Washington Counseling Association

2/29/08 Board Meeting

Doubletree Hotel - SeaTac

Called to order 6:40pm // Adjourn 9pm

Attendance: Helen Edwards (WAMCD), Diana Gruman (WSACES), Shari Krugler (Treasurer), Susan Leyster (President-Elect), Myrna Muto (President), Megan Reibel (Graduate Student Rep), Mary Schroeder (Past-President), Lonny Smart (Awards), Pam Van Der Does (Membership/Exec Director) (on phone)

The meeting was called to order at 6:40 pm.

Minutes The fall Board Meeting minutes were misplaced and Myrna replicated them from her notes. A motion was made by Mary to approve them on a provisional basis so they could be expanded upon in the interim from notes others had taken. Discussion and Susan seconded the motion. It was passed unanimously. Approved.

Treasurer Report Shari reviewed the budget report from 3/31/07-2/22/08. Questions and discussion included: reason for the date span (different from the fiscal year) and format of the report to clearly indicate cash flow and dates. Currently, there is only $2178.96 in the account, about 10k less than normal. We only had $300. Profit from the fall conference, 8-10 k was the profit in past years.

Recurring questions related to bank charges and the breakout of uncategorized funds were discussed and deferred until they can be addressed to Chris Kelly. The budget report may be easier to read if it were in a different format. Mary will work with Shari on this detail.

There was discussion for how to move forward. Chris has been paid through the end of December and is now volunteering her time. W2s were a nominal amount and there is a continuing charge for phone, internet connection, and paying Pam for Executive Director work. Board presidents have been using their own funds to attend conference, including transportation (air fare and mileage) without reimbursement.

Executive Director Report The newsletter was distributed to members electronically with a link on the WCA webpage to save money. There are 28 members with no email addresses and 55 have email addresses that get kicked back to sender. Word needs to get out for members to retrieve newsletters from the website.

Membership is at a low point following the change in status of WSCA from WCA Division to affiliate status in November 2007. The new brochure has been developed in draft form and was distributed for review. Fifty copies were printed for distribution at the conference. School counselor attendees picked up many of the brochures from the table.

Please review the draft brochure and provide feedback for Pam.

Pam has been working on wrapping up the fall conference and moving everything to electronic format for the website. Updates are posted as they are submitted from divisions. Mary will have an ACA Washington State member contact list to Pam so she can contact them to join WCA. About 50 members from WA State will attend the ACA Conference in Hawaii.

President’s Report Myrna attended a cross-cultural symposium and Western Region Leadership Conference. The sharing of ideas and information at the WR Conference was valuable. She shared the responses from WCA fall conference attendees for their ideas to make the branch more meaningful and provide service to members. A copy is attached.

Membership Our membership numbers have been dropping since the change in status for WSCA. This is the only substantial source of income for the branch until the fall conference, unless mini-conferences or other income-generating sources are identified.

WAAOC Report No report was submitted. The new president is Austin Del’Hay (private

practice, Seattle)

WASERVIC See attached report. They are collaborating with WCA to bring in Dr. Michael

Lerner for a speaking date at the fall conference.

WCSJ No report was submitted. Vong is working on a website and is hoping to have a meeting

soon to work on strategies to build membership.

Mental Health No report. They have traditionally held a June conference. Susan or Myrna will check with them on this.

President-Elect Report Susan attended the Western Region Leadership Conference where she networked with other branch presidents and president-elects. She has been looking at prospective conference hotels and consideration for changing the date so that it does not coincide with the ACES Conference. She will find out their dates as planning moves forward. There is an overflow of $2000 with the Hilton that is left over from 2006.

Conference Planning In lieu of a 2-day conference with 1-day preconference, she has been thinking about holding two 1-day conferences. Ideas include partnering with universities, other non-hotel venues, and building partnerships with other like-professional groups. Possible speakers include Fr. Benedict Auer, OSB on suicide, Natalie Turner on trauma and the brain, or Wayne Cook on ethics.

A 4-session 1-day conference was discussed that included lunch and student poster sessions. We need to research and consider our target audience and tailor the event for that group. Anything we put on should be applicable to all professional counselors, across disciplines.

Helen offered that WCA could partner with WAMCD and WEA for a multicultural training. We are looking at best dates to maximize attendance. Ideas included a possible event in the Yakima valley. WSACES has strength with counselor educators and supervisors and a link to students /future professional members when they graduate and enter professional practice. Susan and Myrna will

partner on calling all division leaders to learn their member needs and future plans for events.

Pam will investigate the possibility of using PayPal for online conference registration.

WSACES Report Diane reported that things are going well. There is a planned agenda for the upcoming April meeting at the CWU campus, with a planning meeting the evening before. There will be a focus on the SC pro-cert process based on the OSPI framework. It is a complicated process… and folks need to decide what it will look like, who will offer it, how much it will cost, etc. They are trying to create a balance more than peer review, not as much as National Boards – are looking at models that are currently out there, not reinventing the wheel.

Grad Student Representative Report Megan is looking for ways, ideas, suggestions that may help in connecting different populations of graduate students. She has been networking with the WSCA student rep and will work with WSACES leadership for ideas on how to build links with non-school counselor students.

Past-President Report Mary worked with the Nominations Committee and created a ballot for President and Secretary. Mary Brown and Lisa (Elisabeth) Bennett from Gonzaga are running for co-president and Kim Hart for secretary. March 10^th is the voting deadline. Committee members will count the votes and results communicated to members by the middle of the month.

Mary attended the Western Region Leadership Conference as Chair-elect.

Awards Report A late nomination for an award for Vong Ratts was submitted after the deadline for the fall conference. We will look into an appropriate setting to present the award, pending a new format for conferences.

WAMCD Report Helen has been a part of the multicultural training through WEA. She may be able to build a partnership with them and WCA for a mini-conference.

Budget Discussion Financial concerns included new and renewed memberships as well as the absence of a viable income stream into the account. There may be some confusion on the WSCA membership renewal forms that went out prior to their conference. If we focus our efforts on marketing WCA to all divisions as well as WSCA we may be able to begin to re-build our membership. In the meantime, we need to watch our finances closely. Pam offered to support her membership work gratis, beginning this month. This is a generous offer, was accepted, and is much appreciated.

Gathering Momentum for the Future Mary Brown and Lisa Bennett offered, earlier today, to have their students at Gonzaga work on building an email survey using Survey Monkey to contact prospective members: 1) What are the hot topics in your field? 2) Who are speakers you are dying to hear? 3) Professional development needs

We will look into making the website more interactive and offering online registration. Look at other branch websites such as Idaho www.idahocounseling.org and Arizona www.azca.org

Reach out to WSCA members and encourage their continued membership. Create a fee structure for conferences to encourage membership. Put out a call to out to Division presidents, asking them what they would like to see from WCA in the future? Continue our partnership with WSCA.

The meeting adjourned at 9:00 pm

Attachments: Fall 2007Confernce – Member Feedback