Florida Association of Code Enforcement, Inc.
Board of Directors Meeting
Minutes
Friday August 8, 2014
1:05 PM – 5:29 PM
Saturday, August 9, 2014
8:31 AM – 10:19AM
Institute of Government at UCF
12443 Research Pkwy #402.
Orlando, FL 32826
(407) 882-3960
1. Call to Order
2. Roll Call
President, R. Sam Sullivan
1st Vice President, Cindy Drake
2nd Vice President, Joanne Naumann (Excused)
3rd Vice President, Leslie Banta
Sergeant-at-Arms, Danny Thompson
Treasurer, James Acosta
Secretary, Lori Troxel
Immediate Past President, Michael Titmuss
Also present: Marilyn Crotty, IOG Bob Hamilton, Attorney
Donna Wisniewski- Historian Mark Caskie – Webmaster
3. Approval of Agenda
Motion to approve the agenda:
James Acosta Second: Cindy Drake
Motion carried unanimously
4. Approval of Minutes
Motion to approve minutes for the June Meetings
James Acosta Second: Danny Thompson
Motion carried unanimously
5. Welcome Visiting Members – No visiting members
6. Opening Comments – President R. Sam Sullivan thanked the Board for the participation in the strategic planning session, he felt it went well.
7. Membership Issues
A. Heather Mulligan, recertification – Marilyn Crotty explained the situation and requested clarification on whether monies owed for classes/exams hinders a members ability to recertify. Discussion between Board members and webmaster Mark Caskie. F.A.C.E. bylaws Article 2, Section 8, Subsection C under membership are clear for financial obligations, Danny Thompson to make contact with member advise all monies due F.A.C.E. will be paid or membership will be terminated for non-payment of exam retake. Bob suggested the IOG start a form letter to all members in default of payment for ninety days advising membership is suspended until they are paid in full, thereby eliminating the need to involve the Board in non-payment matters. Follow-up provided from Danny Thompson who spoke with Sgt. Heather Mulligan via telephone, Ms. Mulligan advised Danny she would pay the monies owed on Wednesday August 13, 2014. Danny advised Ms. Mulligan if she pays the past due amount her membership will not be affected, if not her membership will be terminated. If the payment is not received on Wednesday, August 13, 2014, Danny will draft a letter on Thursday, August 14, 2014; advising her membership has been terminated.
8. Reports
A. Webmaster- Mark Caskie (8/8/14)
a. FACE-Lift – Mark indicated he hoped we were all able to test out our mobile friendly site, as this is the FACE-Lift. It is live now, if we find any issues let the committee know. The committee members received some training already and Michelle and Susan will be receiving training this coming Tuesday.
b. Members - Renewal – This will be discussed with a demonstration during the teleconference.
c. Admin System (F.A.C.E. 2.0) – The system is being worked on now, and should be complete mid to end of the month. Susan is holding work to test the system when complete. Mark explained some questions were presented based on the changes, concerning who is going to handle the money, manual credit card entries, etc. James previously explained the IOG will continue to handle all monetary transactions; the only difference will be the transactions are going to be completed on the F.A.C.E. admin system as opposed to being entered into the IOG system. Mark explained the payment program we are setting up on our system will accept any payment we create an invoice for, but at this time we are only working on membership payments. Once this system is up and running a batch education email will be sent out to our membership. A new page was developed for bulk member registration, where one person will be given administrative rights to register everyone in their jurisdiction.
d. F.A.C.E. - I.O.G.: Policy discussion relative to Membership and Admin changes-
Charter membership was discussed; the Charter membership exists by tradition and not by by-law and Mark wants to know if the Board wants to continue this designation in the new system. Discussion took place and it was decided to notate this need to change charter agency in the bylaws to charter member, and at the next by law change done this subject will be included. Leslie Banta will be assisting Mark Caskie with addressing the agency names in the system.
e. Website Committee – Mark advised one of the best decisions he made was that he asked for a website committee. The committee is only on the member side, and does not have passwords to the admin site. We have forty two pages on our website. JB does the chapter pages, and Liana helps with the other pages.
f. Chapters – Mark advised the Board our Chapters are slow getting on board with their pages, but now that he has a dedicated committee member these on getting done. Any Chapter can email and carbon copy Mark at and you can place most anything on your chapter page.
g. FACE or F.A.C.E. - acronym standard – Questions were asked of Mark referencing whether we are going to use FACE or F.A.C.E. but not both. Bob advised this does not matter, however discussion took place that our bylaws shows F.A.C.E. therefore for clarification all official items will be shown as F.A.C.E. for standardization and consistency, to include our Website, correspondence, and all legal documentation.
Motion to clarify the Florida Association of Code Enforcement official acronym is as follows F.A.C.E.
Leslie Banta Second: Michael Titmuss
Motion carried unanimously
h. E-Polk Go-To-Meeting presentation (Time certain 2pm on 8/8) Teleconference w/ Mike Kingham of e-Polk took place where a demonstration of the system was given to the Board.
B. Historian- Donna Wisniewski (8/8/14)
a. Historical Page Online – Donna asked the Board what they thought about adding more historical information on our website History page. The Board advised this was a great idea. Mark Caskie advised Donna to send the information to Liana for incorporation onto the website. Mark advised Liana is currently working on building up the History page as well as the conference pages at this time. Once Donna sends Liana items to place on the website the Board will receive a link to the page to review prior to making it live.
