NHSCA Board Meeting

                                             The NHHEAF Campus, Concord

Monday, September 20, 2010

Meeting Minutes

Present: Holly Vieten, Kim Lavoie, Lynn Merlone, Kathryn Sheridan, Melinda Avellino, Robin Hogan, Ashley Shuffleton, Annette Blake, Annette Belanger, Mitch Taranow, Charles Langille, Alicia Langille, Tara Hansen, Celia Slason, Beth Harrington

The meeting was called to order by Holly Vieten at 4:05pm.

Board Vision and Expectations, Holly Vieten: General review on Board member expectations, and a reminder to submit reports online in advance. Thank you to those who did so this time. Great response on our articles for the newsletter. We also wish to welcome any interns to attend any of our meetings.

Secretary’s Report: Beth Harrington: One correction made under Advocacy, by Kim Lavoie. The minutes were accepted with the change. The minutes will be posted online.

Treasurer Report: Annette Blake

Taxes came out fine. We are still getting lots of deposits for memberships and conference. Dues are picking up. Still getting 10 a day for the conference. Motion to add another line on the expense ledger to cover Mel’s services. We are paying her as an independent contractor for executive services. She is offered 20% commission for what she finds in advertising. Revenue carryovers will be changed to a carryover balance. Motion was passed and accepted.

Past President’s report: Kathryn Sheridan

Discussion of what can be scanned and kept; past bylaws, brochures, etc. Scanned items can be kept on a USB. Miscellaneous papers will be shredded. Kathryn motioned, Holly seconded.

Level VP Reports:

Elem.: Celia Slason

Keep track of your time by using ezanalyze, by Tim Poynton. It can be downloaded for free at www.ezanaylze.org. He responds immediately to glitches. You can also download and print a page to track your time to enter later. Lynn, Kim, and Celia are using it.

Discussion of how we can outreach to new counselors and members. In the past we had offered a resource day with information. It would make more sense for the regional chairs to offer this, or should this be under the VP’s job? Maybe Mel could keep track of how many people are new this year? Perhaps the three leveled VP’s could come together to plan a way to handle this.

Middle: Melinda Avellino: She noticed fewer middle school counselors compared to the other grade levels. There is a link on the Dept. of Ed. separating counselor levels.

High School: Charles Langille: No report. However, Charles created a professional dev. form that we can use to keep track of our prof. dev. activities if desired.

Post Secondary: not present

Committee Chair Reports

Advocacy: A new law took effect July 6: 5 unexcused days in school leads to CHINS (10 half days). Have to identify a truant officer and define what an excused absence is. Schools need to

develop a policy that includes parents, early parental involvement, steps leading to CHINS. HB 154 state legislation www.gencourt.state.nh.us look under legislations and type in the number.

Check the DOE often for updated legislative news.

Bullying discussion about educating. Check with the building administrator first. Law requires that school districts have a policy in place based on the new law. Maybe list links to the new law on your website.

By-laws: Charles Langille: brought up language issues in the wording. Holly, Kim, and Charles will look again.

Ethics, Gary Goodnough: Not present

Membership, Ashley Shuffleton: As of Sept. 7, there were 220 paid members. 88 are not school counselors: 51 elem. 36 middle, 57 high school.  A reminder notice was just sent out.

Prof. Dev., Melinda Avellino: No report

Prof. Recognition,Robin Hogan: Has advertised in the newsletter, and listed on the website. Annette is looking into listing an application on the website. ASCA info was also listed in the newsletter.

Public Relations, Annette Belanger: Has been working hard on the website listing everything she receives. She is checking out other software companies to see what the cost would be to set up someone to take over this process.

Technology, Mitch Taranow: Omnisource; we have a database and it works. We wanted more information to be posted online and it appeared to be ‘not happening’. Discussion about what can be put together. Could we set up a system so Mel only enters things once, but have a back up or a ‘hard copy’? Mel is trying to reorganize our past database. We will give Dino until Nov. 1 to accomplish the web master information/aspect. For now we plan to keep the double data base for the year until we see what works. Mitch and Annette are researching other website options. We will wait until the next Board meeting to make any major decisions. The next meeting is Nov. 9. Annette has been adding other state’s conference information on our website but they are not always adding ours.

Newsletter, Beth Harrington: There were some glitches with the newsletter printing process but Beth will continue to work through them with Alphagraphics. Please send articles already edited, and in size 12 font, either Times New Roman or Arial. Keep the length of the article to either a quarter, half or full page, and keep the article focused on the topic. Pictures and/or clip art are welcomed. The next deadline is November 15. Thank you for keeping this past deadline.

Scholarship, Lynn Merlone: Has sent out postcards to invite recommendations/applications.

Liaisons:

Administrative, Esther Asbell: Not here, but she sent an electronic report.

Dept. of Ed., Marianne Groeffer: Not present, but emailed info. on a suicide webinar offered through the State of Texas Suicide Prevention Inititatives: www.wellawaresp.org/webinars.php

Student Intern liaison: vacant

Regional Reports:

Greater Monadnock, Alicia Langille: Had their first meeting at Keene last Thursday presenting the Transitionworks curriculum. Thirty people attended. Sent an email, then a second email, then a fax to the schools. It was successful. They are developing a great model of presenting regional workshops.

Seacoast: not present

Greater North Woods: vacant

Lakes Region: vacant

White Mountains: vacant

Capital Region: vacant

Merrimack: vacant

Dartmouth/Sunapee: vacant

Break: 5:20

Reconvened at 5:45

President-Elect: Lynn Merlone

A retired counselor wanted to know how retired counselors are involved with NHSCA, and/or what can retired counselors do for NHSCA? Discussion: they could serve as mentors, foster grandparents, write a reflection about their experiences for the newsletter, etc. Should we look into recognizing people for their long term contributions, maybe at the conference?

President’s Report, Holly Vieten: North Atlantic Regional (NAR) conference is open to Board members. Holly will send a deposit for the overnight in a hotel sponsored by UTI and the New England Association for College Admission Counseling. Everything is covered. Robin will take pictures and Lynn will write up about the conference for the newsletter.

Conference: Holly needs help setting up the night before. Discussion about how reasonable our cost is compared to other conferences. We have the books, please read them.

Kathryn: By Saturday will email interested people of receiving the syllabus for the 1 credit course offered through Keene about the conference and the book.

Regional Chairs: Try to think of ways to reach out for regional chair vacancies. Lynn will offer to either mentor or co-lead a first meeting in another region to help get things started.

Review updated calendar: meeting changes: Tuesday, November 10 & Friday, March 18.

LDI is in Georgia in July for Lynn and for the next president-elect.

Mel: she is working on the directory updates. The directory hasn’t gone out yet because she is waiting to update the information, for example, verification of jobs and placements for jobs, who’s in the school, titles, etc. Be thinking about any additional cost amount for additional hours for Mel’s pay.

NHHEAF Intern Training: Mon. 11/29 9-2. NHHEAF has invited anyone available to come out and talk to the interns. March 11, 9-12 half day training for middle school counselors at the NHHEAF campus. They will go through the college application process.

New Business: Question: Has Marianne mentioned anything about updating the manual? The comprehensive manual is still online and a little outdated. It was published in 2003 and is outdated because of the National Model. It needs to be updated again using either the New Hampshire model or the National Model? Which to use? Kim will email her to ask about any possible discussion about it.

6:10 adjourned by Holly Vieten.