MeADE Business Meeting
April 3, 2009
Senator Inn, Augusta, Maine

1.A motion to approve the minutes from January 21, 2009 meeting was approved.

2.Sandy explained the Beacon Award to the meeting attendees and announced a committee to begin process of accepting nominations and choosing the winner.

3.Committee reports:
a). Bylaws Sandy Barth- Sandy; reports that the bylaws are now up to date on the MeADE website. The Bylaws committee will meet to get the bylaw change recommendations for electronic voting and changing the term of treasurer to 2 years out to the membership for a vote in June 2009.
b). Conference Planning-Laura Gordon; Laura announced that we have a contract with Point Lookout for the annual October conference. She passed around a brochure for the members to see.62 cabins have been reserved for 2 nights. Conference attendees may want to bring family members.
The cost per cabins is:
3 BR cabin with full kitchen $275.00/night
2 BR cabin has fridge & microwave $195.00/night
1 BR cabin microwave & fridge $155.00/night.
Website for more information is visitpointlookout.com
The site was chosen to find a central location. Laura encouraged colleagues to share cabins.Point Lookout is located in Northport Maine; 50 miles from Bangor,50 miles from Waterville, 90 miles from Portland and 200 miles from Presque Isle. It is a state of the art facility with a view of the ocean, walking trails, health club & bowling alley. Laura reminded meeting attendees that the conference is three weeks earlier than previous years and that we should secure cabin reservations early as they can be released to the general public after08/21/09.
Exhibitors have been contacted and Lilly will be paying for a lunch. The first save date announcements went out in March. A second will go out in July with more information on conference and speakers. The plan is for grant applications to be started as soon as most of the speakers and topics are firm. Laura announced plans to have the brochure ready to send out in July. Several working titles of the conference have been proposed by the conference planning committee; one is Enhancing Wellness with Diabetes…Integrating traditional and Complementary Therapies for Diabetes.

This year the planning committee received 13 strong abstracts for the conference and is in the process of selecting the ones that will best fit the theme of the annual conference or ones the committee feels are timely and should be included.
General Session Speakers so fare are: Fred Wolff, LADC, LCPC, TTS-C Program Manager for the Center for Tobacco Independence, and Laura Shane-McWhorton PharmD, CDE from University Utah. And lastly Laura requested that anyone interested in volunteering to help with the registration process or room monitoring at the October conference please sign the volunteer sheet at the back of the room this evening.

c). Communications and Public Relations: Rena Gels-Birch: announced that we have a small and wonderful committee and she invited others to join if they are interested in being on the committee. Rena reminded members that each MeADE member is entitled to 10 free brochures and that she has 400 with her this evening. Rena encouraged attendees to se these brochures in physician practice offices, pharmacies, fairs, any place that we see would be a good place to get the word out about what we do as diabetes educators. Rena also requested that we let her know how we are using the brochures so that information can be passed on to others. There is an ordering form on our website, the brochures are $20/100count plus $3 S&H. Right now the checks should be made out to Rena at MeADE.
Rena reminded the group to check out the Website periodically and to thank Barb Smith for her work as Web Master.
The C & PR committee has also been asked by the board to look at developing a MeADE membership newsletter similar to the AADE newsletter. May start out slow with maybe a twice yearly newsletter that will be done by email. Rena also asked that MeADE members let her committee know if there are other areas or things we would like her committee to be working on in order to support or improve communication among our members.
d). Finance: Wendy Drew; Requested that dues or any checks for the treasurer should be mailed to Wendy at: 2 Moonlight Drive, New Market, N.H. 03857.
Checks should include a note in the memo space stating what the check is for in order to aide the tracking of monies coming and going. Wendy reported that a full report was given to the board at the early meeting this evening. She announced that we have $24,604.85 in our account.

e). Legislative: Mary Fleming:
Mary encouraged MeADE members to visit the AADE website and check the advocacy links, see what’s going on and respond. She encouraged members to contact our legislators who make the laws and talk with them about issues relating to diabetes. Mary reported on an American Dietetics Association Webinar on Legislation and Advocacy which she attended. She spoke of the key note speaker Dr. Kenneth Moritsugu who is the chair of the Johnson & Johnson Diabetes Center and is a strong proponent of diabetes prevention, health care reform and the importance of making our voices heard. She especially enjoyed the role playing around visiting the members of the house and senate and talking with them about important issues. Mary recommended the following websites to stay informed about legislative issues: eatright.org and the AADE website, and she recommended the news letter: “On The Pulse”.
f). Nominating Committee: Lou Pelletier reported that she will be getting her committee together soon. She would like to have nominations for officers back to her committee by July 31st. Lou reported on a timeline to get the email ballots out by September 1, 2009 with goal of all ballots back in by September 15, 2009. With plan announcing the new officers at the annual meeting.
Lou also announced that if there are 10-15 people interested in the Conversation Maps training they can get a trainer probably for the annual meeting.
Sandy suggested that people who are using the Maps may like to get together and discuss how they use the maps and what works well.
healthyi.com is the website for more information.

g). Membership: Kathy Jacques; reported that the committee met this evening briefly due to prior difficulty reaching some of the members. Kathy reported that she has identified the need to find a less cumbersome way of keeping one membership list and keeping it current. Susan Palumbo and Wendy Drew had expressed some ideas that the committee will discuss. Wendy Drew, treasurer also announced that if you haven’t paid dues since 2007 “your due”. Kathy also reminded the attendees that the MeADE dues can be paid on line at the same time we pay our AADE dues allowing us to receive timely updated payments and member lists.

4.AADE Initiatives: Sandy reminded the group that in order to chair a committee, hold office or vote for officers you must be a member of national AADE.
a). Sandy announced that AADE is now an accrediting body approved by Medicare along with ADA and IHS. AADE feels that they will be able to offer more diabetes educator services in more locations at a lower fee. They also are marketing the new data collection software. The fee for the Basic version is Free to AADE members, $49 to non-members and the robust version is $79/year. Information is available on the AADE website.
b). Sandy reported that the Annual conference is in Atlanta, Georgia and that she is planning on attending. The ADA Scientific Sessions are in New Orleans in June.

5. Update from the Board of Directors:
a). Sandy announced that a change in the Bylaws will be written to make the Treasurer post a 2 year position. The strategic plan will likely be changed to a 3 year plan which will involve planning with officers and committee chairs. Sandy announced that she hopes to have this looked at over the summer and to have a document to present in October.
b). Sandy announced the scholarship incentive program that the board passed this afternoon. The incentive is to encourage more meeting and committee participation by members by entering a ticket into the drawing for each time a member participates in a meeting. Tickets are collected for January to January. There will be 2 winning tickets and 2 alternate tickets drawn every January. First prize is a paid early bird, AADE member registration fee to the National AADE Annual Conference and the second prize is a paid registration to the MeADE conference.

5.Announcements:
Next MeADE meeting: Conference Call: July 15, 2009
(Wednesday 7:00-8:00PM)
Northeast Regional Diabetes Educators Conference 2009; “Diabetes Education in the Digital Age”. Thursday May 7th & 8th, 2009 in Albany, New York
AADE Annual Meeting August 5-8 2009, Atlanta, Georgia.