C. Treasurer – James Acosta (8/8/14)
a. Current Budget - James Acosta supplied the Board with the following documentation: Recap Report, fiscal year budget report, income/expenses by month report, as well as copies of reconciliation reports and statements from the bank, for the record. James advised he now has a file on his computer that memos exactly what an amount is should anyone question a certain amount contained in the expense forms. James indicated he purchased 300 business checks for $340 dollars and decided to take a trial run on a new concept of “e checks” and if these take off we will be able to save money in the future on the cost of business checks. James advised he bought 50 e checks for $30. He has tried one already, with one of our vendors and there was no issue with the check.
b. 2014 Conference Budget – This budget is not yet complete until Marilyn gives us the finalized reports. Marilyn indicated she has the preliminary report today. Marilyn asked about several charges that exceeded the budgeted amount. A short discussion took place about the thumb drives and why were they $1000.00 more than anticipated. R. Sam Sullivan advised the cost of thumb drives went up. The Board discussed how to bring this cost down for the next conference.
c. 2015 Conference Budget – James went over the 2015 Conference budget and indicated several items were removed that we have not used for a while. A short discussion took place on the funding for next year’s conference.
d. How to properly mark receipts – James went over how to properly mark receipts in order for the charges to be placed in the right budget line.
D. President – Sam Sullivan (8/8/14)
a. General Comments – Sam went over the Strategic Plan goals and emphasized Leslie was given the hardest goal to define the value of F.A.C.E. membership and wants to ensure the Board provides the input expected as a shared priority. Marilyn suggested Sam provide a line item on the agenda for the goals dually assigned to a Board member and the Board so that action steps and strategies can be shared, also those Board members assigned a priority should have an agenda line so their progress can be updated at each meeting. She feels this will continue the effort to keep the strategic plan relevant each year. Sam advised this will become a standard agenda item.
b. Scheduling of Board Meetings – Board meetings were scheduled as follows: December 12-13, 2014 Location to be determined, February 6-7, 2015 in Orlando, and May 8-9, 2015 at the Comfort Suites in Orlando.
c. Committee interest form- now that committees are full – Sam advised the committee form has been very successful and that he also mentioned it in his InterFace article. Now that the committees are full he wants to make sure there is a database kept for future Boards use. Lori advised when she gets an application she sends them a response that the form was received and that it was being forward to the chairperson for response. It is up to each chair to advise the applicant of their status. Lori asked if the application is going to be placed in the conference folders each year. The Board advised this will take place as it was very successful last year.
d. FLGC 2014 Annual Meeting - Sam recapped his experience at the Conference. He also advised he found an excellent speaker during this meeting and that he forwarded the speakers information to Cindy for our own possible use at our conference.
e. Florida League of Cities Meeting – Sam reminded the Board this meeting will be on August 13th through the 16th and he and Mike will be in attendance. Mark also requested they send him a picture and a short blurb so this can be placed on the website. A short discussion referencing purchasing enough items as giveaways when the first vice orders items for our conferences so the bulk discount can be applied.
f. Public Servant with a Story – Sam explained the request from the Florida League of Cities referencing a public servant with a story and wanted to know if this was shared with other F.A.C.E. members. He also advised Mike has input on this subject. Mike explained that he sent out the information to David Crook and Ron Giddings who are two of the best story tellers he knows and received a story back from Ron Giddings. Mike stated that he will email the story to the Board for review. He feels this is a great story Ron shared with him. Marilyn stated it is very important for F.A.C.E. to participate in this. Mark requested the story be sent to him to post on the Website.
E. IOG – Marilyn Crotty/Michelle Gardner (8/8/14)
a. 2014 Conference Evaluations - Marilyn advised the 2014 evaluations were emailed out and stated this was the best evaluations she has seen in quite some time, the complaints were minimal. She further stated we only had a few failed speakers but our F.A.C.E. speakers did very well. Marilyn went over the preliminary financial report for the 2014 Annual Education & Training conference, and explained a few of the line items. She will provide the final report at our next Board meeting. The sponsors/exhibitors were some of the best this year. Marilyn indicated we just need to work on getting more of our members to the conference; our member participation was 268 down from 294 last year. Marilyn is concerned that we will be challenged on getting members to Naples as we draw more members when the conference is held in the center of the state.
b. 2015 Conference – Deferred to Cindy Drake
c. 2016 Conference Location Preference – The board will look for conference locations in Orlando and Amelia Island. Our preferred dates are the third week of June the 14th-17th, 2016. Marilyn will look at Amelia Island first and determine if they can accommodate our group and then move into the Orlando area, and have RFP’s sent out and get back with the Board at which time we will tour several locations and make a choice.
d. FCCMA Invitation to FLGC to submit a Workshop for 2015 Conference Royal Pacific Universal Studios Orlando – May27-30? (75 Minutes) – A short discussion took place and the Board was advised we were selected to present at this conference. Marilyn suggested the Board pick a lead to determine the speaker and ensure it runs smoothly. Sam read an email he received on July 31st advising we were selected to present at their conference. Marilyn expressed how pleased she was that F.A.C.E. was selected to present. A short discussion took place about F.A.C.E. being a vendor at this conference.
F. 1st Vice President – Cindy Drake (8/9/14)
a. 2015 Conference Update – Cindy advised her committee had their first meeting and set their meeting dates to be October 17, January 17 or 23rd, and April 17. The committee would like their theme to be “Make Every Connection Matter” with the logo being a three ring Venn diagram symbolizing the links between the F.A.C.E. Membership, Public, and Government connected through Technology. The board discussed the links symbolizing the four topics and wants the word Public changed to Communities and decided the theme appropriate to use.