The regular meeting of the Washington Geographic Alliance (WGA) Board of Directors was called to order at 6:35 p.m. by Tim Schultz in the home of Richard Kennedy and Heidi Morgan, 18825 6th Avenue SW, Normandy Park, Washington.
Present: President Tim Schultz of Green River Community College (GRCC), Vice-President Meghan Hoyer of St. Philomena School, Treasurer Heidi Morgan of the National Geographic Society's (NGS) Grosvenor Council, Secretary Richard Kennedy of the NGS's Grosvenor Council, and Director Pat LeRoy of St. Francis of Assisi School.
Also in attendance were Mary Livingston, a 7th grade teacher at St. Philomena School and Francelle Reynolds, a 5th grade teacher at All Saints School in Puyallup, WA.
A motion to approve the draft minutes of the Board of Directors meeting of February 25, 2008 was made by Tim and seconded by Meghan. The motion passed unanimously.
Tim is still developing a list of schools offering Advanced Placement in Geography. He has also placed the development of an Assessment of Geographic Knowledge for 5th, 8th, and 12th grade students on hold. Tim will work on the Boeing grant application for a second giant Washington State map once Richard forwards him the URL, username, and password. Tim confirmed that GRCC will be paying for the 50 tickets for the May 12 Seattle Live lecture, the rental of the Founder's Room at Benaroya Hall, and the catering services of Wolfgang Puck.
Heidi received a quote for catering services from Wolfgang Puck. This item is on the agenda.
Meghan's action items are still in work.
Richard is awaiting receipt of the NGS travel policy. Richard has not received any names from Diana Morelli for possible candidates for the WGA board. The "Application to Register as a Charitable Organization" form is still pending. Richard will present options for the WGA logo.
Pat found two persons who could teach a Global Positioning System (GPS) class for our Summer Institute. She is planning to give a half-day "Geography in Literature" class at our Summer Institute. Richard gave her a copy of The Geography Teacher that contained geography in literature examples. Pat is still investigating College level credit for our Summer Institute from Seattle University. Local teacher Richard Glick used a Webcam to connect a teacher located in Costa Rica to students the local area. She will email Tim the details. Finally, St. Francis School is still looking for a suitable location to have a giant world map painted on their campus.
The checking account balance as of April 28, 2008 is $349.32. There was a deposit of $72.48 from the Employee's Community Fund of the Boeing Company since the last report.
By a letter dated December 23, 2007, the WGA was notified by the Boeing Company Gift Matching Office that our organization does not appear to quality in accordance with their program guidelines. At our request Chris Shearer, Director of Grantmaking, at the National Geographic Education Foundation and the NGS legal department sent the following letter. To date no reply has been received.
March 4, 2008
Boeing Gift Matching Program
The Boeing Company
P.O. Box 3723
Princeton, NJ 08543-3723
RE: Washington Geographic Alliance
Dear Program Administrator:
I am writing to urge you to consider the Washington Geographic Alliance (WGA) as an eligible institution for the Boeing Gift Matching Program.
The Alliance is hosted by the Green River Community College, which is accredited by the Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities, an institutional accrediting body recognized by the Council for Higher Education Accreditation and the U.S. Department of Education. The WGA is coordinated by Green River Geography Professor Tim Schultz.
The Washington Geographic Alliance itself is a non-profit Washington state corporation whose purposes include:
As a nonprofit housed at a higher education institution, I believe that the WGA materially meets your intent that gifts be awarded in support of nonprofit private and public degree-granting graduate and professional schools, universities, four-year and two-year colleges in the United States and Canada. Further, although you do not have a distinct category for Educational institutions, WGA is tax exempt under section 501(c)(3) of the tax code and operates for advancement of teacher training and K-12 educational improvement.
The National Geographic Society is pleased to provide annual support to WGA and, as a proud recipient of support from the Boeing Gift Matching Program ourselves, we urge you to consider the Washington Geographic Alliance as an eligible institution for employee matching. The WGA is a strong and effective contributor to the improvement of teaching and learning across Washington, a state with special connection to the Boeing Company.
If I can provide any information that will help you further understand the WGA and National Geographic's commitment to its educational mission and programs, please do not hesitate to call me at (202) 828-6674 or .
Sincerely,
Christopher Shearer
Director of Grantmaking
cc: Richard Kennedy
The original web site was hosted by Globat, LLC using the open source content management system Joomla!. The Joomla! CMS user interface was very difficult to learn for the occasional user. The system that hosted the web site was also at times very slow. In addition, Globat, LLC twice added costly options without prior approval.
The web site has been moved the social networking system NING. We retain the same URL http://www.washgeo.org/ but the site is much easier to edit. The domain registration has also been transferred to 1&1.
Users of the Joomla! based system have been requested to register on the new NING based system.
Following the end of the legislative session and the failure of HB 2804 (funding an endowment for the Washington Geographic Alliance), Richard and Heidi met with Rep. Shay Schual-Berke on April 15. As she is retiring from the legislature, she discussed a strategy for us to use during the 2009 legislative session. Richard and Heidi are in the process of documenting this strategy.
The NGS Summer Professional Development Institute is scheduled for July 12-19 in Washington, DC. WGA's nomination is due by May 12. The eligibility requirements are:
No board members are able to attend. Tim will check with last year's Summer Institute attendees who quality (i.e., Kyle Dye and Mary Weir-Cortinas).
