Cabinet members in attendance: Ande Croll, Matthew Knisley, Ryan Armour, Anthony Nuval, Mindy Brown, Kevin Colby, Tarun Nagpal

From IMSA: Carolyn Johnson

Excused: Mark Czynski, Neal Groothuis, Annelise Li, Joanna Messer, Scott Swanson

Absent: Timothy Meyer

The meeting was called to order at 8:02 PM CDT.

Budget Approval

Ryan put forth a motion to reallocate the funds previously marked for the IMSAlum ($3,000) towards regional club support. Tony seconded the motion. No questions were asked. The motion was put to a vote; the motion passed unanimously.

Resignation of Annelise Li

Ande read a letter of resignation from the IAA cabinet submitted by Annelise Li, citing work and marriage planning as preventing her from fulfilling her responsibilities. Annelise did not have any assigned tasks but was tentatively identified to support regional club activities. Ande put forth a motion to accept the resignation of Annelise. Matthew seconded the motion. The motion was put to a vote; the motion passed unanimously with no abstentions.

Leave of Absence of Timothy Meyer

Ande put forth a motion to accept a leave of absence from Timothy Meyer. Tony seconded the motion. With Timothy absent from the meeting, Ande explained his request to take a leave of absence from Cabinet responsibilities, citing a job-related move and its related responsibilities as preventing him from taking care of Cabinet activities. However, he feels that he should be able to return to his duties in February of 2008. Since he was tasked with coordinating Intersession activities, he has been transitioning his responsibilities to Joanna; she will be taking over for him.

Ande explained that accepting his leave of absence excuses him from further Cabinet meetings without the need to inform the Cabinet of his absence for each meeting; the Cabinet may not take action to remove him during this time. He is able to return sooner if he feels he can do so. If, when February 2008 is reached, he cannot continue in his role, it is expected that he would offer to resign.

The motion was put to a vote. The motion was approved unanimously with no abstentions.

University Host Program Updates

Mindy provided updates on the program connecting current IMSA students with alumni hosts for college visits:

Mindy has been working with the IMSA Student Council senior and junior at-large representatives to connect students and alumni. Plans are in progress to make information available on the IMSA website regarding the schools available through this program and to link the Student Council website with the IAA website. CAC counselors have already been emailed the list of available schools.

Presently, she is working on getting dates available. There are two major dates: for seniors, November is the time when most college visits take place; for juniors, it is spring break. Coordination is difficult for the November time frame due to Thanksgiving break.

Ande asked Mindy how successful she thought the program is going. Mindy said that for the larger universities there is little difficulty; she has had two instances where no alumni are available to host students. She will communicate with the at-large representatives to see if there is anything else that she can do to assist students.

Matthew asked how communications work and how the alumni list was put together. Mindy said that information is sent to the at-large representatives who are then responsible for communications. The alumni volunteer list was created primarily through email and Facebook. She will be sending out another request for volunteers next week. The list has about 20 schools; some have only a few volunteers but others have many (there are 30 at UIUC). 60 IMSA students have gotten in touch with her so far and they are connected with alumni on a case-by-case basis.

Matthew asked if we might put together a central website for matching students with alumni. Mindy thought that this would be useful in the future but it is easier for her to manage connections herself at this early stage of the program.

IMSA Carnival

Tony provided a recap of the previous week's alumni involvement in the second annual IMSA carnival. Alumni participation was decent considering the late notice in soliciting volunteers. Tony, Ande, and Joanna made it out to help. Scott also stopped by after work. Tony received three responses to the volunteer request, however, only one (Juanita Garcia '96) was able to make it in the end. Carolyn, Jennifer Spuehler, and other IMSA staff also helped out.

The activity involved supporting the Extreme Elimination Cake Walk. Jennifer passed out temporary tattoos that said "Future IMSA Alum" to the students that participated. While interaction with the students was limited due to the nature of the activity, Tony felt it was still good nonetheless to get involved with the student body and get some face time in. Ande thought that some students may not have been aware that we are alumni, however. Carolyn suggested that next time the IAA might consider having a booth for ourselves, as other student clubs had booths at the carnival. Tony suggested choosing a more interactive activity like face-painting or something similar.

