November 2011 Meeting Minutes

Attendance: 19

16 Members
3 Non-members

The November meeting was held at the American Red Cross building, November 14^th, 2011 at 11:30am.  President Jerilyn Billings started the lunch time business meeting with a discussion about the chapter by-laws.  Drawing up a set of new by-laws has been in the works, or plans for over a year, but had not been accomplished.  Jerilyn drew up a rough set of bylaws and distributed them to the other officers for their perusal before it is released to the membership for a vote.  There were multiple discussions about the bylaws that ensued. 

Dick Elder, a member of the founding group stated that there had not ever been a set of chapter by-laws. Other discussion topics included:

• The President will need to be a paying member of both the National AMS and NWA chapters.
• Other Officers will need to be a paying member of one of the two National Groups (AMS or NWA) – Also need to verify if this is valid for the group
• The NWA requires 6 meetings a year to be a chapter in good standing.  It was discussed that executive membership (officers) could hold two meetings to count towards the total.

The President of the High Plains Chapter of the AMS/NWA passed on that their chapter voted to gift $400 to the Wichita Chapter of the AMS/NWA to help with losses from the High Plains Conference.  This $400 was gifted for the Student Competition.  There were not any students that presented so the money was not needed at for the conference. 

• The Wichita chapter voted to accept the gifted amount of $400 and earmark it towards the next High Plains Conference that the chapter hosts.

The Treasurer Ross Janssen has noted some frustrations utilizing the chapter’s bank.  He has brought up the idea of changing a bank that is more widely accessible online and via atm. 

• The chapter voted and accepted the idea to shop around for a new bank for the Chapter.  Chapter Treasurer Ross Janssen and President Jerilyn Billings will pursue this matter before the next meeting in February.

The business meeting concluded and the November Speaker began.  Jeff Morris the City Manager from Coffeyville  gave an in depth review of the flood from 2007 that covered a large portion of the city.