July 16th,2008 Meeting minutes

Minutes 7/16/08
MeADE membership meeting
Via phone conferencing

Present: Lou Pelletier, Sandy Barth, Barbara Smith, Cindy Young, Rena Gels-Birch, Rita Porter, Jen Courtois, Laura Gordon, Lori Downs

Lou Pelletier, President

Announcements:
AADE has awarded our chapter $500 incentive money for completing all of our required paperwork and submitting it on time, and for our leaders participating in leadership conferences.

August 6-9 is the annual meeting of AADE to be held in Washington, DC. They are holding the first International Diabetes Conference on Tuesday August 5. Lou Pelletier and Cindy Young will be attending.
If anyone else is attending feel free to hook up with them

World Diabetes Day was held last year on November 14 in Augusta. Dr. Irwin Brodsky and Maria Sirois coordinated it. ? if anyone is planning any events this year. Some discussion about where it should be held. It was held last year in Augusta in hopes of getting some legislators there.

Cindy will e-mail Dr. Brodsky to see if he is planning anything again this year.

AADE has been hosting education and networking programs across the US in different regions. They will be in New Jersey on October 4, 2008. The free education program "Effective Patient Communication: An Essential Skill for Today's Diabetes Educator", will be presented by Mary M. Austin, MA, RD, CDE, President, The Austin Group, LLC. Also there may be an opportunity to meet AADE President, Amparo Gonzalez, Marcia Draheim, AADE President-elect and CEO, Lana Vukovljak and to learn about AADE new initiatives.

Lou will forward the e-mail to membership
An article from a monthly newsletter Lou gets, highlighted a Chicago chapter that is offering an Diabetes Education Day “Day of Hope” which will be a half day educational program for people with diabetes. They hope to reach >600 people and educate them on the basics of diabetes.

Committee Reports
Nominating Committee-Cindy Young
Cindy reviewed the timeline for nominations and elections. Nominations need to be back to the committee by August 19th, ballots out to voting body by September 19th and all votes returned by October 19th. The Nominating committee met and updated job descriptions to include general responsibilities (along with the descriptions from the bylaws). Some discussion as to how much detail to get into with each of the categories. Also, ? whether we should have the officers chairing committees.
We also met and updated the description for the Beacon Award:
Given to an MeADE member who highly motivated, involved and committed to MeADE, and helps to improve the lives of people with diabetes. This person is respected by his/her peers in MeADE as well as the communities they serve. Kay Mullin will draft a nomination form which will include a brief description of why someone is nominated for this award. The nominating committee and past recipients will review the nominations and determine the winner.
Will keep the descriptions brief with a notation that people can call the present officer w/questions

Officers will be assigned to oversee committees but there will be a chair.

Cindy will get the updated job lists with explanation for nominations to Lou by the end of the week. Lou will forward the e-mail to membership.

We will send out the Beacon award nominations in enough time to decide a winner by October conference.

Communications and Public Relations Committee-Rena Gels-Birch
They have been busy working on the website and brochure. Barbara Smith has updated the website, putting links on for the October conference and to other organizations.
The brochure was e-mailed to us earlier. Some feedback included: change the (*) to © on the back page under description of CDE, take our own picture of someone testing BG so there will not be a company logo on the picture (it may be copyrighted), ? change the colors to black and red making all fonts consistent and colors consistent. Also ? whether we should send it to Maine Health as they initially wanted to work on it with us. They are also interested in developing a similar brochure. The fear in doing this is that it may further delay production of the brochure. Rena thinks Cheryl Bouchard from St. Joseph’s hospital quoted $15 per 100 for color copies. She needs to follow up to confirm this quote.
Rena will take suggestions for the brochure and adjust it. She will e-mail Paul Ranucci at Maine Health Target Diabetes for his feedback. We may or may not want to partner with them based on their response/time frame, etc. Also, Lori will follow up with Cheryl re: the costs associated with printing the brochure.

Strategic Planning-Jen Courtois and Laura Gordon
Annual meeting to be held October 19-21 at the Eastland Park Hotel. They reviewed the list of speakers and topics that have all been confirmed. Save the date cards have gone out. 2 out of 3 of the grants applied for have been received. Half of the vendors contacted have confirmed.
Trying to find site for 2009. Initially they were thinking Bangor but there is not a hotel that can hold the large group.
Full brochures will be mailed out soon.

Rita Porter suggested Farmington Hospital as a potential site and will have her hospital’s education dept get in contact with Susan McPhearson to see if it will be feasible.

Bylaws Committee-Sandy Barth
Nothing new to report. Bylaws were amended in April’s meeting. It was confirmed that the fiscal year changed from July 1-June 30th to January 1-December 31 to align with National AADE

Finance Committee-Barbara Smith
Barbara reviewed her budget for this year. It ends on June 30th. Per the IRS can only report on a 12 months period. We are behind in income projected, but also did not spend what was budget. However, many of the budgeted items are actually going to take place in the next six months. ? if we need a budget for a six month period and then another one for the start of fiscal year 2009.
Barbara will work on projecting a budget for the next six months. If it looks like we may be losing money we may need to consider increasing what we hope to make at the annual meeting.
Regional Reps
None present on call and no report forwarded to Lou prior to the meeting

Legislative Committee
None present on call and no report forwarded to Lou prior to the meeting

Miscellaneous
Results of survey given at April’s meeting-Lou Pelletier
Lou read the results of the membership survey given in April.
She will forward the results to the membership. We can use the information on future discussions
Increasing educators with CDE’s- Barb Smith
Barb recently heard from someone who sits on the NCBDE that they are exploring the possibility of collaborating with H &R Block so that people who need to take the exam can sit at a local H&R Block office and take it, be monitored while they take it. This would save in travel expense and may be more appealing to those who are considering sitting the exam.

Next meeting:

Next business meeting will be held at the Annual meeting Sunday evening October 19, 2008.