Please ensure you are sending regional reports and articles of interest to Jeneva so that we can maintain having the newsletter. There were no regional reports this last issue. There was good feedback on the last issue. It has opened some doors since going on-line and there are other agencies and organizations we could share this with to garner interest. The next date articles are due no later by is July 1^st for the August issue.

Bi-Laws: Bill F and Hisami still plan to set a date to edit any bi-laws language prior to being sent out to the membership.

Membership: History and archived minutes are important to maintain for the future, and to help better orient new members. Communication needs to be open and ongoing. Pamela and Hisami started working on the survey we discussed at the last Board meeting. We need to balance what we provide to the general public and the benefits we provide our 208 members. A discussion was held over posting active member names and or information on the website and possible privacy issues. Part of WCA’s benefits is networking, and to share member names could work well in this regard. We could also highlight members in Connections.  (Good article idea if someone is looking for one!! 

We are still finding that the ACA and WCA member lists don’t match. Efforts were made to address this, yet the problem is ongoing. Discussion was held on ways to obtain and maintain a current active list. We need to update member contact information as well. Rich will make a follow up phone call to ACA. Direct payroll seems to be an issue for some, but not for others. Bill will try to get a list of DOC staff having membership dues deducted from their paychecks to compare to the membership lists we get from ACA.  There was ongoing discussion about what benefits we receive (or not) as having dual membership w/ACA and how we should be proactive about touting WCA. We do receive $7 from every ACA paid membership which provides a steady income to WCA. The website still shows insurance benefits which ACA cancelled a long time ago, so these need to be removed asap.  

Jeneva will send Peria, Michelle and Dave the WCA email address and related info to keep current. No one has been checking the email address for awhile. Dave will add the email address and “contact us” on the website.

Conference Planning: There won’t be a big conference this year or next, but we have decided to hold two smaller one day conferences this year, one on each side of the state. The first will be held in May at the Monroe Correctional Complex. (MCC) Sally is doing a lot of logistical work to organize the host site to get this going in a short amount of time. MCC also has a color guard to provide the presentation of colors.

Tracy provided a draft handout outline to continue discussion over the details for workshop tracks and timeframes. Michelle provided a handout to show a “giveaway” she is negotiating for conference attendees. It was decided to stick with the theme from the conference we had planned for last year, to focus on staff since May is Corrections Appreciation/Pride Week anyway. There were some great RFP’s submitted last time, and we should take a look at these first. It was decided to have a few limited non-profit vendors on site. Michelle will research whether training credits could be available from conference offerings.

There was discussion whether this was jointly sponsored with other CJ organizations or a stand-alone WCA event. Each participating organization should ensure participation in the planning and implementation process, and those heading it up should be more open and amenable to offers of help. One idea was to have non-sponsoring organizations sponsor a specific track or workshop that might be especially pertinent to their membership. May 28^th was selected as the date at MCC. Giving the option of pre-registration might be helpful for traffic considerations and commuters.  Having a membership registration booth set up was another good idea.  The fall conference will be held in Walla Walla, date TBD.       

Nominations and Elections: This position is vacant and this is an election year.  Ballots are required to be sent out in May.  WCA will try to send as many as possible electronically from updated membership lists.  Jeneva and Michelle offered to work on covering this.

Regional Reports: None

Affiliate Reports:

WCJ: WCJ recently held an event at Headquarters honoring Women in Corrections. 

Western: The conference in Idaho for 2009 will be cancelled.

JIB: Discussed fork lift certification programs that are being expanded, thanks largely to the donation of a fork lift.

Fireworks Presentation: Dave Swisher presented to the WCA board an opportunity to sell fireworks for the fourth of July. We would have a 40’x 60’ stand in the Gold parking lot, across from the Puyallup fairgrounds.  TNT would provide the tent, tables, bunting, lights, fencing, & baskets.  We would get 20% of sales. It’s expected that we would generate at least $4,000 profit.  WCA would split the shifts and profits with NABCJ. WCA would need to provide labor to staff the stand, after hours security, cash register, credit card machine (which can be provided thru Dave at cost) and a generator.  We would also pay $100 for an insurance rider. Through use of a white board, a preliminary schedule was developed

Next board meeting is June 4^th. (Thursday)  Location TBD