Minutes of the MidTESOL Teleconference Meeting
January 22, 2000
Adopted 05/19/2000 Omaha, NE

MIDTESOL Executive Board Meeting January 22, 2000

1. Call to order. Jeanne Angel called the meeting to order at 10 a.m. Board members present were: J. Angel, T. Riedmiller, E. Davani, J. Zoller Wagner, P. Mithen, C. Howland, R. Fagundes, L. Wolk, C. Eason, C. Renner, W. Eubank, T. Bries, A. Gursel Stromsdorfer, and C. Prieto-Morehouse.

2. The agenda was amended by Jeanne Angel and approved.

3. Jeanne Angel welcomed the new board members: Dennis Muchisky, Rules and Resolutions; Teresa Bries, Second Vice President; Joan Hamilton, representative from Nebraska; Cecilia Prieto-Morehouse, representative from Kansas; and Ayse Gursel Stromsdorfer, Publisher's Liaison.

4. The Board Minutes from October 15, 1999 Board meeting were approved.

5. Report on Fall 1999 conference, October 15-16. Jeanne Angel reported that there has been no final report yet from conference center. There were 204 participants, six publishers' representatives, for a total of 192 paying entities. 70 evaluation sheets were received. The majority of the comments were positive. As usual, many comments represented opposite views on the conference. The Best of MIDTESOL presentation was Cheryl Eason's. Congratulations were extended to her.

6. Treasurer's Report. $160 for Conference Exhibits was added to the current report. All other expenses will come in the report from the U of I. We'll have the information in the spring. Eubank needed a copy of the treasurer's report. Riedmiller asked about TESOL 2000 reimbursements. What about seed money promised from TESOL? Mithen said that the $5,000 put aside was for the attendance of MIDTESOL people attending meetings planning TESOL 2001. This is our $5,000. There will be some money coming from TESOL but it hasn't come yet. It is for taking people to Vancouver to plan TESOL 2001.

Eason asked why only one of the four travel awards recipients has received the $100 plus the reimbursement. How do we regularly process that? Riedmiller replied that it is published in the newsletter, and then the newsletter editor will let the treasurer know. There's one that's being printed. Riedmiller received one on Reading in Context, but it was not publishable quality-it was only an abstract. That's all he has received. A requested rewrite was unsuccessful. There was a discussion of whether the person should be reimbursed anyway. Another rewrite will be requested. What about the other two? One of the recipients got a good job overseas and has left the country.

Angel mentioned waiving the registration-Did Chen Hu pay the registration? Cheryl said that they had paid. Angel said that the checks had been returned to them.

7. At-Large Reports.

Missouri. Rosa Fagundes reported that the Missouri TESOL Spring meeting will be held Friday April 28 and Saturday April 29 in Cape Girardeau, Missouri. The brochure is to be sent out in February. Registration is $35. Deborah Short will be asked to speak on using K-12 standards in the classroom. Joel Judd will speak on the project Interact. There will be a swap shop and an opportunity for participants to share successful ideas. Fagundes asked how she can get $200 to the planning committee for the spring meeting. Angel asked her to send a request to Schindler.

Iowa: Cathy Howland reported on the Iowa ESL Language and Cultural Concerns Conference February 2-3, Holiday Inn Conference Center in Des Moines, IA. Registration is $100. There will be an opportunity for school visits as well as cultural expositions. Riedmiller asked if there would be Internet workshops? Howland said no. Phyllis Mithen mentioned that anti-immigration groups have started an ad campaign in IA. Howland responded that these groups have highlighted Storm Lake, IA. They argue that quality of life has deteriorated due to too many immigrants. This is a result of the pre-caucus campaign. There has been heated debate in newspapers. Most of the candidates have spoken against it.

Kansas. Angel said she had emailed the Kansas report, but many had not received it. She will send it back out. She will add it to the body of the e-mail. Some cannot receive attachments. KS State University and other schools received a 2.2 million dollar grant for teacher training. Money was received for training for teachers in Emporia and Ulysses school district. Dodge City is going to get about 1,000 Bosnian workers. The district is expecting 300 students to impact the schools. Howland offered consultation help. Prieto-Morehouse added that the KTESOL Conference will be held at Stewart, KS on April 14. Ralph Font will be the keynote speaker.

