[Coagdu] 7-13-14 meeting minutes

[Marty Rahn]

 Hi all,

He6e are the minutes from our last meeting.

7-13-14

The meeting was called to order at 1:20 PM. People present were Shon, Melissa, Marty, Becky, Daniel and Jenny. The first part of the meeting was a closed meeting with only the board members. We first discussed Jenny's board position. We have all decided to keep Jenny on until elections in October when her position will be up for election. We next discussed writing an amendment to the constitution regarding how many meetings a member of the board can miss without letting someone know before they can be removed from the board. We formulated a committee to work on writing the amendment. This committee consists of Melissa, Marty and Daniel. Melissa will get the text of the similar amendment that the students wrote up in their constitution regarding this same issue and we will look at it, formulate our own amendment to our constitution from it, and then bring our draft of the amendment to the rest of the board once it is written. We then discussed bringing some resolutions before the convention. The first we agreed upon was the resolution for the service dog 911 so that we can get the support of our state afiliate to help this become a reality. We decided to table the discussion of additional resolutions until the general members arrive on the call. Shon said that the newsletter was coming along nicely and that he has asked Penn to help him design a graphic containing our logo for the newsletter. He would like to send this out at the end of this month. A motion was made, seconded and approved at 1:37 to adjourn the closed portion of the meeting and to move to the open portion of the meeting. We then waited for the general members to arrive. Juliene O'connor, Jenn Spears, Brian Wots  and Bionca Mindoza joined our call. We waited until 1:55 to allow people a little time to join before beginning, the then we began the general portion of the meeting. The minutes from last month's meeting were approved as posted to the listserv. The Treasurer's report indicated that we have $396 in our checking account. This includes the deposit of aproximately $405 collected from our seminar. Melissa said that a $5 fee is being taken out monthly because we have a businness checking account. This is significantly down from the $100 in fees that we would have had to pay other wise. The Treasurer's report was approved as given. We then moved to a brief recap of the May seminar from the members present on the call. Bianca thought the seminar was interesting and she liked the amount of information she received. Julienne said that she enjoyed the seminar very much and that she found it very informative. Brian said that he liked the seminar and that he particularly liked the vet pannel, that he  liked the osportunity to do the Juno walk and that he would have liked to have more representatives from the guide dog schools to speak about their programs. Shon said that we have a woman named Chelsey White from the Seeing Eye and a man nameed Michael coming from Guiding Eyes that are coming to our state convention. Jenn said that she liked how we had regular people talk about their experiences. Brian also said that he really liked the housing authority pannel. Shon thanked Brian for drawing door prizes and Melissa thanked Jenn for running the rafle. We then moved to discussing the Service Dog 911. In summary, Daniel has found some good documentation which refered to the implementation of the same type of program in another state. He stated that this program would depend on working with individual entities such as the 911 service center in Denver to implement the program. He also indicated that he believes that arrangements need to be made with a certain vet hospital and the authorities in the general area. We will have decided to bring a resolution to egarding this issue to the convention. We then briefly recapped a list of those to whom we have sent thank you letters for either donating to or participating in our seminar. Shon then gave us a report on National Convention. He gave us a brief report on the NAGDU meetings. The new hotline number that people can call if they need advice about guide dog related issues is 1888-nagdu-411. They have been able to get a grant that will allow the Nnal organization to run the hotline for the oext three years. They also have a new NAGDU app for the Iphone. This app allows users to find out the laws in their specific state that pertain to the rights of  service animals and their handlers. The app is free. Regarding ride sharing servie Uber, NAGDU reps stated that we need to start working on getting laws passed to bring Uber in line with the ADA because they are providing a public service. Shon was unsure if Lift was also included in this advisement. He also stated that Freedom Guide Dogs has opened a satelite school in Florida, and briefly discussed the 75 days of action which is meant to strengthen existing divisions and chapters or to start new ones. People can send emails to
(endaysñfb_org
if there is a division that they would like to start or strengthen. We then recapped the progress of the newsletter for the general membership. Marty will send the list of people who attended our seminar to the board so that we can begin calling them to see if they would like to receive the newsletter and if they have a computer and if not, whether we can get their addresses in order to send them a hardcopy. Shon also said that there is a survey from the California Board responsible for governing the California Guide Dog Schools to see how people feel things are going and if there is anything that needs to be done differently. Melissa will resend this information to the listservs if any graduate of any of these schools would like to take this survey. Brian asked how members who were not currently on the email lists could get on. Melissa will coordinate with these members of whom she knows to help them subscribe to our lists. Regarding state convention, we will be in Denver at the Marriott South. Shon has put this info in the newsletter. We will begin collecting door prizes now for convention and will also see about getting Tina Thomas from NAGDU to come and perhaps to ask the state for support with this. Regaring resolutions, we would like to come to the committee with two, the first being about the service dog 911 and the second regarding access to cabs, Lift and Uber for those of us using service dogs. We made, seconded and passed a motion to draft a resolution regarding transportation companies and service animals. We finished with a discussion on fundraising. Shon has talked to someone from Yankee Candles about fundraising through them. Shon will give us more info once he gets it. Shon also has the info for Chipotle which we decided to do. Melsssa has researched a place called Personally Yours from whom we can get travel dishes or reusable bags with our logo and info on them. Melsssa stated that this company can also provide us with water bottles. We also decided to see about setting up a table in the exhibit section at state convention in order to hand out info about our division and sell fundraising items. Melissa will check on this for us. Shon also suggested that we could become a distributor for a certain product for which we could get a small kickback for selling the product. We also discussed asking the state for some money to help with the publishing of promotional materials. We will also put together a committee within our division to begin developing such materials. We would like to get these materials put together in time for Meet The Blind Month. Shon, Becky Jenny, Bionca and Brian will be on the media committee. The next meeting was scheduled for August 3, 2014 at 3:30 PM. The first half hour will be closed to the general membership and will be dedicated to board businness. Members will be invited to call in at 4:00 PM. The meeting was then adjourned at 3:30 PM.

 Respectfully Submitted,
> 
> Marty Rahn, Secretary,
> 
> Colorado Association of Guide Dog Users
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