ALA Region 2
Regional Council Meeting
September 27, 2007
Opryland Resort, Nashville, Tennessee
 

The meeting convened at 1 p.m.

Attendees:
Region 2 Team: Kathy Scourby (Director), Sabine Curto (Education Officer), David Kristy, CLM (Communications Officer), Vicki Smith-Bilt, CLM (Projects Officer), and Joyce Patrick-Bai, CLM (At Large Director, Regions 2 and 6)

24 ALA members representing 15 Chapters were present. The following chapters were represented by the named members:

Atlanta – Jeff Hamrick, Carole Morris, CLM, Toni Owens, Theresa Turner
Capital – Adrienne Corrothers, Debbie Sanford
Central Florida – Melissa Corah
Jacksonville – Alice Robison, Elizabeth Locke, Carolyn Sutton
Kentucky – Jackie Warner
Knoxville – Pamela McMahan, Beth Ann McDowell
Maryland – Jo Schoeberlein
Middle Tennessee – Kim Cannon
Mississippi – Jim Allen, Melanie Ainsworth
Northern Virginia – LeeAnn Cruse
Palm Beach County– Joyce Johnston
South Carolina – Shawn Payment
South Florida – Lisa Dasher, CLM
Southwest Florida – Jessica Thomas
Suncoast – Eloise Stinson, Susan Scheiner

Welcome and Introductions: Kathy Scourby welcomed the attendees and introduced the Regional Management Team (RMT). Vicki Smith-Bilt then left the meeting to attend to business at the Exhibit Hall. Each attendee then introduced themselves and identified which chapter they represented. Kathy discussed the structure of the Regional Conference and the Regional Council meetings, including the role of the Regional Council Representative for each chapter, pointing out that it is important for each chapter to elect such a representative to attend the Regional Council meetings and report back to the chapters.

Approval of Minutes: The minutes of the last Region 2 Council Meeting, which was conducted at The Mandalay Bay Resort & Casino in Las Vegas on April 29, 2007, were reviewed and approved. Melissa Corah so moved and Jeff Hamrick seconded.

Regional Management Team Comments:

Kathy Scourby, Director – Kathy discussed the process of the ANC (Association Nominating Committee) and the RNC (Regional Nominating Committee). The RNC, which is charged with selecting Regional Officers (we have one available position on the Regional Management Team this year) will be meeting during this Regional Conference to make their selection, which will be forwarded to the ANC for ratification.

A brief discussion ensued where Kathy discussed how regional officers are assigned their specific position on the team, noting that different regional teams do it in different ways, some formally rotating the positions, while in Region 2, we have taken the approach to ask the incoming and incumbent officers their preference and have never had significant conflict.

Kathy also noted the ANC, which is the committee charged with ratifying the RNC selections, selecting Directors (in Region 2, we have Kathy rolling off this year and so will have a new Regional Director) and selecting the next President-Elect of the Association, will be meeting in mid-November.

Kathy also discussed the Regional budgeting process. Significant factors include the Regional Conferences and the allocation of funds for members of the Regional Management Team to visit various chapters within the Region. Kathy encouraged the attendees to mention to their chapters that members of the RMT are available to visit their chapters to meet with the Board or make presentations to the members.

David Kristy, CLM, Communicatons Officer – Dave discussed the following factors regarding regional communication:

Please ensure your chapter secretary provides Board and Chapter meeting minutes via e-mail to the following on a timely basis whenever such meetings are held: Debbie Curtis at ALA HQ (dcurtis@alanet.org), Region 2 Communications Officer Dave Kristy (dkristy@bvblaw.com), and Region 2 Director Kathy Scourby (kscourby@hunton.com). The minutes can be in PDF, Word, or WordPerfect format. Approximately 20 of the 29 chapters in our region submit their chapter minutes properly. We’d really like to get to 100 percent!

Twice per year, Regional Chapter News is published in the ALA News, which is a short paragraph about happenings at each chapter. We ask the Chapter Presidents for this information in March and September of each year, and our goal is to get full participation from all 29 chapters. Chapters are to write about events that will be held at or prior to publication as if they have already occurred, due to the lead time involved in publication of ALA News. Attendees were encouraged to remind their Chapter Presidents of the need to submit this information when requested.

The Regional Management Team also prepares a quarterly publication called “Region 2 Community News,” which is a newsletter exclusively about the chapters and individual members in our region. This newsletter is distributed to all Chapter Presidents and Independent Members in the Region. Chapters and individual members are strongly encouraged to submit articles or ideas for articles to the Regional Management Team for consideration.

Sabine Curto, Education Officer – Sabine discussed the session manager process at Regional and Annual Conferences, and that volunteering to be a session manager is an excellent way to get involved with ALA. She noted we had a very good response for session managers at this Regional Conference and thanked those who were participating. In addition, Sabine discussed the Certified Legal Manager (CLM)SM* program. She stated there are sessions in the conference brochure marked with the CLM designation, representing standard prerequisite courses for all candidates taking the examination in the future. However, functional administrators should not only be concerned with those pre-requisite sessions, but also ensure to obtain required education in all functional areas of administration, since functional administrators must complete educational requirements for areas outside of their specific functional area in order to sit for the CLM examination. Sabine reported to date we have 244 CLM’s in ALA, and 56 of them are from Region 2. This is second only to Region 6. Joyce Patrick-Bai added she maintained a spreadsheet to keep track of needed prerequisites to take the examination, and anyone who wished to obtain a copy could contact her and she will be happy to provide it. Both Sabine and Joyce pointed out it is a good idea to run proposed educational courses by the Headquarter Staff to ensure that they qualify for CLM examination purposes.

Joyce Patrick-Bai, CLM, At Large Director– Joyce discussed the Annual Conference, which will be held in Seattle, Washington, in the spring of 2008 – specifically May 5-8. Joyce stated a welcome booth for the Seattle conference will be located at this conference to provide information of interest to attendees. Joyce discussed some of the optional tours and non-conference activities that will be available in Seattle. Joyce then proceeded to draw for two scholarships to the Annual Conference, to be used by chapters to send first-time attendees to the conference. The scholarships are for earlybird registration plus $400 of reimbursable travel expenses. The first scholarship awarded went to the Maryland Chapter and the second went to the Knoxville Chapter. Alternates selected were theNashville and Central Florida Chapters, respectively.

Other Business
A question was raised about chapters requiring minutes for various committees within the chapters. Several members responded that they did not necessarily require formal minutes for committee meetings, but that many did have the committee chairs give a report at monthly chapter meetings, and the report was included in the chapter minutes.

Breakout Roundtable Sessions

Kathy Scourby, Region 2 Director then stated four topics would be discussed in informal roundtable discussions. The favorite topics had been selected by the meeting attendees at the beginning of the Regional Council Meeting via a topic selection ballot. Those four favorite topics were:

Member Participation
The CLM Program
Getting Good Speakers
Bar Relations

Attendees were to rotate to two of these topics, for 20 minutes each. The four topics were to be discussed in the four corners of the meeting room. Roundtable discussions were then held for the next 40 minutes.

Regions 2 & 3 Conference in 2008
Kathy stated with Region 3, and the conference will be held in Indianapolis, Indiana, November 13-15, 2008. Kathy then introduced Stacy Kindrick of the Indiana Chapter, who did a gift certificate drawing ($100 gift certificate), and the winner was the Maryland Chapter.

With that, the meeting was adjourned at 2:40 p.m.

Respectfully submitted,

David T. Kristy, CLM
Communications Officer


 

*CLM is a service mark of the Association of Legal Administrators.