Operation Identity Meeting Minutes

May 28, 2009

In the absence of the President, meeting was called to order by Connie Martin.

Nine members were present.

Minutes of April meeting were read and approved.

Treasurer’s Report

No current balance of funds was available.
A report was provided about April’s one-day conference:  income from the conference was $775.00; conference expenses were $805.78. Additional income from raffle ticket sales totaled $86.00 which goes into the Nancy Parkhill Scholarship Fund.

Old Business

• Annual conference.  Consensus of the group was that the annual conference held on Saturday, April 25, was a success. Thirty-one were in attendance. Considerable time was spent noting lessons learned, which were captured by Connie and will be available for next year’s conference committee.
     Evaluation sheets from the conference are retained by Meg Garberina, whose license number was used to provide the conference CEUs. Copies will be provided at a later date and will be included with the lessons learned comments.
• Jane Brown workshop.   Due to lack of response, this workshop was cancelled.
• Annual Birthmother’s Day Celebration.   Twelve ladies attended this event. Baby gifts have been donated to Cuidando Los Ninos, a caring facility for children of homeless families.
• New Officers for 2009
Motion was made, seconded and all approved appointment of the following officers for the remainder of 2009:
President, Lee Morgan
Vice President, Jenna Wiley
Secretary, Connie Martin
Treasurer, Mark Dickinson
Action: Connie and Mark will meet with Kate Toll to transfer the paperwork, provide new signature cards to the bank, and obtain current bank balance.
• Publicity - Barbara will write an article about OI for the Prime Time magazine.

New business

• Meeting Minutes on the OI Web Site.  Connie proposed posting the meeting minutes on the O.I. web site. Following discussion, motion was made, seconded and approved. Connie will forward the minutes to Bill Gage, the O.I. Webmaster; Barbara Free will include this action in the next newsletter.
• Procedure for Opening an Adoption File in NM.  Slight discrepancies between the procedure posted on the O.I. web site and the one posted on the New Mexico Adoption Search web site maintained by Ann House, which is currently accessible from a link on the O.I. site. Following discussion, a proposal was made to eliminate the procedure on the OI web site and use only the link to the NM Adoption Search site, which will avoid these problems. Connie will follow up on this with Bill Gage and Ann House.
• Kathie Forward suggested providing information about search tools on the Internet. Elaine Sharp informed the group that Omnitrace is not a reputable searching firm. Discussion followed; no action items were assigned but this will be a future topic of discussion and potential resolution.

There being no further business, the meeting adjourned at 9:00 p.m.