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Meeting Minutes
Issues and Advocacy Roundtable Annual Meeting
Washington Marriot Wardman Park Hotel
Washington D.C.
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
3:15 – 5:15 PM
Minutes were taken by Dana Miller and Julie Carmen; this is a merging of their two separate sets of notes.
Presiding over the meeting was current co-chair Dana Miller and incoming co-chair Alison Stankrauff. Outgoing co-chair Kate Theimer left the meeting at two points to administer her new role of incoming SAA Council Member.
The co-chairs welcomed everyone and brief introductions were made by all present. Approximately 25 persons were present, including 13 current roundtable and steering committee members and 7 non-members.
(Attendees included: Dana Miller, Alison Stankrauff, Peter Gunther, Kate Theimer, Julie Carmen, Courtney Chartier, Ryan Semmes, Laura Starratt Erin Lawrimore, Robin White, Charlene Nichols, Sarbina Mercadente, David Warner, Rick Barry, Michael Knight, Tawny Ryan Nells, Teresa Mora, Elizabeth Scott, Amber Thiele, Mat Darby, Peter Carini, and Heather Soyka; 2-3 others left before the sign-in sheet was passed around.)
Incoming Council Liaison Donna McCrea updated the membership on Council activities and issues, urging the Roundtable members to attend the SAA business meeting and to vote for the membership dues increase. She noted that this year SAA will post a net loss of $17,000 from last year, which is why the dues increase is a must. Donna also outlined the Council’s revised value statement on Diversity, and noted a revision to the Guidelines for Graduate Education Programs. McCrea also introduced The 75 for 75 Project, which features a set of 75 trading cards about prominent people, events, places, etc… since 1936, and is created by the SAA 75th Anniversary Task Force. Members are encouraged to send in recommendations and images to this task force for consideration of inclusion into this set.
Courtney Chartier and
Heather Soyka gave an update on their renovation of the Roundtable’s webpage via the new SAA Drupal website. Ideas were solicited for more material to put on the page and included one or more blogs to record issues and advocacy ideas from past and future Roundtable brainstorms.
SAA Program Committee Member Jennifer Young announced the theme for the 2011 75th Anniversary AGM, which is Archives 360, which explores all aspects of the archival enterprise, including and especially the multiple responsibilities of individual archivists, as well as presentations and posters representing SAA’s roles, contributions, and challenges in the past, present, and future. She highlighted that session proposals are due October 1, 2010 and can be up to 150 words long.
Kate Theimer announced nominations for co-chair and steering group members; co-chairs Dana Miller and Alison Stankrauff ran uncontested and were elected. Ballots were distributed with brief bios for 7 members running for the 6 seats of the Steering Committee, not all of whom were present.
A panel of speakers on advocacy lessons and tips for archivists began. Speakers included Peter Carini of the New England Archivists, Dana Miller of the Society of California Archivists and roundtable co-chair, and Kathleen Roe of the NY State Archives, all of whom shared their disparate experiences advocating for archives legislation and funding, especially regarding the Preserving the American Historical Records (PAHR) Act. Kathleen Roe reported that thanks to archivists’ efforts there were now 64 House Representatives co-sponsoring the PAHR bill, double the number from last year, and 8 sponsors in the Senate.
Ballots were returned and counted by Jim Gerencser and the results were announced by Alison Stankrauff. Steering committee members for 2010-2011 are: Courtney Chartier, Bradley Wiles, Jeremy Brett, Jessica Lacher-Feldman, Laura Starratt, and Erin Lawrimore.
Kate Theimer was thanked for her three years of service as co-chair of the Issues and Advocacy Committee.
Roundtable business was begun.
Dana Miller announced that elections will be carried out electronically in 2011, online rather than in person at the Annual General Meeting.
Alison Stankrauff discussed the need for basic by-laws for the Roundtable and reviewed her recent experience in creating by-laws for the Lone Arrangers Roundtable. Alison will lead a By-Laws Task Force that includes Dana Miller and Laura Starratt (Erin Lawrimore was added to the Task Force after the meeting). The goal for by-laws is to begin writing them October 15, 2010, with complete by-laws by December 15, 2010. The by-laws will be posted on the Roundtable’s Drupal site in 2011.
Dana Miller announced the solicitation of ideas for advocacy topics and issues for the Roundtable to pursue, and her desire for the Roundtable to produce a deliverable of some kind in 2010-2011. She turned the mic over to {-}, who reported his online appeals to the Roundtable members listserve and the Archives and Archivists listserve for advocacy issues to pursue, but he reported he received no response from either venue. He noted that the Roundtable co-chairs Dana and Alison had each offered ideas, and listed them off to the members; other ideas were solicited from the Roundtable members and voting on an issue to pursue will ultimately to be done online.
The issues currently in the Idea Box, from both the co-chairs online communications and the membership are:
It was proposed that whatever idea was selected to pursue this year, the others should be recorded on the website for future attention.
Dana Miller noted that the Roundtable listserve would be actively soliciting votes in the coming weeks and advised members to read it and to vote on the issue they wish to participate in.
Kate Theimer, although not present, was publicly thanked for her 3 years of service to the Roundtable.
The meeting was adjourned.