MINUTES
Employee Assembly Meeting
Wednesday, August 17, 2011
12:15 - 1:30 p.m.
G08 Hall

I. Call to Order

T. Grove called the meeting to order at 12:29 p.m.

Present: D. Brooks, B. Cristelli, K. Fahey, T. Grove, L. Meyerhoff, G. Osborne, L. Sayam, B. Schaffner

Absent: J. Boodley-Buchanan, L. Croll Howell, C. Ferguson, M. Kitchen, L. Morris, J. Seymour, G. Stewart

Also present: A. Epstein, W. Esty, N. Doolittle, B. McKinney, A. O’Donnell

II. Call for Late Additions to the Agenda

There was one late addition to the agenda regarding the CARE fund.

III. Business of the Day

The members of the EA made introductions. T. Grove stated the process for people interested in the EA. The individual(s) could be voted in immediately or could sit in on the meeting and decide to join later. The EA then voted in William (Bill) Esty unanimously as an At-Large member.

a)Retreat Discussion

T. Grove stated the retreat date of September 8, 2011 does not appear to be a good date for many members. The retreat is normally a full day but currently only half of the EA members can attend on 9/8. She asked if making the retreat only half a day would help, members agreed that was a good idea. Some items that are on the agenda to be discussed during the retreat include Institutional Research regarding the survey, the EA survey, conflict resolution, the budget, CARE fund planning for the auction, and committee goal setting. If the retreat is reduced to a half day, the icebreaker and the conflict resolution sections would be eliminated from the agenda. The retreat is set to start at 8:30 a.m. and it will be held on campus to be more convenient for the members. T. Grove will be sending an email to the members to verify the half-day retreat would work for the members who are absent.

T. Grove mentioned another thing that will be discussed at the retreat is appointing committee chairs. She stated the committees will set concrete goals for the year. If there is nothing for the committee to do then one possibility is to not staff the committee so that it does not appear as though there is a an unproductive committee.

IV. Report from the Chair

There was no report from the chair for this meeting.

V. Approval of Minutes

a)June 1, 2011

L. Meyerhoff made a motion to approve the minutes. G. Osborne seconded the motion and the minutes for June 1, 2011 were approved.

VI. Old Business

a)SEED Event

G. Osborne stated the event wasn’t well attended in general. Some members of the EA questioned whether it was worth it for the EA to participate. It was mentioned the lack of attendance could have been due to the hot weather. B. McKinney suggested it could be worth it to have the EA table there again especially once the EA has a new message that they want to promote. T. Grove thanked the members of the EA who volunteered to be at the table and represent the EA.

b)CARE Fund

G. Osborne said the fund is nearly depleted and in need of money. There are approximately 40 new applications but many do not fall under the criteria. B. McKinney stated the CARE fund has given out over $20,000. The group did receive many online donations after the article in the PawPrint. The next fundraising event is the auction, which will be held October 20, 2011. There are two things for the EA members to do for the auction. They can help come up with ideas for auction items and help out on the actual day of the auction. B. McKinney said there are already a lot of interesting prizes. B. Schaffner asked if the “Dump & Run” donated any of their funds to this program. L. Meyerhoff said she would look into the possibility of the CARE group receiving money from the “Dump & Run” in the future, but this year was already spoken for. The goal for this years’ auction is $10,000. There will be sixty live auction items and many silent auction items. T. Grove suggested they have a donation card available in case people wanted to donate money when they were there.

VII. Open Forum

a) Meeting Locations

L. Meyerhoff started the discussion by mentioning that at the June 1, 2011 meeting the idea of moving this years EA meetings around to different locations was suggested. T. Grove asked if it would be beneficial to move the meetings to specific areas and having topic focused meetings depending on the location of the meeting�for example the Geneva meeting. A. O’Donnell stated this was attempted before and many people did not attend in certain locations and in some instances the meetings were over populated. One such meeting in the past that had more attendees then the EA anticipated was focused on the issue of transportation. It was mentioned to possibly have one or two larger meetings in different locations that would include visitors. A. Epstein suggested that this may be something that the UA could be involved with along with the Campus Infrastructure Committee.

b) Kudos Lunch

T. Grove said it went very well. There were quite a few Kudos recipients at the event. T. Grove stated that A. O’Donnell did a wonderful job setting up and having fun rewards for the award recipients. T. Grove then mentioned there are no guidelines for Kudos, which should be changed before it is sent out again.

c) PawPrint

N. Doolittle stated the new issue of the PawPrint is now live. There are currently 9,000 hits and to ensure accuracy the site will be refreshed every two weeks. The item that seems to be the biggest hit are the classified ads, which have grown a lot in the past couple of weeks. The ads expire after two weeks however there are still kinks regarding this. There is a link to PawPrint under the EA information on the assemblies website.

d) New Members

B. Cristelli asked about the parliamentarian position. T. Grove said this will be discussed in more detail during the EA retreat.

There are currently three vacant spots in the EA which need to be filled for the EA to be fully staffed. N. Doolittle will be writing a new article for the PawPrint regarding the new members and the three vacant seats. L. Sayam asked if new members have to be non-exempt. A. Epstein stated anyone can be appointed regardless of whether they are exempt or non-exempt.

B. Cristelli asked about executive committee meetings. T. Grove said the executive meeting is on the alternative week from the EA meetings. The next executive meeting will be Tuesday, August 30, 2011 at 12:30 p.m.

e) Committees

K. Fahey asked about belonging to the committees. A. Epstein stated there is a web-based program that will inform EA members which committees they are able to apply for. T. Grove stated members of the committee do not have to be in the EA but members of the EA chair all of the committees. A. Epstein said there are three UA committees that EA members could be become involved with as well. Each of the three UA committees are looking for at least one EA member to be in the committee.

VII. Adjournment

B. Cristelli made a motion to adjourn the meeting. L. Meyerhoff seconded the motion. The EA meeting was adjourned at 1:11 p.m.