12-05-12

ATTENDEES: Jeff Geldien, Beth Gordon, Allison Lynn, Sue Butterfield, Carol Huston, Dave Rovick, Connie Caddis, Jamie Kelp  

Absent: Steve Allen, Carol Osenga, Jennifer Klein

Meeting called to order at 11:02am

Updates from last meeting

1.  Jeff stated that he reviewed the minutes from the November 7^th meeting and agreed that maybe the open meeting should be shorter and food should be changed. Meeting length should be no more than 2 hours. 

2.  Jeff has been reviewing the bylaws and we will talk about them later in the meeting. 

3.  Jeff asked if anyone was interested in being the vice president as bylaws states this position is mandatory for the council. Wants to finalize bylaws by the first of the year

4.  Check roster and advise individuals where they are in their terms.  Sue will put this together for next meeting

5.  New HR  Vice President – Kirk Wood-Gaines

a.     Would be nice to have him speak to the executive council first

b.     Having bullet points to speak to staff would be great

6.  Move the first meeting in January to Thursday, Jan 3^rd, Jeff will invite Kirk to this meeting.  Jeff will update at next meeting.

7.  Looking for dates to have a staff meeting and asking Kirk Wood-Gaines to be the speaker.  Would be good to have him speak with the staff for 1 hr. (coffee, H2O)

Possible dates could be January 7-11.  Jeff will get back to us on dates after checking with Kirk and his schedule.  Beth will check availability of Globe Room

8.  Jeff said he wants to get Marty, Thayne and Mike to come and speak at one of our executive council meetings. Thayne and Mike will most likely attend the same meeting. Jeff said that we are looking at late January for Thayne to speak to the staff.    Thought to have audio visual so that people not able to attend meeting could still hear and see the video.

9.  Anniversary Gift Update – Jeff has put in the order per everyone’s responses.  Blanket is being reviewed and looking at changing a bit.

10.Budget has been submitted and was $2000 less than last year.  We eliminated the line items of honoraria and travel. 

11.Committee Reports

a.        Representatives on other committee attend the executive council meeting when requested

b.     Do we have a liaison for every committee?  Openings are Community Services, Safety & Health.  On the roster add the committees and the representatives, take info from website. 

c.     When asking for people to be involved may put information out explaining responsibilities for each position so that staff can speak to their supervisors about participating.  We want non-council members to take the committee positions.

d.     Get a list of committees and have who the people are.  We might designate council members to be liaison with the committees and the representatives.

12.Jeff talked to Rose Mary Volbrecht, Faculty Senate representative about daycare.  They are involved in this issue.  The faculty senate wants to move forward with the issue.  The issue of elder care has come up as well, although the daycare is the current issue being worked on. 

13.Sick Leave Cash In

A proposal for staff to cash in sick leave prior to leaving the university is being thought about by several groups.  Employees are not in attendance the last month they are working as they are using up sick time.

14. Bylaws

a. Jeff has reviewed the bylaws and asks everyone to review them and let him know of any concerns.  Hopefully we can vote on these in January

b.  Term Length was changed as well as the power of the council.

c.   Article 6 – look at, define majority to clarify, review the steps

d.  Jeff will clean up a couple of items in the bylaws and draft a potential email which will be sent out to the general staff on the bylaw changes after the executive council reviews and comments.  Everyone should get back to Jeff on their thoughts or any changes. We will review in January to move forward. 

e.  A motion was made that the staff assembly executive council is supporting the proposed bylaw changes as presented at the December 5, 2012 meeting.  These changes will be taken forward to the administration, Marty and possibly Thayne, for additional feedback.  Barring approval of said changes by the administration the proposed bylaws may be reworked or submitted to the general staff assembly for additional comments.  If no major comments/issues are found the Staff Assembly Executive Council will once again have an opportunity to read and vote for approval of the revised bylaws. Please send your feedback on the current bylaw changes to Jeff as soon as you can as we really want to get this issue in process.  As an added task for 2013 the Council will begin writing specific job descriptions for each executive council position.

15. Jeff would like to do a lunch at a future meeting.  Next meeting will be at the law school, 4^th Floor Dean’s Suite on December 19^th at 11:00 AM.

Meeting adjourned at 11:59 am