Nebraska: Joan Hamilton had not yet joined us.

8. Membership report. Ella Davani will e-mail the report. The membership is 382, probably 2-3 more. 10 lifetime and 2 TESOL memberships are included in that number. Renewal notices are being sent out. 267 will expire this year, 22 next year, 39 the following year. Most members choose the one year membership. A draft of the directory is ready to go to the printers. The information sent from the U of I was very helpful; it was in a good format. Riedmiller requested a different format for the directory. Paper space is an issue. Other formats required more paper. Cost was 4-5 $ each. The last ones were $2 apiece, plus mailing and labels. Davani asked if 450 copies were enough to cover current members and enough for next few months. Gursel Stromsdorfer asked if it's too late to add a page or two. Davani said that she cannot add paper-it would have to be a loose sheet in the back. JoAnne Zoller Wagner asked if the membership directory could be on the website. This did not seem possible as emails encourage spams, and many do not want their phone numbers and addresses on the web. We are currently paying $1.85 per copy, for a total of $832. If we switch to Staples, we could save $350. Riedmiller asked if it would be helpful to print an addendum to the directory in the newsletter. This was agreed upon.

Davani reported that Riedmiller had asked for e-mail addresses of all the new members. This cannot be sorted in the present data system. Perhaps the IBM system could allow this. Angel reported that Bries uses IBM. We have Filemaker Pro. The IBM software needs to be upgraded. Riedmiller said it is useable as is. It would transfer. Ella is using an older Mac, which may not transfer files to IBM. Howland thought someone could be found to transfer it. Fagundes said that PowerMac allows this. Renner suggested a way to save it as an IBM doc. The disk has to be formatted for IBM. It was agreed that this could be solved. Riedmiller agreed to get it fixed. Davani said she'll try to do what she can. Angel asked if we should update it.

Davani asked if we should get a survey out to the membership about what kinds of information we can include in the directory, but said that for right now it's OK.

9. Publications Report. Riedmiller reported that the newsletter is done, and is going to Phyllis this afternoon. They should be in our mailboxes the first or second week of February. He will bring 50 copies to the IA conference. April 1 is the next deadline.

Eubank reported on the MIDTESOL Website. There have been 5,551 visits since the last conference. The website averages 54 people a day. This is a little lower than usual; activity drops off after Christmas. The most requested document is "Catcher in the Rye." This shows the value of publishing on the net. It has received 1,108 accesses. Class projects were next, with 417 accesses. The jobs section is high on the list. The 2000 conference index subpages have been accessed 400-500 times. There were 130 visits to the application page. The newsletter has many visits. Howland's class project is second most requested. Howland sent information on the IA Conference to Eubank. Eubank asked Fagundes and Morehouse-Prieto to e-mail information so that he can get it on KS and MO links. Mithen asked whether the volunteers for 2001 was being accessed. Rosa Schuette added all the sign-ups from the conference, but there have been no new volunteers.

Angel reported that we still need two newsletter editors. Let Riedmiller know if you know a candidate for this. Tom is willing to train someone on the software. Bries asked if people need to give permission to be placed on the web if their article has been in the newsletter. Eubank reported that it's pretty automatic if they've been in the newsletter. Eubank said that the search function is extensive. Riedmiller reported that there is another webmaster' s workshop at TESOL in Vancouver, but Eubank cannot attend. Eubank asked Riedmiller to gather information.

10. Nominations. Anyone who has served on the board is eligible to run for 1st VP. Let Mithen know. Schindler is going to leave as treasurer. Howland is eligible to run for IA. Angel plans to send information to Zoller Wagner about when people are appointed, and for how long, so that that will be part of our Board list.

11. NAME Conference report. Renner reported that everything is going pretty smoothly. There will be tables for MIDTESOL there, and a table available for the 2001 volunteers-last chance to recruit from MIDTESOL. Riedmiller reported that there are more than 20 MIDTESOL proposals, which are juried. MIDTESOL members already have their registration materials. Riedmiller will be sending more registration materials to IA conference attendees and TESOL members who are not MIDTESOL members. Angel asked if there was anyone who can't come to the NAME conference. The information is on the website if you want to register. The Board meeting was scheduled for Friday afternoon meeting, tentatively 1-5 p.m. Riedmiller thought there would be rooms available for our meeting. The paid night could be either Thursday or Friday night, depending on the Board member's needs. We're assisting with publicity and the hotel nights, but that is the extent of our expenses.

