Hello all!

It was a brutal task. Driven like galley slaves by CCAA President Ann Krannitz to work long into the night, and a couple of time she quite literally flayed the clothes off our backs, but we have completed the second CCAA Board of Directors meeting. We have made excellent progress and I feel like we are ahead of the best-case time line I expected for founding our organization!

There is a lot going on at camp this year. It has never been more critical that we get involved physically, financially, and spiritually at the camp this year. Check in on www.chancoonce frequently. Sign-in when you do it so we can tell members from surfers.

--Mr. Secretary

Highlights of the meeting:

1. We are organizing a work weekend at the camp to get it ready for the summer. Dates June 9th -15. If you are like me you have the "camp jones" this time of year. Come on out that week and pitch-in. More to be posted on the CCAA page soon: Jobs, tools necessary, materials, expertise and etc..

2. Alumni Reunion! Oct 10th - 12th. Camp has been there for 40 years. (Yes, you are THAT old) Be there or be square. And I do mean you too Linda Ryder.

3. Two newly formed committees you might join:

First is the finance committee. Get involved with our fund raising policy, planning, and execution. Help serve your fellow alums by raising money for our favorite camp. There is a lot to do and we need help. Chairman of the committee is Chuck Alley. To join just click to join the CCAA-finance mailing list (follow the mailing list link in the left column) or send me an email.

Second is the Alumni - Current Staff Liaison committee. AKA Chanco Chums committee. This is chaired by Phillip Bond. His idea is to have alums adopt current staff members as Chanco Chums. Support them, send them stuff to get them singing at lunch and etc. Interested? We should have a mailing list for you to join up sometime today. As above keep and eye on the mailing list page for CCAA-chums. Join and made a real difference for a current staff member this summer!

Continue on for the full meeting minutes.

Here are the Full Meeting Minutes:

 

Camp Chanco Alumni Association Meeting Minutes
Board Meeting April 19th-20th, 2008
Prepared by: Chuck Alley

Members attending:
Ann Krannitz, President
Jenny Alfano, Vice President
Tater Roberson, Treasurer
Chuck Alley, Secretary
David Belote, Director
Helen Somers, Director
Sarah Cargill, Director
Greg Willis, Director

Old Business:

Contact with the IRS. Still struggling with the status of the org.

Public or Private Foundation. This determination will be made this week

This will be followed by:

Amending the Articles. These must state the status

Articles must be filed to get the EIN

Once we have the EIN we can open a bank account to get money.

Tater talked with Brian Skinner of Town Point Bank about banking.

The Board has resolved that money is good. But not greed, never greed, that is a sin.

New Business:

• Report from the CCAA Members attending the Camp Chanco Board Meeting:

We have been offered one 1 seat and voice on the Camp Chanco Board for one of our board members. After some discussion, we will request that we be given a CCAA seat with vote, and not one for a specific member. We reviewed their Bylaws and see no problem with this. We will propose this to the Board as soon as possible, and Tater will hold the seat for now.

Ann and all of us will try to attend as often as possible.

11 new board members, this is an opportunity for the CCAA to work with the new members to make changes.

TABLED: Consider further a request to send DSV a request to rename the "Alumni Fund for the Future" to remove the reference to "Alumni" to prevent confusion.

Discussed the fact the Treasurer of the dioceses is soliciting for donations to Chanco on the James (COJ) on our site. We may need to stop this.

• Elimination of the Executive Director position

1. 1. What is up with this?

   2. What is / Do we need to/ craft a response to the board?

   3. Draft a report of our findings and/or opinions of the current situation to our membership

 

After considerable discussion: The board is clearly unhappy with the lack of clarity with the current chanco board. Bylaw changes and etc. with very little discussion of the impact and intent of the bylaw changes. We are unhappy with the method, timing, handling by the Chanco Board of the termination of Robert Somers. Especially given the difference between the claim of financial need for the termination, the discussion of his performance that followed, and the current revision to the financial state of the conference center (now less dire than had been previously indicated)

RESOLVED: We need to write a letter to Art Spooner, Treasurer of the Dioceses from the CCAA Board and membership to support the revision of the Termination letter to Robert Somers and the immediate payment of severance. Helen Somers recused herself on this vote, due to personal conflict of interest.

 

RESOLVED: Generate an open letter to CCAA membership thanking Robert Summers for his efforts on the behalf of the camp and the conference center, listing his accomplishments etc. Consider a similar letter to William Taylor, the previous director in the future but soon, as he was dismissed about a year and a half ago.

• Fund raising strategery

1. How to best apply them to the camp mission

2. Where are we competing with the camp capitol campaign

3. Where can we explore donation possibilities that don't compete

4. What planning has gone into a pitch

 

Fund raising letter to membership:

Generate a letter of announcement to the membership that we are organized and taking contributions.

