Board Meeting 11/17/06

ATTENDING

David Webster, Marcia Webster, Mary Gregorio, Will Buckley, Bob Schueler, Paul Ottenstein, Margaret Jordan, Lyn Legere, Steve LaMaster, Susan Abbott, Brett Poza, Brian Osborne, Kerri Kuklentz 

NOT ATTENDING

Deborah Delman, Maria Restropo- Toro, Gail Blakely, Clara Carr, Diane Gould 

NOVEMBER MINUTES

The September meetings were approved after a name change. 

REgional Conversation

Marcia organized and orchestrated the regional conversation focusing on the arts of Psychiatric Rehabilitation conversation. There were 5 attendees and rich discussion around rehabilitation being a process and art providing a context where rehabilitation and healing can occur. There was discussion about how different mental health communities have incorporated art. Mary was going to research Green Street to see if art could be shown there. A suggestion was made to hold another conversation around art at the Danforth museum. Another suggestion was made to create a clearinghouse of where art could be seen. Brett talked about the benefits of art displayed on a website so people could view the art without traveling. There was so much interest in keeping this conversation alive and action a task force was developed to keep working on this area. 

ART TASK FORCE: Brett, Lyn, Mary and Marcia

 TREASURER REPORT

Reimbursements:  $520.00
$2,578.00 National rebate

 Expenses:
$70 Webpage
$300 Tune Foolery for their 2005 conference performance
$1748.00 Pratt & Gill textbooks (25 copies)

Balance: $16,289.20

 USPRA REPORT

The national committee is in the process of restructuring the membership payment fee, but rates have not set yet. They are going to collapse the existing rates for organization and create rates that make it more worthwhile for people to join as organizational members instead of individual members. They want to increase the benefits for people to go from individual member to organizational member. If anyone has any ideas, please email them to Bob.

The conference is tentatively going to be held in Lumbar, Illinois. This sets a new trend of the conference held in a suburb outside a big city, which could put Boston back as a potential future location of the conference. Bob talked about the board trying to organize group events, such as a baseball game, so people could visit the city. 

AWARD NOMINATIONS

The board agreed not to nominate Denis Rice for the CEO award since after much discussion he has not joined as an organizational member. A potential candidate is Bill Taylor.

For the John Beard award Mary was going to contact Alexis Henry and Lyn would contact BU for suggestions of people to nominate for this award.

There was discussion if the consumer award would be renamed, but from Paul’s report it was a topic that was still an active discussion instead of an initiative that was going to be changed. 

CONFERENCE COMMITTEE
$11,306.55 cost of the conference
$12, 930.00 collected conference fees

Will reported 314 people attended the conference. The feedback was overwhelming positive. Last minute we lost the ball room because we needed to add an additional break out room so in the future the auditorium can be even larger if we request more rooms earlier on.

There was talk about joining forces with NYAPSRS because they are receiving funds from SAMSA. A suggestion was made that a proctor be assigned to each presentation to ensure we get as much feedback from attendees as possible. There was talk about sending out a survey to those who attended for the first time requesting information about why they attended and would they come again. There was also discussion about moving the conference to the spring or as part of the annual meeting. The conference committee will convene to discuss all these topics in a meeting separate from the monthly MASSpra meeting and bring back answers to these questions. The board will discuss the topics listed above and the following: payment if someone comes to the conference just for presenting, when we should send conference information out, sending save the dates, CEUS and a potential date for the next upcoming conference.