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Annual WWC Membership Board Minutes


Minutes:
Meeting was brought to order by Ron Jervis at the Viking Inn at Viroqua, WI., September 26, 2003. 25 people were in attendance.

Agenda was reviewed and approved. Treasurer’s report was given and approved.

Agenda:
First order of business was to acknowledge the outgoing board members over the last 2 years. Plaques werehanded out with congratulations and received by Rudy Nigl, Arthur Luttig, Bob Weiland, Stan Peskar and Aaron Young.

Ron Jervis gave an overview on his trip to the national meeting. Ron also informed the membership on the

latest happenings at the national level, movement of the secretary office to the college campus at Purdue University, continued decrease in membership, etc…Ron did report that Wisconsin still has the largest membership at roughly 147 with Illinois closing fast to try and overtake us. The membership drive was partially successful this year and did succeed in trying to get people’s email address to get information out over the Internet about the happenings of the chapter. It also cleaned up the database and made it more reliable to check against national’s list.
 Each committee then gave a quick report on current status, obstacles and progress for the year. Committees presenting:
Chapter Revenues: Chair – Russ Moody

Marketing Tree Farm Products: Chair – Mike Pfanku

Web Site: Chair – Ron Jervis

Membership: Chair – Dale Parker

Public Relations and Exhibitions: Chair – John Nielsen (not present) Aaron Young reported.

Genetic Improvements for Trees and Nuts: Chair – Odell Anderson.

Main topic of discussion for the night was member ship fee increase. The WWC this year used more funds than usual to work on a number of projects. The task of providing better field days to keep interest up has also put a strain on the limited amount of funds. One option is to increase the renewal fee from $30 to $35, which increases the amount returned to the Wisconsin Chapter from $5 to $10 per year. The $5 increase will mean an additional $650-$700 to the chapter. This is sufficient to keep up the membership drive and cover other expenses related to mailings and field days. Enough members were present to take a vote on this issue. Motion to increase membership fees $5, second, passed.

Last discussion of the night was to recruit new board members for the upcoming election. If anyone has someone in mind, please pass the information on to Odell Anderson. Odell will be collecting the bios and putting together the information for board approval this fall. The election will be sometime in November.
 
The highlight of the evening was the drawing for door prizes. Each one was worth $10 to $50. To everyone’s delight, ever person attending the annual meeting received a door prize.
The easy solicitation of the door prizes from local businesses and other sponsors represents the willingness of these people to support the Walnut Council.
   

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