Executive Summary Minutes Board Meeting 11-18-2020

Massachusetts School Library Association  Executive Board meeting 
November 18, 2020; 4:00 PM - 6:00 PM; Virtual Meeting

Attending:
Michael Caligiuri, Co-Director Central Region
Jennifer Dimmick, Secretary
Patsy Divver, Co-Director Metrowest Region
Maria D’Orsi, Co-Director Metrowest Region
Deeth Ellis, Co-Director Boston Region
Barb Fecteau, Co-Director Northeast Region
Sarah Forfa, Co-Director West Region
Michelle Fontaine, Treasurer
Wendy Garland, Awards
Alida Hanson, Professional Learning
Laura Harrington, Co-Director Northeast Region
Morgan Koehane, Co-Director Boston Region
Emily Kristofek, Office Manager
Laura Luker, President
Ingrid Mayyasi, Awards
Greg Pronevitz, Director of Outreach
Katherine Steiger, Forum Co-Editor
Carrie Tucker, Co-Director Southeast Region
Georgina Trebbe, Advocacy
Pamela Vallee, Co-Director Central Region
Jen Varney, President Elect
Alix Waznick, Professional Learning

Welcome, call to order --- Jen Varney
The reports and minutes of September meeting were approved.

Treasurer --- Michelle Fontaine
Jen Varney is still assisting with bookkeeping due to challenges in updating/transferring Quickbooks.

Advocacy --- Greg Pronevitz and Georgina Trebbe
Library legislative day is actively being planned, again virtual, end of March or early April. Hoping for 4 meetings with local sponsors. Bringing in John Chrastka from Everylibrary as a keynote speaker. He’s an export on advocacy issues. MLA is also talking to him about creating a plan to promote libraries beyond legislative day. This year’s budget for state libraries looks good, but likely facing austerity next year. John has a theory about how libraries will adapt and not suffer so much from austerity. MLA will meet on Friday to hear this proposal. For School Librarians this is important because of the online content funding for databases and ebooks. We also need our own message for library legislative day.
Georgina Trebbe was accepted on the MBLC PR committee. Tomorrow is the first meeting she will be able to attend. They have engaged a PR company, and Georgina hopes to get them to promote school librarians as the people who build patrons for public librarians. 
New advocacy team has two focuses: Diversity, equity and social justice, but also awareness of school libraries and library programs. Want to consistently pursue representation with the DESE. Also want to improve our webpage. Great first meeting, lots of plans.
MBLC/MLS sessions for feedback on databases; Jen Varney suggests that we try to get school library voices heard -- Dec 2 and Dec 8. Be on the lookout for that and try to attend to advocate for databases.

Awards --- Ingrid Mayyasi and Wendy Garland
Patsy Divver suggested soliciting nominations from administrators too. Carrie Tucker suggested sending the press release from this year’s winners to Superintendents groups and publications. That might prompt them to make nominations in the future.

Conference --- Alix Woznick
Whova online conference platform is confirmed. Michelle Ciccione attended our meeting last night and gave us tips and tricks for using Whova for a conference based on her experience using it for the Northeast Media Literacy conference which Alida Hanson and Alix Woznick attended. She suggested doing something at least a week in advance to get participants familiar and comfortable with the platform.
Request for proposals went out last week. Please consider proposing or suggesting others to.
Northeast Media Literacy conference had an interesting international presence at their conference. We might like to do the same -- maybe a panel of international school librarians, or some presentations? Encouraged the board to send contacts to the committee so we can reach out to gauge interest.
Shared the new logo for the conference based on our theme.
Proposed conference registration fees were accepted.

Office manager report --- Emily Kristofek
Membership is steady.
Demo tomorrow with Tradewing, a software for associations. They think they can help with integrating our diverse platforms -- Whova, website, groups.io listserv, etc. It’s a membership database platform, but doesn’t process credit cards. Would not be for this year.

Other news from board members
Project Ready cohorts are up and running, most have set up meetings and have agreed upon a leader.
Metrowest/Northeast event for Halloween was a success.
​Southeast did one on election day online meetup, 10 attendees.

Respectfully submitted,
Jennifer Dimmick