A motion was made and
seconded to accept the minutes from the January meeting once the discussed
changes were made
2. Status of action
items from the January meeting
Posting of the
minutes to the NEAOBA website:
Cheryl is currently
posting the BOD meeting minutes to the NEAOBA website thanks to Bill's help.
PayPal transfer of
funds:
Lennie has opened a
checking account and a CD account at TD Bank.Things are going well.
Transition of
Treasurer:
Jim has a few checks
to get to Lennie before the transfer of treasurer will be complete.There are still a few outstanding NEAOBA News
ads.Lennie will check on the status
of these.
Membership renewal:
An eblast was sent
out by Bill as soon as PayPal was up and runnning.
Nominating Committee
update:
Barbie has talked
with Jen Boshar of Big Red Acres.Jen
has graciously agreed to get the committee together once again.She will get the Board a list of potential
candidates after she puts together a something that outlines the job of a board
member and sends it to Barbie who will then get it to the rest of the
Board.Barbie will also be sending a
follow-up email to Jen to see where she is in this process.
3. Treasurer's Report
Lennie will have the
records on QuickBooks soon and will be sending it out to us by the end of the
month.The cash balance is approximately what it was
at this time last year.
4.NEAOBA News
Jim will be taking
over as Newsletter Liason soon.After
much discussion, it was determined that we would drop the amount of copies that
are printed to 1200. A lighter "house" stock will be used throughout
each issue.We will be mailing to all
members and the 2009 leads.The extra
copies will be available for shows and farm visits.Bill will convey this information to Alisa
Mierzejewski.
5. Marketing
Barbie has placed ads
in Peddlar Magazine for March 2010.There will be a link on their website as well.
An ad will be going
into the Merrimack County Farm Bureau Communicator for the March/April edition.
Barbie told the Board
that the rates for ads in Country Folk and Farming Magazine are
reasonable.The Board took no action
during this meeting.
6. Events
The Farm and Forest
Expo was well attended.NEAOBA bumper
stickers were given out.
NEAF was
discussed.The Sheep and Wool Festival
book has gone to the printer.The Fleece
Show is pending certification which should be completed by next week.Once it is certified, the forms will be going
out.Sue KIng will be judging the Fiber
Arts portion, while Polly Michaelis will be judging the fleece.
The Fiber Festival of
New England is the first weekend of November.It will be held at the Eastern States Exposition (The Big E).Cheryl has offered to participate at this
event on behalf of NEAOBA.The
application must be received by March 31, 2010 in order to be considered.
Barbie also has a
list of all the fiber shows for 2010 and will get together with Cheryl to get a
few pens together to take part in some of these shows as well.
Barbie was approached
by people from the Deerfield Fair, who are looking to have alpacas as part of
their fair.
The New England
Alpaca Classic (formerly New England Coastal Classic) will not be held in
2010.The suggestion of a composite show
in 2011 was made and discussed.DCU is
hesitant to give us a spring date becuase of their renewals for 2011.Cost is a major concern at this venue.It was decided to continue looking for a
venue, but we need to have one by the summer.An eblast sent by Lennie will let everyone know that the New England
Alpaca Classic will be coming in 2011.Before it is sent out, he will check with Nicola Blake to see what it
should include.Once this is done, he
will email it to the Board for approval.
The Board has plans
to sponsor The Big E alpaca show in the fall.
7. Membership Report
131 renewals have
been transacted so far.Last year at
this time there were 115.We have 20 new
members as well.11 are farm and the
other 9 are associates.
The past memberships
has been as follows:
2005 - 155 members
2006 - 158 members
2007 - 162 members
2008 - 161 members
2009 - 223 members
It seems that the
PayPal option is helping with the renewal process.
A filtration for
mailings was discussed.Hazen of
Breedworks knows that somewhere we have the ability to sort the membership
mailings by certain criteria.
There was no Other
Business for this meeting.
The next meeting will
be held on Thursday, March 11, 2010 at 7:30 P.M.
