|
Oklahoma Events & Activities
Recycling News
Oklahoma Celebrates America Recycles Day
How to Start a Recycling Program
Educational Resources for Schools
Recycling Business Start-up Tips
M.e.t. Report
Recycling/Reuse Opportunities
About Us
Join Us
Get Informed
Get Involved
Links
Home
|
December 6, 2006 Board Meeting
Oklahoma Recycling Association BOARD MEETING Minutes
ODEQ, Oklahoma City, OK 11:00 a.m.
Present: Sarah Kimball, Kay Kimball, Ellen Bussert, Traci Phillips, Ilda Hershey, Trudy Logan, Susie Shields, Michael Patton, Ande Reed, Doug Weirick, Garmon Smith
- Welcome – OKRA President Traci Phillips welcomed everyone to the meeting and appointed XXX Kimball to be timekeeper.
- Approval of Minutes
Ilda Hershey made a motion to approve minutes from 9-26-06 meeting. Seconded by Sarah Kimball. Minutes from were approved by voice vote.
- Committee Reports (moved up in the agenda)
- Membership Committee – Doug Weirick
Doug Weirick gave his report from Ada by a conference call. He reviewed different levels of member. Currently, OKRA dues are $ 1.00 for members and $31.00 if you want to be on the Board.
- First task was to review membership categories and assign a cost.
New Membership Categories proposed:
Platinum members = $3,0000
Gold = $800
Silver = $300
Government / non-profit = $ 75
Associate member = $ 20
Student member = ?
Ilda Hershey asked the question is government membership and non-profit membership for entire number of people from that entity or just the organization itself?
Traci Phillips said that she just gotten into that issue with another membership and don’t know what OKRA should do. She asked if group thought it would make sense for the entity with one vote with the entity or business.
Sarah Kimball asked for clarification because she is from a state university.
Weirick said by the next Board meeting, the membership committee could define the levels and terms of memberships. If anyone has specific questions or concerns to let Doug know.
The purpose of finalizing 2007 membership dues is that it will be a source of revenue for OKRA.
The question was asked when is the date of membership for OKRA, by calendar year or date the check written? Consensus of the group was to set membership date by calendar year, starting Jan 1, 2007.
- Making the membership process as readily available and friendly as possible.
Sarah Kimball suggested that OKRA give a little certificate of membership for members to post in a prominent place. She said it helps motivate people to continue their membership. Doug Weirick thought it was a wonderful idea. Also, Weirick said he is proposing doing something on the website about membership application and allowing people to join on-line. He said that he has people with expertise at ECU that can help develop these suggestions. Weirick will put together these ideas and send them out to Board for review and comment. He asked that we respond back to him in a timely fashion.
Mr. Kimball brought up that the application can be on the front page and the information be dumped into a spreadsheet.
Also, it was brought up that if we are going to make changes to the cost of membership, we need to give people time to make financial adjustments.
The SWANA conference is Feb 28 – March 1st. We should have the membership levels decided and update the brochure before this. Information about OKRA should be distributed at the SWANA conference.
National Recycling Coalition wants to know March 31 what our membership is. Deadline for membership is March 15th. Memberships expire March 14th.
Dates need to be on certificates of when membership expires.
- Workgroup Reports
- Advocacy – Garold Beasly
There was a discussion about the progress of recommending a state recycling goal to the Oklahoma Legislature for consideration in this years legislative session. Garmon Smith sent an e-mail to Senator Susan Paddack about reserving a bill for state goal. Richard Chapman asked Senator Jeff Rabon to reserve a bill for a state recycling goal. Dec 8th is deadline for reserving bill. The Board asked Garmon to call Senator Paddock and see if she is willing to sponsor a State recycling goal.
Michael Patton said it will take all of us to get our legislators on Board. He said our task for March and April may be to get our own legislators on board. He said there should be a letter writing campaign from OKRA members to support the initative. Ellen Bussert said that the advocacy committee needs to visit with Scott Thompson, Director of the DEQ Land Protection Division and Steve Thompson, Executive Director of the DEQ as soon as possible before a bill is introduced.
- Education – Sarah Kimball
Last year, OKRA partnered with grant she has with OK Dept of AGri. Part of the grant resulted in a trunk, display that can be checked out by everyone.
- Sarah sent out a letter asking people what they have. Still seeking to survey all state agencies to see what they have. She specifically is waiting on information from Project WILD, W.E.T. , and Project Learning Tree. After she receives this information, then she will categorize response.
- For federal fiscal year 06-07. Getting ready to write the grant 07-08. She asked if OKRA would like to partner with OSU this next time? She has one week to get information together.
- She is looking at doing a recycling conference for state universities.
- Another idea she has is with 4-H. Recycling is their main topic for this year.
She is currently looking at light weight displays, resource trunks and listing on the websites. She showed a box with examples of what is available for display items.
