Minutes from the Board Meeting:   March 2, 2008

Meeting Location:   Conference Call

Minutes prepared by:   Barbara Zoloth

Approved by the board with 6 'yea' votes and one 'absent':   April 5, 2008

Attending

Absent:

Next Conference Call:

The following items were agreed on:

  1. Minutes of February 17th meeting approved unanimously.
  2. Board Actions:

    The following items were unanimously approved by the board:

    1. The Board will use Yahoo group polling for all voting by the Board done via email. The results of such votes will be included in the minutes of the next meeting including any relevant discussion.
    2. Authorized the purchase of web hosting and domain registration (www.nasspda.org) with 1&1 Internet at the less expensive option knowing that we can upgrade in the future when and as we need to.
    3. Yahoo polls will not, as a regular matter, be used for voting on financial matters unless they are a matter of urgency and need to be decided before the next scheduled board meeting. Votes to spend more than the lesser of $100 or 25% of our liquid assets require approval by at least 5 Board members.
    4. Definition of North America for NASSPDA purposes:
      • Any political or geographical region that is identified as part of the North American continent by an official public source.  If an individual lives in a geographic region that could be considered part of another continent as well as North America, we would expect individuals to belong to only one regionally defined membership organization of same-sex partner dancing.
    5. As a matter of policy, NASSPDA will never give out our mailing list, including any list of members that is created.  We will consider sending information to our members under conditions yet to be determined, but we will not share membership lists with other individuals or organizations.
    6. Any item announcing specific Board policy should include the names of all Board members.  This would include letters offering to sanction competitions.
  3. Subcommittee Reports
    1. New Committee: Privacy Policies:

      A new subcommittee was created to draft language specifying the circumstances under which we are willing to use our email list to send out information at the request of either our members or others. Draft policy language will be presented to the Board within one month.

    2. Report by Subcommittee on Membership Rules:

      membership categories and benefits are being discussed, and the committee is preparing a proposal for the Board to consider.

    3. Report by Sub Committee on Board of Directors Rules:

      The subcommittee is discussing length of term, # of consecutive terms allowed, when terms expire, distribution of Board seats, permanent subcommittees.

    4. Report by Subcommittee on Mission Statement:

      Mission:subcommittee is reviewing different versions of the mission statement including the possible introduction of partner dancing into its language.

  4. 5 Boros Report

    The 5 Boros comp will be held in NY the weekend of August 23-24, and the organizers have agreed that it will be the North American title event.  They also expressed interest in having it be the New York State Championship.  The issuing of the North American Championship title will have to conform to NASSPDA’s policy of eligibility, namely an open event in which the highest ranking qualified couple (meaning at least one of the dancers must be either a citizen or a permanent resident of one of the countries that is within the definition of North America accepted by NASSPDA).  The 5 Boros organizers may also include a Show Dance category as a North American title event.