Midyear Minutes. (Not approved) Abridged for publication.
Friday, October 27, 2017- Saturday, Oct 28, 2017
Location: Doubletree Hotel, Minneapolis, MN

Present: Kathy Blackmer-Reyes, Julia Curry-Rodriguez, Linda Heidenreich, Maria Gonzalez, Chalane Lechuga, Jennie Luna, V. June Pedraza, Aureliano De Soto. Absent: Cecilia Aragon and Brenda Valle

I. Welcome

III. Reports

Chair
Discussion: Reporting to the membership in regards to recent board changes:
There have been many changes to our board; how do we address this to our membership?
June will draft this notice for the next Noticias.

Chair Elect
Conference Program: In process
Call for papers went out; submissions are starting to come in; Aureliano went over a to-do list with Kathy which was very helpful; there were 25 people asked to be readers, 14 have responded positively.

Nov. 8th is the deadline (Wednesday). There was one critique about the use of the X (Chicanx). But feedback has been positive about the theme, aside from a few minor critiques. Overall, theme is encouraging more people to want to come to the conference.

Questions On Conference Structure to the board:
Leadership Listening session: Board is not present at the conference and are usually locked in a conference room, which leads to our invisibility and critiques from members.

Proposed the idea of having a board listening session during the conference
He also proposed having the chair address the membership, having a time built into the program moving forward. This will not only be a “Chairs Address” but also “a state of the field; where are we going as an interdisciplinary field, etc.

The board reviewed, gave suggestions and helped revise the conference schedule.

We agreed on changes to the schedule. AD will edit and send us the final draft of the revised schedule.

Reform Resolution Process: Aureliano proposed that we establish a new way of submitting resolutions. Currently, it is a poor use of time at the conference; because our bylaws have been suspended, we need to communicate with membership the changes moving forward. We will establish that focos and caucuses need to write and submit their resoultions before the conference. Board Consensus that Aureliano, Julia, and Kathy will work on a new resolution process that will be completed and sent the membership before the end of the year.

Also, we should think about how we can vote for board positions more effectively; perhaps we can schedule the election during the conference electronically. By moving the election/voting during the dates of the conference, we might get more participation/engagement.

Executive Director
Report on ongoing projects: Incorporation, Communications with xCatalyst and Paypal
We are now incorporated with official standing!
xCatalyst and Paypal: Julia was able to recover $1,584 from fraud issues.

Site visits: we ended up at good place. Julia negotiated well for the price of the rooms. Reductions were made on food & beverage, AV etc. We spend $35,000 but get additional 10% for the same price.

Written report of completed work since end of conference: Julia has already submitted some written reports and regularly communicates in writing via email to the board, but will submit an official report.

Invoice for work: Submited invoice to the board for the work completed.
Chalane will review what expenses need to be covered.

Minneapolis Site Visit: St. Paul visitors bureau covered ED airline ticket; hotel stays were comped.

At Denver conference, former board member made a resolution that executive director would get the expenses covered for travel, lodging and per diem for both site inspection and midyear. Since that resolution was approved by the board, none of the site inspection expenses, nor midyear should be out of pocket; they need to be covered/reimbursed.

Travel and work for midyear and site inspection are separate from the overall labor.

For several years, ED and AD were paying for their own midyear, while none of the board had to, this is why former board member made the resolution to pay for travel, lodging and per diem for site inspection and midyear. Consulting work continues, but has to be re-negotiated at some point.

Associate Director
2017 proceedings: none were received.

For 2017, Josh will be editor to continue with the proceedings. There will be a notice sent to remind people if they are interested to submit. For future, we need to be proactive for the proceedings and set a precedent that the chair-elect follow up to encourage submissions. Chair-elect should do outreach prior to conference to remind people to consider submitting. Motivate presenters to have their papers prepared.

Book award: Both 2016 and 2017 were submitted, therefore we had a huge submission. But since there are so many books, this year we will only deal with 2016, and next year only 2017.

Exhibitor registration is up for signing up. Since internet security is tight, it has been difficult for them to register, so this makes it more work for us because they are now going to have to submit invoices; but at the same time, we don’t want a repeat of fraud.
There were lots of job ads this year; which are $750 for 45 days, on both web page and facebook and integrated into the newsletter. We have made negotiations with people regarding ads. In total, we made $4,500 off web ads..

Hotel registration is ready for booking hotel. Conference registration should be up soon. People want to know registration for budgets. We will discuss recommendation for this year.

