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OBDA Meeting January 14th, 2017 OMEA Conference 4pm
Kevin- Account is at just over $2,100 at this time. Mandy Mullett- MS commission project could not move forward due to lack of funds. Discussion about ways to try to keep moving forward with a cost share, or OMEA districts support. Possibility of a different composer was also discussed. William Owens was initially contacted and also wanted to conduct the honor band the year of the premier if he wrote the piece. Membership Update- Noelle Available to update dues and check status at and after the meeting. Jeff opened by discussing that we have not been following the By-laws regarding the duties of the President, regarding mostly the responsibility of that position to be in charge of honor groups and our lack of the 5 Board of Director positions. The 5 Board of Director positions would represent 5 areas of the state, designated by specific OMEA districts. The hope would be that the 5 would be a mix of large HS, small HS and MS directors at all times. Discussion about how to do that, if it does or does not require specifying in the by-laws or if that could be done by the nomination and election process. What does OBDA do? Members contributed the following things from previous OBDA experience: -Help select band sessions for conference. -Bring items to OMEA. President is the OMEA Band Chair -Website -Adjudication List -Facebook Group Why we started it? Early 80s from request from college band directors concerns with director burn-out. A group got together and asked if we should have an organization and everyone agreed. A group to bring and discuss issues and projects that are just band, to bring things to OMEA. The band chair is elected by band directors, so it unified them behind good people who. Guidelines passed, task forces etc.... They were able to assist in getting guidelines into place that helped band directors state wide. New Ideas: Outreach to new directors needed. Michael has something about that later. Website- only Nancy has access to update it. She is only updating when people contact her with information that they want posted. Assumptions should not be made that if they post it somewhere else she is going to take it and put it on the website. Currently there is a lack of info at this time there regarding festivals and dates for people to use as a resource. Noelle asked if others could have access to the site, like the entire board to make updates to the site as needed. Asked if membership info is available on the website. Not yet as we are updating a very outdated membership list at this time, but we are working to get one up and available for everyone to reference soon. Projects and Initiatives: Mentor Project- Michael Burch-Pesses. OBDA at one time had one. OBDA assigned individuals to a new teacher. An idea was to have Board of Directors work with OMEA Districts they are assigned to, to find new teachers and link them with mentor teachers. The previous version of this folded because of lack of communication and young teachers being afraid to ask for help. The membership was asked if they have been teaching for 3 or more years and if any of them would be willing to mentor anyone. Almost the whole room raised their hands. Lit List: Dave Becker has retired. Stuart Welsh would be taking over and adding solo and ensemble lists as well. Dave willing to do approvals with Chuck Bolton till a change is made. Kevin Egan wants it made clear that the solo/ensemble list is not a “must play” list but a “recommended” list. Back to elections: Not enough time to discuss or vote on anything discussed tonight. It was agreed that our current president Jeff Hornick will communicate to the membership and get things moving before the next meeting. Noelle Freshner brought up that there is not a secretary on the board. No discussion, just a ridiculous nomination. Meeting adjourned at just before 5pm. Dear Members,
First of all, I’d like to thank everyone who was able to be at the meeting last Saturday. As I said, I didn’t expect to solve the Association’s problems in 47 minutes but we WERE able to get some much needed conversations started. Look for more information regarding the mentorship program and the middle school commission project, among others, in the coming weeks. Secondly, I want to, again, thank Dave Becker for all of his years of service to the organization, including maintaining the literature list, and thank Stuart Welsh for his willingness to take on these particular duties in, at the least, the short term. I expect that an updated list will go live sometime this spring. In the meantime the current list applies and requests for substitution can still be made to Chuck Bolton at [email protected] and Dave at [email protected]. Thirdly, nominations are now open for the Board of Directors positions. Please forward the names of anyone you believe would be an asset to the organization. In the absence of a “nominating committee” self-nominations are acceptable as well. Though any time frame is, by definition, somewhat arbitrary, I’d like to close the nominations on February 3rd with voting after that with the idea that a board will be in place by the end of February. If anyone has ideas for on-line voting please let me know. As I mentioned on Saturday, the duties of the “Board” are somewhat vague beyond “conducting the business of the organization.” Once a board is in place we can, perhaps, look at redefining those duties. Lastly, the minutes will be up on the website by the end of the week. Thank you, all, for your service to the organization. Musically, Jeff Hornick President, OBDA PS: If you haven't done so already, please go to the website and take a couple of minutes and read through the by-laws. Thanks! |