Hi everyone,

In preparation for our board meeting, see the attached documents and the below. Let me know if anything is missing.

Agenda for the CALS board meeting, Oct 10th, Noon to 2pm Central Time

Attached documents (agenda, subcommittee report template, minutes from May 2024. New membership fee and structure proposal will be sent by Dan shortly).

1.                  Call to order and welcome from the President

2.                  Roll call, quorum: Secretary

3.                  Approval of minutes from May 2024

4.            Reports from Subcommittees (please share the sub-committee strategy for working on the action items in the increasing member benefits document, if relevant)

1. President’s report: Fenton Litwiller 
1. Motion to approve an updated travel policy
2. Motion to approve a policy related to paying members honoraria 
2. Awards and Grants committee: Dawn Trussell
3. Outreach and events: Shintaro Kono
4. Anti-Oppression and Environmental Justice: Kim Lopez
5. Communications: Richard Norman
6. Student advisory committee: Christine and Giana
7. Report from the Editor of Leisure/Loisir: Rebecca Genoe
8. Financial and membership committee: Dan Henhawk
1. Motion to approve the proposed new membership fee structure

5. New business

6. Announcements

7. Motion to adjourn

What I need from you:

1. New membership fee and structure proposal: Read over the proposed new membership fee and structure. Be prepared to comment, discuss and respond to a motion (Dan will distribute to the board shortly).

2. Travel Policy: We have a need to update our travel policy. From Dawn: In the past travel support for board meetings was only provided to members who did not have any source of travel support from their institution. However, in recent years, for the annual CALS board meeting, we have either imposed a $500 limit or been covering some travel costs (e.g., two nights’ accommodation and flight/mileage/train depending on the location you are coming from. We asked folks to be mindful and to look for the most economical means). Some meals are covered during the 2-day meeting (2 lunches and 1 dinner) by CALS funds. During CCLR or Congress years, we generally asked board members to use their own conference travel funds to assist.

How can we update our travel policy to reflect our current practice of holding hybrid annual meetings?

There is also an option to host our annual board meetings on zoom only. However, as president, I find it very helpful to have at least some board members present. Board members also gain the well understood benefits of meeting in person (networking, relationship building, time spent together on breaks and in the evening, etc.). However, board members are also concerned about increasing travel costs combined with decreased funding, as well as the environmental costs related to travel.

It is unlikely that CALS will have in person annual meetings with most in attendance (unless the meeting coincides with CCLR) but I provide the following only for context and to inform discussion:

If we hosted our annual meetings in person, CALS cannot possibly fund all board members to travel. As an example, if the next board meeting was held at U Waterloo, ten of our board members would need to fly. For these members alone (@ approx. $1000 for flight and 2 nights accommodation), this would be $10, 000. If there was a cap of $500 for travel, this is still $5000. For both examples, there would be board members driving who would also need reimbursement.

However, we can continue to have our annual board meetings in a hybrid format. For discussion:

How do we reimburse those who chose to travel to the annual board meeting in person? Any CALS decision to spend money on travel detracts from our ability to hire an RA to work on a one-way communications strategy, an ‘orange light’ priority (something we work towards soon) identified by the board in May 2024.

Some options for a travel policy include:

1. Set a maximum reimbursement for any number of members who travel (e.g., $500)
2. After creating an operating budget, the treasurer decides on an amount of money to set aside for board travel and this is split equally among all travelers (or consider those flying versus driving and weight reimbursement).
3. Pay only for flights.
4. Pay only for executive to travel.

3. Subcommittee chairs, please submit your sub-committee report (attached) as soon as you can.

Thank you!

See you soon,

Fenton