Listserve/Domain issues: Dream Host is our domain host. Discussion groups cost ~$2/month, but we have had a lot of issues such as hacking (within the Dream Host server) and moving of discussion groups to another server. We have had communication issues for the last several months.

Newsletter and Facebook: Carlos Guerrero provided a report/analytics which included number of hits, demographics, etc., so we can consider how we can build our newsletter. We had low results. Newsletter is only thing we produce outside of the conference.

Managing listserves: AD is hands- off of caucus listserves, they have ability to manage their own lists; AD can help them, she can subscribe them; Focos on the other hand, are overseen completely by AD because it is based on membership dues paid. AD manages this; you can only be on foco listserve if you have paid your membership. Caucus listserves are different. They do not want to remove people from listserves, so there are people that are not members, for example. Kathy needs to communicate the system to update listserves for caucuses; this information can be distributed by the At-large reps. They should let their focos/caucuses know how listserves are managed. But if needed, the caucus chairs can give AD a roster of emails from the attendance at their meetings and she will take care of updating, otherwise, each caucus can totally manage it themselves. We need to add this to the guidelines for new leadership: let them kow how to updates listserve, passwords, etc.

In terms of facebook pages or other social media, guidelines have never been created; there has been no time to deal with policies in social media; but there is the question about how caucuses develop facebook and their record, and how to archive info.

We are doing well with our open access site. Grad papers are popular; we get good hits, for example, Los Tigres del Norte paper and Dolores Delgado Bernal, Education paper submitted. Even though our proceedings are not recognized through google, (we have minimal meta data and the only way people are locating articles is through very limited terms) we still have good stats. Kathy will work on increasing our findings even more through our open access. The Board would like to also create a page/tab on our website for leadership training online, as well as post the updated officer’s handbook, once completed.

Secretary:
Officers handbook needs to be revised and re-developed; spoke to fomer NACCS Chair; will have a working draft for the board by next conference call.
She submitted report to noticias; a condensed version of our minutes/highlights.

At Large Reps:

Linda Heidenreich – Midwest Foco: she has communicated with them
Pacific Northwest Foco: had a conference.
Tejas Foco: Tx had a foco conference of 300 people in attendance; 2018 foco conference will be at TX Lutheran;
LBTM Caucus, Joto Caucus, and Chicana Caucus, working on a three pronged approach: dialogue amongst all of them; last year Indigenous & Joto caucuses were organizing/requesting more visibility on plenary; trying to negotiate some type of rotating plenary with Chicana caucus. Linda has been taking lead of this organizing. Caucuses came up with a three tiered approach & other ideas.

Caucuses agree to:
Draft resolution bylaw to change opening plenary
Develop/institutionalize different tracks; this has been done with the submission process. Caucuses still have to put it together; responsibility of caucus chairs to get the information out there.  Chicana caucus ensures to having queer presence & have Indigenous representation on plenary

Discussion: Caucuses are requesting by-law changes for plenary and voices of more inclusivity. Requesting the possibility of NACCS 101 to have a section of how to put forward a resolution. Every foco is supposed to have a representative from a caucus; they should be learning this at home with focos; perhaps foco reps need training. Need to re-think the foco; representation is not happening in the foco; focos are supposed to be the grassroots body of organization, now caucuses are doing the organizing. Impulse to change should be within the organizing of the grassroots body. How do we get more people engaged/discussions? “How do we transform so we are still whole when we transform” and still give respect to the founders/board etc. Linda will send to us a workshop to share: “How to put together a kick-ass panel”

Maria Gonzalez – communicated with folks late Sept/Oct. She let Linda take over Indigenous caucus. She sent an email introducing self, no response. Sent an email about midyear meeting needing reports. Southern California Foco: reports that they have nothing to report; Alex Reyes not sure if will be on the call; Northern California Foco: Frank Ortega said he would send report, has not done so yet, but hopes to be on call tomorrow; Tejas Foco: Leo Trevino no longer Rep. and Felipe Hinojosa is now the rep. Indigenous Caucus, COMPAS Caucus: no reports from them and Student Caucus: no rep; Colorado Foco Debora Ortega, no feedback.

Poster board presentations: Maria sent sample new guidelines to Kathy to consider. Perhaps presenter charged for the supplies, but we are still held responsible for supplies. Big challenge is the labor intensive of poster presentations.

Brenda Valles – Rocky Mountain Foco, East Coast Foco, Mexico Foco, K-12 Caucus, Graduate Student Caucus, and Community Caucus: not present and did not send in report.

