GOVERNING BOARD MEETING
1. CALL
TO ORDER (Peterson)
Peterson
called the meeting to order at
2. ROLL
CALL (Thornley)
Position Name Attendance
Confirmed
Chair-elect.................................................. Bill Spain, SCTC Yes
Chair.......................................................... Karla
Peterson, MDH Yes
Past Chair.................................................. Scott
Anderson,
Association Director.................................... Glen Gerads,
Association Director Elect........................... Dave Schultz, MDH Yes
Secretary/Treasurer..................................... Dave Brown, Bluestone Engr No
Assistant Secretary..................................... Stew Thornley, MDH Yes
District Trustees
Northwest................................................... Brian Bergentine, AE2S Yes
Northeast................................................... vacant
Central....................................................... Lyle Stai,
Metro......................................................... Paul Coone,
Southwest.................................................. Pete Moulton, St. Peter Yes
Southeast.................................................. Dean Huschle,
At-Large..................................................... Pat Shea,
Councils and Committees
Administrative & Policy (APC)...................... Bob Cockriel,
Conference (Conf)....................................... Corey Lubovich,
Public Affairs (PAC).................................... Myron Volker,
Training & Education (TEC)......................... Chris Glassing, ACIPCO Yes
Water Utility (WUC)..................................... Bernie Bullert, TKDA Yes
Gary
Peters was present for Lyle Stai, representing the
Central District.
3. CONSENT REPORT (Peterson)
MINUTES APPROVAL:
Corrections/Additions:
FINANCIAL REPORT (Stew Thornley)
As of
ASSOCIATION DIRECTOR’S REPORT (Glen Gerads/Dave Schultz)
DISTRICT REPORTS
Northwest
District (Brian Bergantine)
No report.
Northeast District
(vacant)
The 2008
committee is excited to be back in Ely. This venue will also host the
Central
District (Lisa Vollbrecht/Gary Peters for Lyle Stai)
Lyle
Stai, MN AWWA Central District Trustee, was in a
serious car accident
MN
AWWA Central District Three Day Training planning session was held
The
MN AWWA Central District One Day Training session will be held at
Metro
District (Paul Coone for Carol Blommel
Johnson)
Southwest District
(Pete Moulton)
The
Southwest District officers met in
The
spring school was held in
Welcome
– Mayor Gary Revier
Water
for People Presentation by Chris Voeltz (Saint Peter)
Operator
Certification Questions—Mark Sweers, (MDH)
The
Urban Cycle drinking-water module—Stew Thornley, MDH
Minnesota
Department of Health Update—Lih-in Rezania, MDH
Southwest District Business Meeting – Pete Moulton,
Southwest District Trustee
HDPE
& your Water System - Mark Hines, H. D. Supply
Chlorine
and Chemical Safety, Mike Clemens, Hawkins Chemical
Chlorine
Rooms, Plan-Review Requirements - Lucas Martin, MDH
Direction
of the AWWA - Karla Peterson – Section Chair
New
members include: Jim Plumhoff –
At
the Business Meeting – Dave Marks from Marshall Utilities was elected
Vice-Chair for the upcoming year.
Southeast District (Dean Huschle)
The MN AWWA's
The next fall 1-day
operator's school is tentatively scheduled for October 31st, and will be hosted
by the City of
Trustee-At-Large (Pat Shea)
No
report.
COUNCIL/COMMITTEE REPORTS
Administration
Council (Bob Cockriel)
Awards (Yasser Abouaish)
No
report.
Finance (Barb Woolsey)
Finance
Committee meeting of
Present:
Doug Rovang, Barb Woolsey, Christine Meyer, Stew Thornley, Jon Eaton
Barb
will do year-end report with Jon on Friday, April 18.
Investments:
General Endowment Checking
Sponsorship for Jon Eaton for a 10-day
mission trip in June related to drinking water in
Jon
is requesting $1,600 from Minnesota AWWA to pay for the travel expenses for him
and an interpreter. The cost is $1,200
per person ($2,400 total), and Suburban Utility Superintendent Association has
contributed $800. The issue will be
brought up at the May 2 section board meeting.
Hiring of bookkeeper
Doug
crafted an agreement for section administrative services for a contractor to
provide “assistance to the section secretary-treasurer with various section
business matters.”
The
committee would also like to purchase another laptop computer for use by the
section bookkeeper. Stew will check into
the laptop purchase and try to take care of it as soon as possible.
Doug
will provide Stew with the proposed agreement for the May 2 board meeting.
Investment Policy Statement
The
board needs to approve the Investment Policy Statement.