Cabinet Retreat

Ryan provided details regarding a retreat for Cabinet members he is organizing to come together and work on various tasks. This retreat would be held on a Saturday sometime in the next few months (October, November, December). He will be soliciting input from Cabinet members on what date would work best and ideas for activities. Any funding required for the retreat (most likely food and activities) would be pulled from the miscellaneous/Cabinet resources item of the budget. Provisions would be made for people to participate who cannot drive in to the Chicago area (it would be held either on the IMSA campus or at a facility to be determined in Chicago).

Technology Update

Tony informed the Cabinet of the move to use the imsaalumni.org domain to provide email aliases for Cabinet members. These aliases would forward to people's actual email accounts and would be the email addresses displayed on the IAA website for public dissemination in order to keep people's actual addresses hidden. Executive officers will have titular addresses to keep them independent of the people filling their roles (e.g. "president@imsaalumni.org" for the President, etc.). At-large members will have a choice; it was suggested to use real names for this purpose, such as "john.public@imsaalumni.org".

Tony also described his desire to update the IAA website to improve functionality, usability, and overall presentation. While plans are in progress, nothing has been formalized yet. Tarun said he will be able to help with the effort.

Regional Club Update

Matthew provided updates on regional club activities. He is looking to identify which regions should have clubs established and determine people to serve as chairpersons for each club. Chairpersons would need to provide information regarding activities for the newsletter, schedule two events per year, and provide status updates at the IAA annual meeting. To this end, he is putting together guidelines for chairpersons so they know how to fulfill their responsibilities (how to plan an event, how to seek reimbursement, etc.)

Per the Constitution, club chairpersons are supposed to be elected. Since regional events are being planned with Max McGee in attendance, we may try to include elections as part of the events and have them be the first events of the regional clubs.

Ande mentioned having discussed updating the Constitution with Scott in order to make regional clubs viable.

Concerning specific regions, Portland is the official Pacific Northwest club, but more alumni are located in the Seattle area and an alum has volunteered to start a club there.

For the regional events with Max, Tarun is looking to find a venue for the Washington, D.C. area and is also checking for the New York and Boston areas.

Carolyn gave details regarding dates for the events. Dates have been set for Champaign-Urbana, San Francisco, Washington, D.C., New York, and Seattle; she will be working with Tarun to set dates for Boston and Chicago. She asked Ande who would be able to coordinate the Chicago event. Ande is working with Joanna to finalize the details for the Chicago event. The dates need to be finalized so that "save the date" reminders can be inserted into the next IMSAlum issue.

A question was asked regarding the finances for the events. Coordinators need to know how much money they can spend--for instance, New York is a problem as venues are expensive. Tarun mentioned setting dates is problematic here because it narrows the list of available venues. Carolyn said that at a minimum, contact information should be ready for the next IMSAlum so that interested people know how to find out more information.

Position Continuity (Cabinet Handbooks)

Ande provided updates regarding the activity she is coordinating to put together informational packets that can be distributed to incoming Cabinet members. These packets would contain planning information and other useful information so that new members do not have to figure things out for themselves. There is already a handbook for reunion coordinators; similar handbooks should be provided for Intersession, the university host program, etc. More information should be available next month. Ande asked everyone involved in any IAA projects to keep track of things that go well and things that don't; for regional clubs, note which locations work and don't work. Eventually, this information will be made available on the IAA web site.

Calendar

Matthew is looking to make a common calendar of activities/project timelines available on the IAA website to facilitate collaboration and communication among Cabinet members in between monthly meetings. We are currently investigating CalendarX for Plone as a means of implementing this functionality.

Alumni Weekend

According to IMSA Facilities, the potential dates for Alumni Weekend are June 21-22 and June 28-29 of 2008. It was noted that the weekend of the 28th would be problematic due to its proximity to July 4 and overlap with the Taste of Chicago. The 21st will then be finalized and communicated in the next IMSAlum issue.

Ande moved to close the meeting at 9:05 pm CDT. The motion was seconded by Tony and was passed unanimously.