America Recycles Day has a booth to check out.
Michael Patton requested to check it out for SWANA Spring Symposium Feb 28th – March 1st
Michael Patton made a motion America Recycles Day to partner with Sarah Kimball to write another grant with USDA Rural Development/ rural utility service, to serve communities 10,000 or less. The motion passed.
- Materials Exchange – Ilda Hershey
She is talking to the DEQ legal depart about definitions. She is overseeing the drafting of waste exchange pages that would go on the DEQ website. She will send around when they are complete.
- Market Development
Ellen Bussert had nothing to report on the market development work group.
Michael Patton said OKRA should get more involved in the U.S. EPA Region 6 market development roundtable in Dallas. He usually attends the meetings. Patton will let the Board know when next meeting will be taking place.
- Communication Outreach
- America Recycles Day
Ande Reed and Susie Shields are having to hand write all of the cards that were submitted on-line nationally so that the people will be eligible to win Oklahoma prizes. The Board thanked Reed and Shields for their hard work and extra effort. America Recycles Day in Oklahoma was excellent this year. Shields presented a scrapbook she had made on ARD, and passed around the room. She said that by reviewing the book, you can see how ARD progressed. Oklahoma received 3,000 pledges. Nationally, that means we are in the top 10 states for number of pledges made. Devon Energy was the organization that had the most entries with 496 pledges.
Ande Reed suggested that for 07 getting the pledge cards out earlier, maybe even having them available all year. Shields was opposed to the idea and said that it took a considerable amount of time and she wasn’t able to do it the whole year.
The Board discussed the need for better general public publicity. Ada had a proclamation. Bush made a proclamation for the United States, but there was not an Oklahoma proclamation this year. Next year, OKRA should request a proclamation from the Governor.
Everyone congratulated Susie Shields for doing an excellent job. President Traci Phillips thanked Susie and told her that she though the campaign went very well.
Susie said that OKRA needed an America Recycles Day de-briefing. Probably a 30 minutes conference call would be sufficient. Reed said that if you want to be on the conference call, e-mail her and she would add your name to the calling list.
The M.E.T. does an America Recycles Day Banquet every year and honors recycling heroes. Congratulations to the M.E.T. for another excellent event. The Board appreciates the time, effort and hard work it takes to pull off such and evening.
It was announced that State ARD contacts meeting FEB 16th in Chicago. The State ARD contacts will decide on the focus and planning the campaign for the next year. FEB17th is the all- state recycling association meeting.
- On-Line Newsletter
Susie Shields gave an update about the on-line newsletter. She said it is not out yet due to all of the America Recycles Days activities and work associated with it and she is getting new computer with upgrade and opted to wait until she has it. She hopes by the end of the year, no later than January the on-line newsletter will be distributed.
Ande Reed said that she believes January a good time for a newsletter. Susie Shileds will contact everyone to get information together. Traci Phillips asked if Susie Shields if she needed help. She responded most definitely, yes. She needs for everyone who was assigned a topic to submit an electronic copy to her or get another writer. Susie Shields is the editor of the newsletter.
- OKRA WEBSITE
Susie Shields would like input about what goes on the OKRA website. She said that there are many details need to be worked out to make it work. If you have any questions about the web site, please ask her.
It was discussed that members needed to be informed again about inputting events and how to get something on the web site updated. In short, most have forgotten the process to change things.
Susie Shields said she will send the tutorial out to everyone and information on how to post stuff on the web site to the Board.
Weyerhaeuser Foundation donated $1,000 for the development of the web site. However, Shields said that there is still more cost involved and is looking for another sponsor, potentially OMEA.
- OKRA POSTER
Sarah Kimball would like an OKRA poster. Kimball is going to ask OSU graphic design if they will make a poster for us to use. Consensus was that it would be great. Kimball will ask for a variety of sizes.
On another topic, Kimball said that part of USDA grant is to have an associate. Looking for student working up to 20 hours a week. If anyone knows of someone who would be a good fit to let her know.
- Committee Reports
- Financial – Michael Patton
Michael Patton began his report by saying that he has not received any of the money collected from membership dues. Susie Shields said that she wrote a personal check for the money and gave it to Ande Reed. A request was made for a written treasurers report for the next meeting with a complete accounting of income and expenses.
A discussion was held about the possibility of the membership chairman taking the responsibilities of maintaining the membership list, data base, and getting membership dues to the OKRA Treasurer.
Patton said that there was $177 in checking account and no pending bills. He stressed that OKRA needs to keep raising money. He said that he hasn’t made a deposit for 60 days. Susie Shields gave Patton some membership checks she had received recently to deposit.
Susie Shields told that Board that she personally the difference for the cost of the website over the amount of the $ 1,000 donation given by Weyerhaeuser. She said that more money is needed to finish building and maintaining the web site. Shields is getting information for the cost of hosting the web site and further development of the web site.