Information Technology (Carol Kaszynski)
On
The
decision was made that each Council Chairperson would ultimately be responsible
for having their section of the website updated. They would collect the information and
forward to the Webmaster, IT Chairperson Carol Kaszynski.
The
IT Chairperson will also send an email to the Chair people once a month,
reminding them to send updated information.
It is not the job of the Webmaster to continually prod and beg for
information.
There
was discussion regarding the inclusion of a “members only” secured site. There was some interest in this but when
discussing the items that would be included on the site, the interest
waned. No decision was made as to the
direction of this item.
There
was discussion surrounding the availability of the MN AWWA letterhead on the
website. The concern is that individuals
could misrepresent the organization by writing letters using official Section
documentation. An illustration of how
easy it is to create letterhead was provided.
No decision was made.
The
IT Chairperson will provide Chairperson Peterson with a webpage “request”
template as well as a listing of the pages that need to be updated.
Membership (Gary Warner)
No
report.
Nominating (Glen Gerads,
Myron Volker)
No
report.
Conference
Council (Corey Lubovich)
The 2008 American
Waterworks Association Minnesota Section Annual Conference will be held at the
Duluth DECC the week of Monday September 22nd.
This is my first year as Conference Chair and I am quickly finding out
just how much work goes into such an event.
Dave Shultz was the previous chair and did a fabulous job at the helm
during his tenure. My goal is to pick up
where Dave left off with a continued effort in making this event as interesting
and worthwhile as possible. I have had a
number of meetings with the staff at the DECC earlier this year to get things
rolling. From these meetings, I have
come away with a good understanding of the timeframes and deadlines that will
need to be met by September. Various
conference sub committees have been meeting and working very hard at shelling
in the items that will be offered each day of the conference. The opening session on Wednesday morning
September 24th will be held at the OmniMax
Theatre. Speakers for this session as
well as the track classes are being sought after and confirmed. A new item, the feature movie "The Grand
Canyon" will be shown to attendees Wednesday morning and promises to be
crowd pleaser. My hope is to have the OmniMax Theatre
as our opening session location in future years as well.
See you at the DECC!
Manufacturers
Council (Tony Belden)
Minutes of the
The
1. Attendance
A. MAC members present at the meeting: Voting Members
- Tony Belden, Dave Scheerer, Todd Bredesen, Rod Ganther, Scott Bredehoft, Greg Johnson, Kelly Lange-Haider,
Brian Zinnel, Brad Forester, and Bob McNutt. Non
Voting Members – Ben Mason, representing the National MAC, Chris Voeltz, representing Water for
People, and Jay Whitaker, Annual Conference program committee chair and Annual
Conference Fishing Tournament chair.
2. Approval of Minutes
A. David Scheerer,
MAC Secretary, presented the minutes from the
3. 2008 MAC Roster
A. MAC Chair presented his 2008 MAC membership
roster.
B. This current MAC roster is attached to these
minutes.
4. MAC Annual Items/Tasks: Tony Belden led the
discussion.
A. Tony noted the activities, commitments, and
responsibilities of the MAC, which include:
1. Annual Conference: the MAC is responsible for the
management of the golf outing, fishing tournament, evening social events, and
product show.
2. National AWWA ACE: the MAC is responsible for the
MN Section meal/social activity at the ACE (typically a MN Section Breakfast).
3. Fund Raising: the MAC supports fund raising for
Water for People and the Endowment Fund.
4. The MAC is a strong supportive council for the
Young Professional council.
5. The MAC will keep all Section members and the
Section Board informed on National MAC activities.
B. Tony asked for other/new suggestions.
1. D. Scheerer suggested
that the MAC mission, in addition to the specific items discussed in item 4.A
above, is to represent the interest of MN Section associate members to the
Section Board and to all other MN Section members.
5. Committee Reports
A. Social Committee: chair Todd Bredesen
gave the report.
1. At this point in time there is little committee
activity. Todd reported that the planned MAC social events at the 2008 Annual
Conference in
a. Ben Mason suggested a new social activity that MAC could
sponsor: a “Day at the Dome” Twins baseball day. Bob McNutt suggested that
perhaps a St. Paul Saints game would be more fun. No action was taken on either
suggestion.
B. Exhibits Committee: Chair Scott Bredehoft, and Jay Whitaker, gave the report.
1. J. Whitaker handed out a map of the DECC and
pointed out the location of the 2008 exhibit hall, concurrent session rooms,
and OmniMax Theater.