Yes we do compete to some limited extent with the DSV fund raising efforts for the camp, however, we will actively seek to exploit our membership and their contacts. The point of our association beyond a being a web based social networking organization, is to allow alumni to pool their contributions and then choose where/how/when their money is applied to the problems the camp and conference center faces. This is simply who we are. We think the benefits of our organization will far outweigh the minor competition. Especially given that in 40 years of participating and working for camp, we as alums, are not aware of any attempt by the DSV to solicit donations from us as a group. The DSV is also of course free to solicit from our membership as they choose for any purpose. Though not by posting on our website: www.chancoonce.com

• Alumni Outreach

1. What is the current state of our membership.

2. How much has it changed this year

3. What needs to be done to increase our visibility and our membership

 

240 registered users, up from 150 or so in January!

Will do a mass email as mentioned above announcing our full legal status and to begin planning for the Fall Alumni Reunion.

Post carding for notification is possible, but unlikely. We are a virtual organization and email will be our primary communication.

• What does the camp need before it is opened for the summer?

1. 1. 1. What needs to be fixed, bought, broken or stolen before camp can open

      2. How can we help get this stuff

Jim Sitzler. the Camp Director '

We need to get a report as to what needs to be done ASAP.

RESOLVED: We will schedule with the camp an Alumni work week for the week before staff week, the second week of June 9th – the Jun 15th

Tater will contact necessary parties. Once contacted and a work list is generated, we will go out to the membership immediately looking for workers, donors, fetchers, carriers, painters, cleaners, and etc for this work week. The plan is to go old school here and have the membership turn up to help get the camp in shape on the cheap before staff arrives for training.

RESOLVED: Phillip Bond is appointed chair of the (by his suggestion) "Alumni - Current Staff Support Committee." AKA Chanco Chum Committee!

Chuck will contact him to volunteer and we will search out other committee members and meet (virtually) to discuss what we can do.

 

Meeting Adjourned for Dinner around 7pm.

Meeting Session Resumed after Dinner around 8pm.

• Web site issues.

1. 1. Greg has given us the power to modify has anyone done this?
   2. Do we need some training from Greg?
   3. What is our hit rate. (the pornos of Tater are not working) Should we advertise?
   4. Are we ready to accept dues and donations via Paypal?
   5. Do we have the capability of a secure contact database behind the web page yet?

Yes, Chuck has fiddled with the website so board members who have an interest can fiddle at will.
Greg will hold off major site changes until the Drupal org updates their software. (this may solve the double login problem)
At that point he may update some of the pages.
Instant messaging is not working very well, that is turned off now, we are hoping that we will get improved function with the update (JUNE)
Message boards are a duplicate function, and we will leave them off for now too.
Comments are an issue. We will look into a way to get new comments to be more visible.

There was considerable debate over just what should be visible to non-members verses members. Currently you only have to be a member to post a response and vote.
RESOLVED: We will keep the site open for now. We will caution the membership that they should login to show that they are using the site as paying members.

List-serves can be created for each committee so that virtual meetings can happen easily and without travel. And without bugging the rest of the membership with committee details. I did this for the Finance committee, any other requests can be handled by Greg or Chuck.

10pm: Adjourned for the evening. Here a great deal of partying, and general (and sometimes really specific) tom foolery took place. Suffice it to say that you would all be shocked and occasionally horrified by the events that I cannot even really allude to in our current (polite) company. But we all survived and were only a little more scratched, dirty, sticky, and smelly than when we started hours before. Not bad, considering...

Meeting Session resumed after breakfast on Sunday April 20th.

• Alumni Reunion / Fall Fest Sleepover

1. 1. Need to set up the committee and get this fully underway
   2. Who is the chair?
   3. When will this be?
   4. Will it be clothing optional?
   5. What food will we supply, who will supply it?
   6. How much will be charged to attend?
   7. Structure and organization of the fund raising for this event

 

RESOLVED: Alumni Reunion Date October 10th-12th

We will negotiate a flat rate/fee for the whole camp. Food we will contract to the camp's dining services company.

Lodging will be cramped, but we would like to not overflow into the surrounding area as we will reduce the cost and risk on renting the whole camp. Will use the pavilion, not tents if there is weather.

Jobs on this committee:

1. registration and lodging Committee

   Responsible: Jenny A.

   Require a deposit at least.

   Start taking registration in August.
   Start registration committee in July

2. Food and Facilities Committee

   Responsible: Tater

Contract with the dining service (FCG)

Tater will call FCG for pricing on various meals.
Will put it up for a vote to the membership

Vote in July for the membership to pick the food price

1. Fund raising

   Responsible: Chuck, Helen, Sarah

1. Program

Responsible: Greg, Tater, Ann

Theme meals Crazy hat lunch

Indian night dinner on the beach

 

 

Communication with membership: First of the month Smoke signal email. (Someone needs to design this, will add to the next meeting agenda) Put in this the latest information of what we are doing and what we need help with

CCAA Tee shirt for the 40th reunion and the membership in general:

Feather Logo and stuff

Solicit membership for submissions for the back of the shirt art work. Article for the first Smoke Signal Email?

Other merchandise handled through cafe press

Make the Tee-shirt a donation level? Agenda Item for next meeting

Acknowledging Gifts for tax reasons, Sarah will lead this

 

Next Board Meeting:

June 7th - 8th, the weekend preceding the June work weekend.

Sunday 1pm, Adjourned the CCAA Board