Summer 2023, CALL Executive Board

August 2023 Executive Board Meeting Minutes

Conference Call: August 8, 2023

Board Members Present: Scott Vanderlin, Todd Hillmer, Jill Meyer, Philip Johnson, Clare Willis, Lucy Robbins, Mandy Lee

Board Members Absent: none

Guests: none

Significant Actions:

    1. President Mandy Lee called the meeting to order at 9:03am.
    2. The agenda was approved.  No items were added to Old Business/New Business.
    3. The Secretary’s minutes for June were approved.
    4. Treasurer’s Report  
      1. Financial Report
        1. Checking account balance as of August 8, 2023: $16,820.98
        2. Revenue for June and July 2023: $2,788.56
        3. Expenses for June and July 2023: $3,663.32
        4. CD account balance as of August 8, 2023: $20,872.73
      2. Membership numbers to date: 214 (3 new)
    5. Old Business
      1. AALL Annual Meeting report:
        1. CONELL Marketplace: Mandy reported that those who visited our booth were most interested in our online continuing education.
        2. Poster/Display Board in Activities Area: Past-President Scott Vanderlin’s poster was well-received.  He looks forward to doing it again next year.
        3. Chapter Presidents Training: Mandy reported that our strategic plan makes us unique amongst other chapters.  She noted, however, that our current plan goes through 2023 and will need to be updated.  Updating the strategic plan is tabled for now.
      2. Website – quotes to create new site: Scott reported that he consulted with a web developer friend who advised CALL to seek help with this task on Fiverr, an online marketplace where independent contractors with technology skills offer their services.  Scott found that there were many people on the site with good ratings and portfolios who could fix our website and set us up with something simple and functional for between $500-$1,000, and it could be finished within 14 days.
        Scott provided this example of an available web designer.  Vice-President Philip Johnson reported that his research into Fiverr lead him to the same conclusion. Secretary Clare Willis asked if Scott investigated our file retention issue.  Scott reported that he had not.
        Mandy stated that she would ask Emily Barney how much storage we needed.  Clare agreed to help Scott shop for quotes by writing up a description of our file retention needs.  Scott agreed to pull together three quotes for the Board to choose from.
      3. Illinois Secretary of State – CALL registration renewal: Clare reported that the registered agent is changed to Philip and our annual report was filed immediately after Philip received acknowledgment that he was the registered agent.
      4. Spam emails from “Mandy”:  Mandy asked the Board to disregard anything that seems odd or reach out personally to confirm by email or phone.
      5. Consolidate committees: Mandy opined that the current slate of committees and requirements of membership on those committees is not sustainable because of the low number of members and low percentage of members who volunteer.  Mandy suggested that Meetings and Public Relations be combined because Public Relations promotes events and Meetings puts on events.  She also suggested that Mentorship and Leadership Develop and Placement and Recruitment be combined into a general professional development committee.  Clare noted that the Board can also sunset a committee.  The Board agreed to take up this question at another meeting.
      6. Race Judicata – Aug. 31: Mandy reported that Meetings chairs Carrie Port and Mike McMillan are no longer organizing a CALL team but will invite CALL members who are participating on other teams to gather at the event.
      7. Business meeting dates: Philip reported that the 2023-2024 Business Meetings and their modality is now set and is as follows: Wednesday, September 20 (in person), Thursday, November 16 (Zoom), Thursday, February 22 (Zoom), and Tuesday, May 21 (in person)
    6. New Business 
      1. AALL Chapter visit – President – May 2024 Business Meeting:  Mandy will submit the request to have AALL President June Liebert visit the May 2024 Business Meeting.
      2. CALL cloud storage:  The Board discussed the potential need for cloud storage of CALL documents to archive the documents and make them accessible to members, especially considering the failures of the current website.  Mandy reported that she started a Dropbox account last year as a stopgap measure.  The Board discussed the pros and cons of Google Drive and noted that it was a possibility but access to Google products is difficult to share and may be blocked by law firm firewalls.  Mandy noted that the external hard drive retention policy is from 2013 and the most recent print archive policy is from 2009.  Mandy opined that we need to update these policies to account for cloud storage or create a new cloud storage policy.  Mandy noted that, in addition to CALL documents, CALL also needs somewhere to archive Zoom recordings because our available Zoom storage is nearly full.
      3. In-person board meeting in September:The Board agreed to hold an in-person Board meeting in September on Friday, September 15 at 9:00am in the LIR Boardroom (Room 800) on the 8th floor of Chicago-Kent College of Law, 565 W. Adams St.
      4. Committee Chair Summit/Training:The Board agreed to have the meeting of committee chairs and the Board on Wednesday, September 13th on Zoom at 12:00pm.
      5. AALL in Chicago 2024:  The Board discussed the trivia event that CALL hosted in 2016 when the annual meeting was last in Chicago.  Scott and Clare planned that event but could not remember if and how the event was formally organized by CALL.  The Board agreed that a CALL event for the conference next year would not require a special committee.  Scott reported that he plans to create a Chicago scavenger hunt for annual meeting attendees.
    7. Committee Reports:
      1. Corporate Memory:Clare reported that the committee acknowledges they are behind on renewing minutes and hopes to resume their work in the fall.
      2. Meetings: Philip reported that committee chairs Carrie Port and Mike McMillan are proposing a $30 registration fee (a $5 increase) for the September meeting at Maggiano’s.  Philip noted that the Handbook lets the chairs set the registration price.  The Board agreed that this was reasonable.  The Board also discussed the likely need to increase the sponsorship amount despite the difficulty finding a sponsor.
    8. Announcements: There were no announcements.
    9. Adjournment: The meeting adjourned at 10:05am.