General Meeting Minutes

Date: Sept. 24, 2015 Venue: St. Mary’s Greek Orthodox Church

Attendance: Ruth Talford, President, Red Cross; Dan Christopulos, Secretary, IOCC; Dennis Walter, HSEM MNVOAD Liaison; Tom Anderson, LDS; Judy Rue, Salvation Army; Kim Dettmer, LSS; Dan Frank, Initiative Foundation; Katie Halladay FEMA Region V (phone); Chelsey Christ, Intern; Julie Anderson, presenter, MEMA; Marty Forseth, EMS/Public Health/BART; Bob Rexeisen, MNARES; Marie Putnam, Salvation Army (phone); PJ Doyle, Red Cross (phone), Andrea Perez, Hennepin County (phone); Patrick Woletsko, Otter Tail County (phone); Ashley Emory, Headwaters; Dave Korus, Team Rubicon; Ann Foster, MNARES; Mark McGilvry (phone), NECHAMA; Paul Oby, MNARES; Ed Olson, Min-Wis. Baptists Convention.

Welcomed and Introductions – President Ruth Talford called the meeting to order at 6:01 pm and asked those present and on the telephone to introduce themselves. The attendance is recorded above. She then introduced our guest speaker, Julie Anderson from MEMA.

Guest Speaker: Julie Anderson gave a presentation on social media, some of the different channels available and how to best utilize them.

Facebook: 31% of seniors and 66% of millennials (15 – 34) still use Facebook.

People in social media love pictures. NECHAMA has 2,500 “Likes” on a post that was posted 5 hours ago. To increase visibility you need to “like” others. This is the key. You should go on and “like” others so that they will like you back.

Twitter: To stay up on what is happening use Twitter. Use it immediately for it to be effective.

Hashtags are the #. You can search by hashtag. This is good for events. The beauty of Twitter is to find out what the people are saying. A lot of reporters have their twitter handle available. Whoever you would like to cover you, follow them on twitter.

Lawmakers also love twitter. You can google lawmakers on twitter. If you follow them, they will follow you. And, they will retweet what you send.

For further questions you may contact Julie at the email listed above.

Approval of Minutes and Treasurer’s Report

Ann Foster motioned and Dan Frank seconded to approve the minutes; PASSED

Dan Frank gave the Treasurer’s report on behalf of Cheryl Vennestrom

Tom Anderson motioned and Ann Foster seconded to approve the treasurer’s report; PASSED

MNVOAD Committee Reports

Conference Committee – Judy Rue, Chair ( or 763-427-0822) reported that the committee met on Sept. 8 and filled most of their org. chart. They had a good discussion about timeline and what we need to do, but most of the major things like speakers, large donors must be approved by NVOAD. Please forward any suggestions to Judy. The official conference dates are May 22 – 25, 2016. The first day is for committee meeting and the full conference gets underway with the opening luncheon on May 23. We are also looking for items for the silent auction that are Minnesota unique. There was also discussion about what types of activities to offer. Many of these things would need to be within walking distance.

Membership Committee – Chaired by Marie Putnam, () who reported that they met in August and discussed about criteria for membership and how to reach out to possible members. They also worked on a one page letter/talking points about MNVOAD. They also worked on basic recruiting strategies and drafted letters about reaching out to others.

Communications Committee – Liza Brazelton is chair () Andrea from Hennepin County gave the report that she and Liza met yesterday. The looked at the MNVOAD website, and if they are going to upgrade, they want to do it by the end of October. They also talked about how to integrate the NVOAD conference into our website. They would like to start a Twitter account and might look at a YouTube channel mostly about the conference. They want to work more closely with the Membership Committee to see how they can drive traffic to the website.

Policies and Procedures Committee – Dan Christopulos () reported that the committee has met Sept. 10 and started their work by:

1.  Finding the clause of dissolution in the MNVOAD articles of incorporation;

2.  Drafting a Whistleblower policy;

3.  Drafting a Conflict of Interest policy;

4.  Reviewing a SEOC Liaison checklist.

He thanked the committee members Cheryl Vennestrom, Steve Barenbaum, PJ Doyle, Ruth Talford, and Rick Sutphen (who undertook the initial drafting of the documents). Once these drafts are finalized they will be recommended to the Board for adoption. The next task will be to delineate the roles and responsibilities of the MNVOAD officers.

Nominating Committee – Tom Anderson is the chair () and reported that they are working with the Membership Committee to help try and identify new Board members. Specifically, we are in need of a Vice President and maybe a President. If we know of anyone who could be of assistance on our Board please let Tom know.

Finance Committee – Cheryl Vennestrom () is the chair for this committee and Dan Frank reported on the meeting that they had. They are looking at the format of the financial report and might tweak it; they are currently using Quickbooks. They need to know when the budget is due for next year.

MNVOAD Board Report

President Talford gave the report and encouraged new people to continue stepping up to help. She praised the work of the committees and the fact that new members were volunteering for them. We welcome more help and are trying to be sensitive that the meetings are worthwhile.

Member Feature & Updates:

Team Rubicon: Dave Korus, a retired police and Air Force officer gave the presentation about one of the newest members of MNVOAD ( ; 310-640-8787). When he retired he wasn’t sure what he was going to do so he answered a call to be part of Team Rubicon. It is 5 years old and has 35,000 members world-wide who are typically ex-military or law enforcement. Started by Jacob Wood, their first deployment was Haiti. Internationally they can do medical, but not in the US. They have a lot of support from the government and big corporations. Team Rubicon has two rules: “Get s*** done; Don’t be a d***”. They can be very adaptable. They don’t take government funds. They take care of First Responders first. They have incident management teams. They are great at documenting. They have a watch center that is staffed 24 hours. They have a goal to increase to 60,000 members in the next five years. They also do service projects. They really work to integrate veterans into society.

MN/WI Baptists – Ed reported that the shower unit will be based in St. Paul. They also worked in Brainerd during the recent storms. They are doing rebuilds in MI. Local Disaster Relief training on Oct. 10 in Coon Rapids. They are going to get a smaller feeding unit that will go to local kitchens. More information about them can be found at: www.Mwbc.org

LSS – Kim reported that Camp Noah served 865 kids in 23 camps in 8 different states. They have a tri-state conference Oct. 29/30 with a possibility of scholarships. A link will be sent.

MN Ares – Paul reported that ARES will be at the Share-Fair on Wed. Sept. 30th. And they are working at the Twin Cities Marathon on Oct. 4.

IOCC – Dan reported that IOCC had a training in CISM in Chicago in May for their Disaster Frontline Chaplains. They also deployed a team to San Marcos, TX for Emotional and Spiritual Care and were able to also deliver 288 clean-up buckets and 300 hygiene kits. Also almost 100 people attended a CISM training August 25 – 28 at St. Mary’s Greek Orthodox Church that was sponsored by KLOVE radio ministries.

Red Cross – Ruth reported that it was a busy summer with a lot of Minnesotans deployed outside of Minnesota. They also responded to the Brainerd Lakes straight winds. They also have been doing a lot of fires response and are doing a nationwide smoke alarm project and have thousands of free smoke alarms that they can replace. In Minnesota there will be at least a dozen events. If you are interested in participating let Ruth know because they like to do them as multi-agency events. They are having their North Star institute in two weeks.

Next meeting: Tentatively at 6:00 pm in St. Paul on Thursday, Dec. 17, 2015

The meeting adjourned at 7:57 pm.

Respectfully submitted,

Dan Christopulos
MN VOAD Secretary