2. J. Whitaker reports that the Conference Committee
is planning on holding the Annual Conference opening session in the OmniMax Theater. A discussion followed on the merits of
this idea and on ways the MAC could raise funds to pay for the OmniMax.
a. The Conference Committee Chair, Corey Lubovich, suggested selling 30 second time slots to each
product show exhibitor. These slots would be used by each exhibitor to stand up
before the OmniMax audience and briefly tell about
their company, product, or service.
i. The MAC feels that the logistics of pulling this
off with 70+ exhibitors would be difficult or impossible. It would also be
boring to sit through a succession of 70+ ads.
ii. MAC suggested a limited number of longer time
slots, perhaps 3 or 4, be sold at a premium price to companies that can see the
value in this type of advertising.
b. Scott Bredehoft will
discuss the MAC’s concerns with Corey Lubovich.
3. S. Bredehoft led a
discussion of the merits of technical sessions running concurrently with the
product show. Mixed feeling about concurrent sessions were
expressed.
4. At the last MAC meeting the MAC chair instructed
the exhibits committee to come up with a plan to improving exhibit hall
traffic. S. Bredehoft presented a plan to offer door
prizes in the exhibit hall (must be present to win).
a. A discussion of ideas on how to make this plan work
followed. T. Belden instructed
i. T. Belden appointed Scott Bredehoft,
Kelly Lange-Haider, and Todd Bredesen
to the ad hoc committee.
b. MAC members offered the ad hoc committee several
ideas for the door prize plan:
i. Prizes should be limited to three (3) significant
prizes only. All those paying for full conference registration will be eligible
to win if they are present in the exhibit hall at the time of the drawing.
ii. J. Whitaker stated that he will space three drawing
time slots into the program so that all conference attendees will have the
opportunity to be in the exhibit hall to win one of the prizes.
iii. T. Belden stated that the door prize contest must
do everything possible to avoid any conflict of interest for any product show
exhibitor.
iv. The dollars for the prizes should come
exclusively from exhibit registration fees.
v. The MAC exhibits committee will determine the
value of the door prizes, however, to avoid a conflict
of interest the Conference or House committee should purchase the individual
door prizes.
vi. Door prize winners should be drawn by a non-MAC
person, perhaps the visiting national AWWA representative could do this.
vii. T. Belden gave a brief overview of MN open gambling
laws and the door prize plan will have to adhere to these laws.
C. Endowment Committee: Chair Rod Ganther
gave the report.
1. Rod reported that the Endowment Fund Committee has
set a goal of being able to fund EF activities entirely from EF investment
income by 2010.
2. EF has set a fund raising goal for the 2008
Section Annual Conference of $2,000.
a. EF raised $1,800 at the 2007 conference.
D. ACE Meal/Social: Tony Belden gave the report.
1. The room has been reserved for the MN Section
breakfast at the ACE in
a. Tony is close to getting a guest speaker who will
discuss the drought situation in GA.
6.
A. Tony will be attending the AWWA Region 3 meeting
in May. He will give a report at the next scheduled MAC meeting.
7. National MAC Report: Ben Mason gave the report.
A. Ben attended the National MAC meeting in
1. Nat’l. MAC is drafting a “membership value”
statement that will explain WIIFM (What’s in it for me?) When the document is
completed the MN Section MAC may use it as a foundation to draft our own WIIFM.
2. Ben led a discussion of the need for people to
join the various AWWA Standards Committees.
3. Ben submitted a written report on the
8. Young Professionals: Report given by Brian Zinnel
A. Todd Butz has replaced
B. Zinnel as YP Committee Chair
B. YP will continue with Fresh Ideas poster contest
and the Thursday evening Texas Hold’em tournament at
the 2008 Section Annual Conference.
9. New Business
A. Chris Voeltz has joined
the MAC representing Water for People. Chris gave a brief report on current WFP
activities.
B. MAC members feel it is important to measure the
success of WFP fund raising activities, and the general consensus is that the
MAC should set a WFP fund raising goal number. Chris Voeltz
will discuss this further with the MAC Chair and report back to the MAC with a
goal at the next MAC meeting.
C. Chris made the suggestion that the WFP group
solicit a well known local celebrity to be an honorary spokesperson for WFP.
The MAC thought this is an excellent idea, no action was taken.
D. WFP will again sponsor their Annual Spring Golf
Tournament at Stonebrooke Golf Club scheduled for
E. Jay Whitaker reported that he will again run the
fishing tournament at the 2008 Section Conference in
10. Next Meeting
A. The next MAC meeting is scheduled for
11. Adjourn
A. Dave Scheerer made a
motion to adjourn the meeting. Brian Zinnel seconded
the motion. The meeting was adjourned.
Report by the ad hoc committee to
improve exhibit hall traffic.
Submitted by Kelly Lange-Haider, P.E.
The MAC committee plans to hold drawings for prizes
during the Vendor Exhibition on Wednesday between
Three separate drawings are planned: after lunch (