provide a limited amount of space and help to start any local MG web pages. Use the webmaster@vmga.net email address to ask for help.
5.) The web page sponsors a forum that may be useful for discussions that seem inappropriate for the MG Listserv sdministered by Tech.
6.) Our minutes, budgets, directions to meetings, contact information, by-laws, even a copy of The History of VMGA produced by Karen Sacasky are all available at the web site.
7.) We also currently archive more than 35 pages of Hort Updates on our web site, and they will be searchable. That makes our site VERY useful for MG as well as gardening problem solving.
8.) The Communication Committee prepared a Promotional CD for MG College in the past year. It was distributed to each Units’ Coordinator or Agent. If you didn’t see this CD, ask your Coordinator or Agent what happened to it. Apparently it WAS shown in quite a few places as can be witnessed by the drastic increase in attendance at this year’s MG College. Julie Cochran produced this with her pictures and pictures from Shelby Snider, Walter Przypek and others. Send us electronic copies of your MG College pictures from this year, so we can include them in next year’s production. We are particularly looking for pictures of MG College educational activities.
9.) The Communication Committee sent 6 email messages to the entire membership in the past year. It is your responsibility to keep your membership information, including your mailing and email addresses, up to date. Currently there are more than 30 members with email addresses that are incorrect.
10.) The Communications Committee needs your help. We need someone who is familiar with web page authoring and design to help us re-vamp our site, and others to help maintain it. The job has grown to more than we can handle alone. Some of our members (Cheri Haggerty) are movin’ on up, and will have even less time to help with the committee work. We also need more help to produce the MG College Promotional CD this year. Please write to (webmaster@VMGA.net) and volunteer.
11.) Send your questions, suggestions, etc. to webmaster@vmga,net.
Education Endowment fund
Pat Reilly gave the report for committee chair Chuck Walters.
The Education Endowment Fund came about as a result of the Long Range Planning Committee survey to the members. From the survey a committee was developed to explore Education Endowment and consisted of Susan Wingfield, Bud Gregory, and Chuck Walters. After their job was done we decided to award scholarships to MG College. The selection committee consisted of Chuck & Sally Walters and Pat Reilly.
Sally was nominated as a recipient so she couldn’t serve on the committee. The committee (Chuck and Pat) selected the first recipients of the scholarships.
The recipients were: Betty Freedman, Jane Montgomery, Carole Roelofs, Jean Shirall (she cancelled out), Sally Walters, Betty Villers (cancelled out, she couldn’t make it), Sally Goodrich, and Mike Sampson.
Two months ago the board voted to make a contribution of $100.00 each to the fund in memory of Tom Geer, Ed Overton, and Fred Lindholm. In addition Elizabeth Overton and family donated $100.00 in Ed’s memory in hopes to continue giving in memory of someone who gave so much to us. Kerry Goldmeyer donated $50.00 to the Endowment Fund in the name of Ed Overton.
State Fair
Evelyn Parker reported- The state fair is September 26 thru October 6, 2002. Sept 26, 30, and Oct 2, 5 are still available. The Fair is open from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. August 15th is the deadline for turning in your list of volunteers, maximum 10/day.
Audit
Jack Slapcinsky reported that he and Kerry Goldmeyer reviewed the Treasurer’s report and found the totals reported are accurate as stated. The audit recommends that additional funding be released from the Endowment Fund since the resources of the VMGA have increased over the past year by about $2,000.00. They think it would be prudent if more funds were expended.
Nominations and
Elections
Karen Sacasky reported-
-The 2002 Nominations and Elections Committee was formed by September 2001. The membership of the committee consisted of Caroline Norrington, Gary Bill, Bud Gregory, and Karen Sacasky.
-A timetable was set to comply with the VMGA Bylaws and Standing Rules. Most communication was done by email.
-The slate was selected and announced to VMGA Board members on March 10, 2002.
-361 ballots were mailed to the membership on March 23rd with a deadline for return of April 13, 2002. A separate sheet listing the bios for each nominee was included.
-174 ballots were returned by the deadline. There were no write-in votes, all four nominees received 174 yes votes.
-nominees elected were President-Jim Scibek, Vice President-Bill McCaleb, Secretary-Cheri Haggerty, and Treasurer-Shelby Snider.
-The Nominations and Elections Committee finished their task one month early.
-The amount of $350.00 was budgeted for the committee, $203.07 was actually spent.
-The Committee recommends that future membership applications include member talents, such as secretarial and accounting/bookkeeping experience. It would also be helpful to know whether a member has served in any office in their local association.
Election Procedures
Karen Sacasky reported:
-A committee to review VMGA elections and nominations was formed in October 2001 for the purpose of considering changes to terms of office, term limits, additional officers, and staggering terms.
-The committee consisted of Kerry Goldmeyer, Frank Reilly, and Karen Sacasky.
-Recommendations from the Committee were presented to the Board at the April 13, 2002 Board meeting. The recommendations were approved by the Board and a proposed bylaw change in the nomination and election schedule was approved for presentation to the membership.
-The results of the Committee are as follows:
1) We should continue to elect all officers for two year terms at the same time. Terms should not be staggered nor overlap one another.
2) We should retain term limits as set by our bylaws that states that no Officer shall serve for more than one consecutive term in the same office.
3) We should continue to have a President, Vice President, Secretary and Treasurer. We do not recommend having a President-Elect.
4) We recommend not combining Board positions.
5) The nomination and election schedule should be moved back to allow the newly elected President more time to select committee chairs and have them in place by the Annual meting. It is recommended that a bylaw change be made to set the new minimum notice.
Sarah Lineberger stated that since the International MG Conference is scheduled in the Cincinnati area next year at the same time we would normally be holding our MG College we will be looking for an alternate date,
Sarah and Diane Relf presented gifts of appreciation to Pat Reilly, Ann Gorrell, Jim Scibek, and Sybil Przypek for their service as officers of the VMGA for the past two years.
There was no unfinished business.
Change in By-laws – A proposed change to the By Laws Article VII – Committees, Section 3, Paragraph (c) changing the time for reporting the list of candidates to the Board of Directors to at least 150 days prior to the annual meeting and reporting the results of the election to the Executive Committee at least 90 days before the annual meeting was approved unanimously by those present at this annual meeting.
Next Board Meeting – Saturday, August 10, 2002 at 10:00 a.m. in
Virginia Beach.
MG College Challenge – At MG College 2000 Goochland/Powhatan challenged
Prince William that they would bring more MG’s to MG College 2001 than Prince
William. They lost.
-At MG College 2001 Goochland/Powhatan challenged Virginia Beach that
they would bring more MG’s to MG College 2002 than Virginia Beach. Goochland brought 2, Virginia Beach brought
11, so Goochland/Powhatan lost again.
-This year Goochland/Powhatan is challenging Henrico for MG college
2003.
Pat thanked Ann, Jim, Sybil and Kerry for their support and help.
Installation of VMGA Officers, 2002–2004
Pat Reilly introduced the new VMGA officers for 2002 – 2004. Cheri Haggerty- Secretary (couldn’t be here
tonight), Shelby Snider- Treasurer, Bill McCaleb- Vice President, and Jim
Scibek- President.
The meeting was adjourned at 2005.
Respectfully Submitted
Jim Scibek,
Secretary, VMGA, Inc.