- Old Business
- 501 ( C ) (3) Status
Michael Patton gave copies of IRS paperwork to the OKRA President and Secretary. It included the old bylaw, copy of bank statement. He said that he mailed it on 12-5-06. It is now pending , and will take 6 months for determination to be made.
The Board decided that there was a need to make a standard letter to let people know status of OKRA as a non-profit is pending. Michael Patton is to draft the letter for Traci Phillips to review.
- Official OKRA Address
Ande Reed said that she checked, and a Post Office box was not available. She said that she will check again.
- OKRA Phone Number
Michael Patton volunteered to check on getting an OKRA phone number. The consensus was that OKRA would get a voice mail system with the phone number so members can take turn picking up messages.
- National Recycling Coalition
Michael Patton reported that he, Ande Reed, Susie Shields, Garold Beasley and Ivan from Guymon attended. He said that they talked more about the business of recycling this year instead of the passion of recycling. Patton said that there were going to be interesting challenges that Oklahoma is going to have to address. One issue is the new plastic corn starch bottle and the one made from corn starch. They are not compatible with each other and it is hard to train recyclers on the difference between them. The controversy is about whether or not to use them.
A major initiative is that the NRC is looking into the possibility of “re-branding” the recycling system. The purpose of the new brand would be to stop the public confusion of recyclable or made out of recycled. Generally, the idea is to make identification easier.
The NRC is looking for a deposit law for each state. There was much controversy about this issue.
Oklahoma has a good reputation with NRC.
Shields asked Patton to write summary of issues for the OKRA newsletter on NRC, rebranding, and the corn starch plastic bottle.
- Bylaws
Susie Shields reported that she had the existing by-laws “cleaned up” and retyped by a temporary employee at the DEQ to remove the typos. Patton asked if there was a process to change the bylaws. It was decided that the Board needed to create a by-laws committee. The committee task would be to decide how OKRA would monitor and keep the bylaws updated. This issue was tabled for next meeting.
- New Business
- Recycling Positive List Traci Phillips
After the America Recycles Day Banquet, Phillips started thinking about what OK has done. She decided that she would like to put together a list of what accomplishments in the recycling area have been made in Oklahoma. For instance the 1st telephone book recycling collections were done in Tulsa, Oklahoma. As Oklahomans, we should be proud of that. The purpose of the list is to inspire us and help other people catch the vision. She would like the list to include what Oklahomans have accomplished in the past and what we are accomplishing now. The intent is to have a one or two page summary people can read quickly, like bullet points. It can then be used to inform people about what is happening in our state. According to Phillips, we have done a lot in Oklahoma and she doesn’t want us to lose site of it. The Board thought it was an excellent idea.
Please send your “positive” items to Traci Phillips by Dec 31st. A summary will be sent to the membership via the newsletter.
- Establish 3 extended Goals to accomplish in 2007
- Establish a State recycling Goal in OK for 07
- Establish a goal for 2007 ARD pledge cards to 5,000 (doubled from 06)
- Organize and begin planning with SWANA. To have a joint conference
- Discussion of certification process for SW professionals operating in OK to offer Continuing Ed for certification. SK and AR to research provide information for Board
- OKRA – meet with DEQ SWMAC to talk about recycling issues
- Have OKRA booth at 6 conferences that promotes OKRA membership, activities, leadership to have a visible presence..
- To increase membership by 25 % in 2007
- Sponsor workshops to bring OK landfill operators, solid waste people, public works together to look at what is happening in different regions and building a network. To help build network for communication and exchange of important information.
- To create and produce tool kits for community recycling programs.
- Develop the workgroups to function and operate more efficiently
- To have some activity 51% of membership participates in and does so that they will feel more connected. A number of things – a poll or a picnic
- Have at least 2 OKRA newsletters published in 07
State Legislation for long term:
- e-waste bill
- bottle bill (It was suggested OKRA establish a 5 year goal to pass a bottle bill in Oklahoma)
The questions was asked if we need to have a board member shepherd each goal. This will be discussed at the next meeting when goals are adopted. The OKRA secretary is to send out list of goals to all members and get their input before next Board Meeting. Comments on goals are due by Feb 16, 2007 to Ellen Bussert.
- Next meeting
OK is one of the few states that does not require land fill operators or recyclers to be certified. NM has certification process and money for recycling association comes from the Fee. A request was made to put certification on future agenda to present information from research.
Location - Stillwater
February 26th Monday 10:00 a.m. Location to be determined by Sarah Kimball
EB send out e-mail Work groups to meet or have conference calls before next meeting on Feb 26th . . .
Motion to adjourn was made by Ande Reed with a second by Sarah Kimball. It was approved by voice vote.
|
|