12. Awards. Cheryl Eason sent out the notices in the middle of December. Feb. 15 was originally the application deadline. The TESOL summer meeting award will be announced in the newsletter. She did not do anything about the Pat on the Back award. Should we do anything about this award this year? Tom suggested saving that for 2001. Phyllis made the motion that it be suspended for 2001, and it carried.

13. Historian. Leslie Wolk had nothing to report.

14. Publisher's Representative - Gunsel Stromsdorfer will be attending TESOL in Vancouver. She has the information from Mary Frye. There will be no MIDTESOL publishers' table at the NAME conference.

15. Resources and Employment - Monica Mingucci was not able to participate in the phone conference, no report.

16. Sociopolitical Concerns: Reports are up on the web. There is information on Title VII grants available from state offices. Reappropriations are still in process. Be sure to see that Reading Excellence grants include ESL. The Listserv is up in the Central office but the e-mail is not too informative. It is mostly press releases. Renner could forward them to Eubank. There will be a Bilingual Conference June 12-14 at the Airport Hilton in Wichita. Eubank will get it up on the KS site. Renner will send it to him.

17. Rules and Resolutions. Angel sent information to Muchisky from Watts. Mithen said that he needs to add the new rules from our last meeting.

18.

(1) TESOL 2000 Angel and Riedmiller are attending. Gursel Stromsdorfer will also get $200.

(2) There will be a get-together March 15, 5 p.m. at the Jolly Taxpayer. Angel will get information into the first daily.

The Affiliate Council is going to have an Affiliate Booth. Fagundes, Renner, Wolk, and Zoller Wagner are also going. We are going to have a promotional table at the conference for 2001.

19. TESOL 2001: Gateway to the Future. There was a December 11 planning meeting. The three local co-chairs, Parsons, Schindler, and Eby are in Vancouver for the final run through in March. At the Dec. 11 meeting they established roles and talked about getting people to sign up for committees. Mithen encouraged us to get others to sign up at the website-they could be handing out tote bags, etc. She needs 47 bodies at 3 hour intervals for her committee alone. There will be some small benefits for volunteering.

20. Old Business

(1) We need someone to audit the MIDTESOL books. Let Angel or Schindler know. An accountant would be too expensive. Renner said a friend of his might do it as a volunteer.

(2) TESOL Central is seeking works of art from various affiliates. Angel will talk to Zoller Wagner in Des Moines in February about the possibility of having Tillie Woodward represent our four states in a color copier print. Riedmiller has a friend who does prairie native plants. Mithen suggested perhaps earmarking a couple of hundred dollars for the project Framing is an expense. We can send them framed or not. They will be kept in the Central Office. We decided to get photos of potential art pieces on the website by the end of February to Eubank. Prieto-Morehouse signed off.

20. New business.

(1) After some discussion, it was agreed that a laptop would be provided on-site for each Board meeting in order for the secretary to take notes. Riedmiller said he could provide one for the May meeting in Omaha.

(2) Angel reported a request from a grad student doing research on public perception of how long it takes someone to learn English. She now wants to e-mail MIDTESOL members. She needs the information because she may be presenting at NAME. There is no cost to MIDTESOL. We should have already received the questionnaire.

(3) MIDTESOL 2001-Monica Mingucci has agreed to host the MIDTESOL 2001 conference at the University of Kansas in Missouri City in October 2001. We don't have a weekend yet.

(4) Angel reported that a lot of Board business is conducted on e-mail. She requested that Board members ask for a return receipt on their e-mail program. Angel can't tell if people have received her emails or not. Also, things happen on e-mail, so ask for a response to make sure your e-mail was received. When you send something on an attachment, people with MACs sometimes cannot open them. Angel requested that we try to send messages as an attachment and in the body of the e-mail

Riedmiller asked Board Members to submit comments to the Newsletter, especially state reps, to include in the newsletter.

Angel adjourned the meeting at 11:47 a.m.

Respectfully submitted,

JoAnne Zoller, secretary

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