VI. Review of Nominations for NACCS Scholar
Two nominations were received: Both distinguished scholars. Through secret ballot voting process:

Board votes yes to approve the nomination of Rosaura Sanchez as 2018 lifetime achievement award for NACCS;

NACCS Chair made call to Rosaura Sanchez.

VII. Discussion of 2018 Conference

Conference Swag: Aureliano

Chair Address discussion:
Kathy prepared schedules to review, plenaries shortened; student plenary shorted to 50 min.
Chair Address goes first before the break; Thurs. 3:30-4:15; short talk/questions and socializing; with light refreshments; At this address it was suggested that we set up questions; small group discussions etc. post-its for public comments to address concerns; need of consultant.

Friday schedule: leadership orientation at 7:30 am; let’s find a different place for it and suggest that we have caucus meetings happen in the morning rather than afternoon. So we can have reception/dinner and cultural night; move 2nd session of leadership orientation to Thurs.

Leadership meeting on Thurs. 11:50-12:50pm

X. Conference Call with Focos and Caucus reps
Agenda Conference Call:
-Introductions:Chicana caucus co-chairs present: Isabel Millan, Yvette Saavedra; Felipe Hinojosa (TJ foco); and Theresa Torres (Midwest foco rep)

1. Give them an update on spending their rebates. Deadlines, by Dec. 31—spend or submit a memo of their plan to spend money; need to take a vote… documentation of that vote in the way that the caucus decides.

2. Review numbers of membership and express need to increasing numbers in some caucuses/remind foco and caucus reps to communicate with their members about registering and paying foco/caucus dues. Reach out to at large rep if your caucus is not maintaining that 30 member number requirement.

3. Leadership meeting: give them date and remind them that they have to be present THURS 11:50 April 5th; keep an eye out for an email reminder from treasurer and a google rsvp link.

4. Explain the new submission process for proposals: in addition to regular submission process we have new forms for foco or caucus sponsored panels. Created new forms where drop down menu available in the form. Take a look at regular submission for the new forms.

XI. Treasurer (see Treasurer report for updated information)

Treasurer sent additional detailed documents to board regarding report.

Assets and Liabilities Report for FY 2016-17


Report sent, as of Oct 26th, we have $57,206.36 in checking account. We don’t have a final version of fiscal year 16-17 yet. Difficulty to complete the report because of the various accounts/systems we are working with. Membership dues 99% come through credit card; some come through checks and some bounce. Make a decision that we don’t take personal checks…only credit or cash. Bounced checks create a nightmare. Contacting people and getting people to pay fee difficult.

Moved by Chalane and seconded by Maria that we no longer accept personal checks; Motion passes.

Income we are tracking: credit card job/web ads donations….we have verified the income to be $97,1927 from the Irvine conference. In 2016 we made $92,812, in line with what we typically bring in income. Divided expenses are in 2 categories: operating and conference. $86,669 cost of conference; generated $11,000 income. Mostly generated from exhibits. We generate rooms by the number of rooms we sell. Those rooms are used for childcare and student Beca nominees. AV is the second most expensive costs for the conference. And now we usually have to have AV in all presentation rooms. Chalane suggested that we should wait to raise registration fees until the following year.

Registration income pays for the conference; if it doesn’t meet $86,000, we need to figure out if conference fees did not pay all conference expenses in CA…need to break down cost per person and see if it’s proportional; people who pay more subsidize people who pay less. We don’t want across the board increase…just proportional increase in registration. We made more in registration for last year because onsite registration was very high. Also we had $5 rebates from room block (earning ~$2,500); we don’t have that this year. Need to analyze how many pay on site, non-members, etc.

We have same amount for food and beverage $43,000, AV $27,000. Denver paid for itself.

Irvine was going to be expense, but made it very expensive to register onsite. Need to look at our numbers.

If everyone paid registration, we would see a huge difference, 30% don’t pay! Membership dues don’t cover operating costs: We bring in $37,000 in membership dues and operation is $67,000. We can’t maintain this…only able to pay down debt because of carry-over. We are not making a profit, org is only barely sustaining itself. Increase $5 more on the registration. We raised the dues last year. Conference registration will be a nest egg. They have increased the exhibitors, $900 per table…we have increased it dramatically and we might be at our peak. Need to massage the relations we have. Jamie is paid $1000 for her work at the registration; takes vacation time to do this. Only started paying child care providers and they must be certified. Students paying $125 are getting subsidized with $61. Their actual cost is $189. Motion was made to raise student registration by $5 and people who are below $186 bring them up by $10.

