Executive Board meeting - day 2

Good morning! The board had an early wake up call and the board meeting started at 7:30am. The focus of this meeting is sharing information between board members and several members presented reports - Lorna Strong (District Secretary) and Doin Dahlke (Arkansas Representative). Mike Pace deferred the Texas report until Saturday after the TSATA meeting.

The board will be taking a break to attend the golf tournament around 10:30 this morning.

Executive board meeting - day 1

The SWATA Executive Board started the SWATA meeting today and went to lunch over at the NATA office. Each district provides lunch for the NATA office staff once a year and SWATA traditionally buys lunch in July. Board members already in the area for SWATA are invited to attend this lunch and socialize with the NATA staff. NATA Executive Director, Eve Becker-Doyle started the lunch off with introductions and a brief overview of each staff members duties. SWATA President, Mike Carroll spoke for the SWATA board and thanked the NATA staff for all thier hard work throughout the year for NATA and SWATA. The staff is invaluable to our mission and are the face of the NATA. THANKS to everyone at the NATA office from the SWATA executive board.

The Finance Committee had the first official SWATA meeting starting at 2pm and lasting until 5pm. There was lively discussion regarding the finances in these difficult times, but a balanced budget was presented at the end of the meeting. The committee members work diligently to protect our money for the organization and are working for the best interests of the SWATA and it's members. Committee members include: Jeff Bass, David Traylor, Chris Hall, Dan O'Connor, Lorna Strong, TC Shelton, and Sam Coward. This committee works closely with Joan Hodges of the accounting firm, McIntyre, Zeigler & Hodges. This firm has worked with SWATA for many years and a SWATA scholarship is named after J. Brooks McIntyre, a founding partner of the firm.

The first full executive board meeting was called to order at 7pm by Mike Carroll. The entire board was in attendance and Ken Cole also attended to listen to the discussion before joining the board on Saturday as Arkansas Representative. Welcome Ken! The first order of businees was to approve the minutes of the Mid-Winter board meeting from February in El Paso. The remainder of the meeting focused on the finance committee report with Joan Hodges presenting the finances for the first 9 months of the current budget year and the projected budget for next year.

Tomorrow the board meetings starts bright and early at 7am in the Wimbledon room. The board will take a break to attend the golf tournament in the late morning and return to the meeting at 12:30. The golf tournament is being held at the Chester W. Ditto golf course in Arlington. Check in begins at 9am with Al Wilson and his family members taking care of the organization of the tournament. Al and Andy Wilson always have a great tournament and everyone has a good time.

Attention Committee Chairs - the chairs meeting is tomorrow at 4pm at the Arlington Convention Center, Room M1.

Pre-registration packet pickup reception in the Exhibit Hall, Arlington Convention Center from 5-7pm.

Mitzi Laughlin
SWATA Incoming Vice President

Summer 2010 Executive Board meeting

Welcome to the SWATA Executive Board blog for the summer 2010 meeting. This blog will be updated a couple times a day throughout the SWATA meeting to give some details about the workings of the board. If you are interested in a leadership position, this is a good place to start learning about your organization and to get involved.

First off, the SWATA Executive Board consists of 7 voting members and 4 non-voting members.

Voting positions:

• President – Mike Carroll
• Vice President – David Traylor
• Second Vice President – Chris Hall
• Past President – Dan O'Connor
• National Director – Brian Conway
• Arkansas Representative – Doin Dahlke
• Texas Representative – Mike Pace

Non-voting positions:

• District Secretary – Lorna Strong (position will transfer to a voting position in 2011)
• District Treasurer – Jeff Bass
• Recording Secretary – Loree McCary
• Parliamentarian – Natalie Steadman

Each board member has specific duties, but as a whole the board is responsible to the membership to:

• Promote and safeguard the Purpose of the SWATA.
• Provide proper financial oversight. Approve the annual budget. Ensure that proper financial controls are in place. The board is ultimately responsible to the membership for the finances of the SWATA.
• Ensure legal and ethical integrity and maintain accountability to the SWATA membership.
• Ensure effective organizational planning to effectively operate the SWATA.
• Determine, monitor and strengthen the organization's programs and member services.

SWATA President, Mike Carroll sent out the board notebook last week and everyone has been reviewing the board and committee reports. On first glance the notebook is huge, but it reflects the tremendous amount of work our committees accomplish. Due to time limitations, not every committee chair presents at the board meeting. Rather committee chairs submit a written report that details the work that has been accomplished by the committee for the year. This report is mainly informational for the board members but there is an "Action Items" section for any requests for board action, such as additional members from the volunteer list, budget requests, etc.

If you want to see an executive board meeting in person, come on by because all meetings are open to the public. The meeting times for the board are Tuesday evening 7 pm - 8:30 pm, Wednesday all day beginning at 7:30 am, and Saturday afternoon at 1 pm. This is in addition to the SWATA board meeting that will conclude this year's symposium which will be held Saturday morning. All EB meetings (except Saturday morning's meeting in the lecture hall) will be held in the Wimbledon room at the Arlington Sheraton.

See you in Arlington!

Mitzi Laughlin

SWATA incoming Vice President