*People in attendance: Linda Ives, Michele Melanson, Chris Yardley, Sara Henry, Johannah Burdin, William Ellis

*Call to Order

*Review of minutes

Sara moves to accept minutes.

Linda seconds.

Approved.

Checking = $2129.26

Savings = $2712.15

COE was paid $500 for annual dues.

Received tax exempt information from IRS. We are a 501c4 organization.

Registration material is being mailed today. UMaine Onward program is paying for paper. UMaine UB will pay for postage. We will be placing advertisements in the program booklet. Several universities and businesses have been asked to contribute. Rates have been set relatively low.

Room rates are less due to non-profit status.

Meals have been selected and sent to MBNA Point Lookout.

Meals will be more expensive at Point Lookout. There is an additional 18% charge on top of meal prices for gratuity, set up, linens. We are going to reduce the numbers for snacks during the breaks. Food for 50 comes to about $4,000. MEEOA will bring in about $6,000 for registration.

The Board will need to stay until 1:00 PM on the last day of the conference to go over a few things.

Review of schedule from Sara -

Wednesday:

Check in, Get to know you games

Talent show

Thursday:

8:30 - 9:30

9:45 - 11:00

11:15 - 12:30 Lunch

12:30 - 1:45

2:00 - 3:15

3:30 - ???? Business meeting

7:00 Auction

Friday:

8:30 - 9:45

10:15 - 11:30

Adeline will do Washington, DC update.

Plenary topics:

Maine equal justice/grass roots political network

Students helping students with student panel

Workshops:

Helen Pelletier - career and life choices (preregistration for 15 people)

CeCi Adams - How not to kill your co-workers (Onward staff videotaped with Doug Johnson)

Financial resources

How to Advocate for a better financial aid package

Developmental education in college

Mary Cathcart, Maine DOE update - letter of invitation has gone out

Political advocacy presented by a politician (maybe Mary Cathcart)

If Baldacci can't come, Speaker of the House - Mike Saxl

Raffle and auction:

Items are already being collected.

Chris and Johannah will organize the auction.

Steve Davis will be our "Techie". Steve Visco can't come to the meeting.

We will try to get the technical school programs involved and find out who the Gear Up people in the State are.

Financial Resource Panel:

Five different organizations will be present including TRIO. How will this panel look? What do we want? Make sure they understand the different TRIO programs.

Business Meeting:

Let's set aside 1.5 hours. We need a slate of officers to vote on. Changing roles for officers. Maybe more of a team approach. Try not to change the constitution. At the meeting, discuss the roles of individual titles. Depending on how this is done, we might need to change the constitution.

We need to discuss the issue of who goes to policy seminar and what their responsibility will be.

We also need to discuss cost issues and the MEEOA budget. Do we need to raise the cost of the conference and the cost of membership?