Motion passed and Board voted to make these increases (AD and Treasurer will working on the exact increases to be posted)

Antonia Castaneda Report for FY 2016-17
Fund is now $26,254.10 current; ideally could produce a report quarterly. Which means it has recovered and the $500 prize can come out of the endowment. It is only 2 years old and rate of return is not as high because we are part of a socially responsible investor; 4%. Account would be invested into the fund to get it back to 25,000; give $500 in 2017 from the funds. Donations can go directly into the Castaneda fund, not into NACCS account to help generate interest. If people are interested in donating, contact Julia for now…but if want to be a donor, it can be in the form/donor web page.

Update on Debt Resolution from NACCS 2017 Board Meeting
NACCS is committed to paying the labor and going forward we need to reevaluate our ED and AD expenses. Our debt will increase if we don’t resolve the amount NACCS pays… how people are compensated. Linda will research look at specific academic organization to get an idea of how other similar orgs pay their ED/AD
We have guaranteed to pay back over 5 years what (previous board) agreed, but we need to figure out the amount going forward. AD: invoiced $20,000 in projects; ED invoiced $16,000 in projects. We need to seriously work on fundraising.

Ideas: -Can we have a silent auction at NACCS? Institutional memberships and what are the incentives? ($250). Chairs contacting the NACCS scholars and lifetime members. Monthly expenses are not bad…but when we have annual fees ie, xcatalyst ($6000~ etc). Our proposed operating budget includes expenses we know and what we anticipate and given that, we need to think realistically about what we can pay ED/AD. We try to keep $30,000 in the bank, but it would be okay if we carry $15000, less…to pay off our debt. We need our foco reps and caucus chairs to pay their memberships!!! We can encourage Institutions to buy memberships. It was suggested we have an adhoc committee that can build NACCS and make it economically sustainable, and not solely on our ED/AD shoulders. We can only afford 50% of what we owe. NACCS does not have money to pay them.

Membership Report (1/1/2017-10/20/2017)
Caucuses & numbers: all supposed to be at 30 in order to exist.At large reps lead the efforts to communicate to their constituents about their numbers and the total of their members and remind chairs to remind their constituents to pay their fees. Joto now at 13; Student 18. Some numbers are low and we need to find ways to support them. Issues discovered with number of Indigenous caucus members which were inaccurate. Need to re-evaluate the process of the budget deadlines for focos/caucuses. Labor caucus will complete their formation period at conference 2018; we need their rosters, demonstrate they have 30 individuals registered for 2 years. And we can add them to the list to pay their dues now and we need to add to the at-large representative…makes logical sense to give it to a rep that works on compas. Maria will take them on and will get contact info from AD.

Our membership: Last year 548. This year 2017, 537 members, 51% female. Student membership is the core of the membership/undergrads/grads. Need to track budgets of each caucus/foco and provide a report. Foco rebates: a fund/not separate account. Don’t eliminate foco rebates, but instead create a fund focos can apply to…many Focos don’t spend funds. We could create a fund for rolling application. This will allow Focos who don’t generate funds to apply for more…allow small Focos or special projects to be funded. Foco development fund…they can apply for up to $200 to develop their foco to help support a foco meeting. The only Foco that utilized this funding was the east coast under Michael Hames Garcia; Foco went up from 2 to 17 members. There would have to be deliverables, like a grant.

Last fiscal year only Indigenous and Joto caucuses spent funds; the Chicana, Grad and LBMT funds went to their receptions, but as of now, no one has spent. Rethink foco rebates because most go unspent and the labor involved in processing those payments is intensive. June, Aureliano & Chalane will continue the adhoc NACCS financial health committee.

XI. Vetting Discussion
Discuss process and develop plan of action for identifying potential candidates for vacant positions to be filled in 2018
Look at grid of regional and caucus representing on board and see out missing areas
Everyone should come back with a list of potential nominations.

Open positions:
At Large Rep (Brenda); At Large Rep (Maria) she will run again; Secretary; Chair Elect; treasurer elect(?)

We need to consider regional representation:
Pacific NW represented (Linda); TX rep (June- is she going to continue?); Midwest (Aureliano); Colorado (Chalane). Don’t have: norCA; soCA; East Coast; Rocky Mountain

Spring 2018 – Vol. 42 No. 2