Michigan Blind Athletic Association

Board of Directors’ meeting minutes

January 9, 2008

Directors present: Sue Fluri, Frank Wolf, John Hulsebus, Tyler Merren, Rob Wall Emerson, Richard Long, Tom Coyne, Bill Welke, Richard Hodges, Tom Vance and John Boes

Meeting was called to order by Boes. Minutes from the December 2007 Board meeting were approved as distributed.

Treasurer’s report. Total ending cash balance as of December 31 is $32,423.16. The only expenditure was $166 to the Ron Jackson Agency for liability insurance. A $500 donation was received yesterday from the Ponchillias. Thanks, Ponchillias!

A funding request for the Montreal goalball tournament had previously been e-mailed to Board members by Gordon. The total amount requested is $1617. This amount was approved unanimously.

Fluri announced the Michigan Ski for Light is the weekend after next and she plans to attend. Fluri indicated she would not be attending the International Ski for Light this year.

Hulsebus announced there is a demo web site for the group to review. The URL is: http://michigan-football.com/mbaa. This is a temporary location and is connected with Hulsebus’ web site. Hulsebus described the current web site as being very simple and definitely text based since we anticipate many visually impaired folks accessing this site. Hulsebus also indicated a couple of possible web site addresses; however, www.mbaa.org is already taken by someone else.

Coyne indicated he does not yet have information from Amy Seth related to the Train the Trainers idea. Discussion was held regarding whether the Board felt that if Amy’s staff were interested and available—whether this would be worth pursuing. All Board members who spoke were in favor of another Train the Trainers session. Suggestion was to focus on the campus recreation center employees.

Vance distributed print copies of the 2007 MBAA Annual Report. This Annual Report is very well done even though Coyne’s picture is on the front page!

Merren indicated he does have a class scheduled this semester which will, most likely, conflict with the MBAA Board meetings. Merren indicated he will probably miss the February and March meetings and plans to be at the April meeting.

Wolf asked about the Michigan Braille Transcriber’s Fund grant. Boes indicated this was the application which Brooks was supposed to do on her own, so Boes hopes she has done this.

Meeting was adjourned. The next MBAA Board meeting will be held on Wednesday, February 13 at 4:00 p.m. at the Michigan Commission for the Blind Training Center.

Respectfully submitted,

Sherry Gordon, MBAA Secretary

Notation from our Chair: John Boes has requested we consider the possibility that our MBAA Board meet only every other month. Lately the length of the Board meetings has been pretty brief (about 20 minutes in length for the January 2008 meeting); therefore the suggestion to consider an “every other month” meeting date. Further discussion of this topic will be held at the February meeting.