The NGS Summer Geography Institute is scheduled for July 21-24 in Washington, DC. WGA's nomination is due by May 19. The eligibility requirements are:
A motion to nominate Meghan Hoyer our NGS Geography Action! Attendee was made by Tim and seconded by Pat. The motion passed unanimously.
Board members need to be at the Founder's Room in Benaroya Hall by 6 p.m. at the latest on Monday May 12. Use the Artist Entrance located on the 2nd Avenue side of Benaroya Hall (or from the parking garage, take the elevator marked "to 2nd Avenue"). Guests should also use this entrance.
The reception starts at 6:15 p.m. and ends at 7:15 p.m. Someone is needed to greet people, take attendance, distribute nametags and lecture tickets where appropriate. Fifty tickets to the lecture were ordered at $15 each for a total of $750. The rent for the Founder's Room at Benaroya Hall for the reception is $400 and includes a Benaroya Hall usher.
We are required to use Wolfgang Puck for catering. The following hors d'oeuvres will be served: Fresh Seasonal Fruit, Imported and Domestic Cheese, and Antipasti Platter. These trays will not be passed around. The WGA is hosting a non-alcoholic bar including soft drinks, flat and sparkling water, juices, Starbucks® regular and decaf coffee, and herbal and black tea. The estimated price based on 50 guests is:
Annie Griffiths Belt, who will present the lecture "A Camera, Two Kids, & a Camel" that evening, will be at the reception from 6:30 to 7:15 p.m.
A program and handouts, if any, need to be developed. Tim will give the materials to Heidi who will assemble them.
As of this morning, 19 persons have accepted the invitation. More invitations need to be sent immediately.
Tim created the following flyer for our Summer Institute:
Bring the World into Your Classroom
With the Washington Geographic Alliance
2008 Summer Institute:
Society and Nature in Puget Sound
Kent, Washington
July 7-11, 2008
For more information, visit www.washgeo.org and join the Alliance!
A draft of the 2008 Summer Institute application form follows:
The OneCause Platinum no-annual fee VISA credit card gives the WGA 1% of a person's total spending on their OneCause Visa and up to 9% extra when shopping at OneCause Visa Rewards Merchants, including Pottery Barn, Eddie Bauer, Williams-Sonoma and Marriott. Richard and Heidi have signed up for the program. There is a link to OneCause from our web site. Details are available at OneCause. Richard will determine if non-VISA purchases can get a rebate for WGA.
On June 17, Richard will be meeting with Dan Beaupre and Chief Cartographer Allen Carroll to finalize the giant Washington state map.
The Association of Washington Geographers spring meeting is in Ellensburg at CWU this May 16-17. AWG have discussed inviting K-12 teachers to this event.
Tim sees this as a great chance to recruit some teachers from throughout K-16 to our Alliance, so he has asked to be put on the program for a brief presentation on the WGA. WGA is going to invite as many K-12 teachers to this event as possible. They will be responsible for the $12 fee.
Heidi identified a firm selling custom pencils made from recycled materials. TheDiscountprinter.com offers 5,000 custom imprinted pencils for $750.00 including shipping and setup for a per item cost of 15¢. We can have imprinted either:
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Washington Geographic Alliancehttp://www.washgeo.org/ Promoting geographic literacy in Washington State |
A motion to authorize the purchase of 5,000 pencils with the WGA logo was made by Meghan and seconded by Tim. The motion passed unanimously.
Tim stated that it is time to start planning for the 2008-9 NGEF grant. We should be taking a longer view toward the future as NGEF has expressed that they will consider multiple-year proposals up to three years. Tim would like to consider a five-year plan and write the grant for two or three years based on this plan, as the NGEF is likely to fund a longer grant if we have clear objectives established.
For five-year planning, Tim proposes that we discuss and rank the following priorities, listed in no particular order:
Tim and Richard will prepare a draft.
Tim mentioned that nominations for the NCGE Distinguished Teaching Award are due by May 19. It was the Board's consensus that Meghan Hoyer by our nominee for middle school teachers.
Meghan announced that she received a $1,500 grant from The Fulcrum Foundation to attend the Study Canada Summer Institute for K-12 Educators June 22-27 held in Vancouver and Whistler, British Columbia.
Meghan will be presenting a seminar on the Study Canada Institute at the National Council for Geographic Education Annual Meeting in Dearborn, Michigan. She paid the $65 membership fee and the $210 conference registration fee. A motion to reimburse Meghan the $210 conference registration fee was made by Richard and seconded by Tim. The motion passed unanimously.
Meghan invited everyone to a screening of the NGS movie "God Grew Tired of Us" at St. Philomena Tuesday, April 29 at 7 p.m.
Tim has three copies of the 8th Edition of the National Geographic Atlas of the World. He plans to use them as incentives for persons joining the WGA and for attending our Summer Institute.
The next meeting regular meeting of the WGA Board of Directors will be held on Tuesday, June 3, 2008 at 6:30 p.m. in the home of Richard Kennedy and Heidi Morgan, 18825 6th Avenue SW, Normandy Park, Washington.
Respectfully submitted,
/ss/ Richard T. Kennedy
Richard T. Kennedy
Secretary
Approved June 3, 2008