The ODS General Membership Meeting and Board Meeting were held in Springfield on November 3. At the General Meeting we reviewed the year’s accomplishments and the Financial Report was presented.

One highlight of the Board Meeting was the presentation of the newly revised bylaws which had been reviewed by an attorney and the board voted to accept them. The revised bylaws will be printed in the 2008 ODS Roster. One provision of the new document is a new board structure. The number of Directors at Large will be increased from 3 to 6. The 4 ODS Regions will have at least one regional representative. President and President Elect will be elected from the Directors at Large. Secretary and Treasurer will be elected from the Directors at Large or Regional Representatives. If there are no board members qualified for these positions wishing to accept nomination than Secretary and Treasurer may be appointed from the ODS members in good standing. They would become board members for the year of their term.

Special thanks to Donna Thayer for putting together the draft for us and to Vic and Martha Pagel for making it possible to have the draft reviewed by an attorney from Martha’s law firm.

The winner of the Director at Large election was the incumbent Siobhan Barker. The board went on to fill two new Director at Large positions with the other two candidates from the election: Ed Miller will serve a three year term and Sally Temple will serve a two year term. The third new Director position was selected from the current regional representatives and Carol Stevens, a General Member who is currently a North Region Representative, was selected.

Election of Executive Board Members was held and the results as follow:

President: Marsha Williams, Central Oregon Chapter
President Elect: Edwin Miller, State of Jefferson Chapter
Secretary: Sally Temple, Twin Rivers Chapter

John Craven graciously agreed to be appointed Treasurer until another qualified member can be recruited for this position.

We are very happy to be starting the year with a full compliment of board members. The remaining board as follows:
Francy Haupt Director at Large, Rose Newman: North Region Rep, Carol Taylor: South Region Rep, Kim Barker: Central Region Rep, Donna Thayer: Eastern Region Rep.

I am personally very excited to be working with this tremendously talented and dedicated group of people for another year. I look forward to our retreat in January and am hopeful that each Chapter will send a representative to participate in the discussions and planning for the year ahead. Please be sure to get your representative registered with Corinne at the ODS office for this opportunity.

This year for the first time the number of applicants for the Connie J. Keith Adult Amateur Camp grants was greater than the number of grants the board is allowed to award. Grants were awarded to: North Willamette Chapter, Central Oregon Chapter and North Eastern Chapter for their camps planned for 2008. Cascade Chapter will be the reserve if one of the camps is cancelled for some reason.

Francy Haupt, ODS Volunteer of the Year, has been selected as the Region VI Volunteer of the Year. Francy is an ODS Director at Large, Region VI Adult Education Council Representative and has been running the USDF Instructor Certification and L-
Graduate Programs for ODS for the past several years. As Region VI Volunteer of the Year, Francy could be awarded USDF Volunteer of the Year. The award will be announced at the Board of Governors’ Meeting at the USDF Convention in Orlando later this month. This is the second year in a row an ODS member has been selected as Region VI Volunteer of the Year.

Several ODS members will be attending the USDF Convention as representatives this year. ODS delegates are: Ed Miller, Kim Barker, Francy Haupt and Marsha Williams. Corinne Stonier, Gaye McCabe and Marsha Williams are Region VI Participating Member Delegates. Region VI Director Donna Longacre is also an ODS Member. News from the convention will be reported in the next column.

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving Holiday!

Marsha

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