Officers and Directors: Jo Battisti, Rick Lee, Pete Palestina, Sandra Loebs, Val Ullman-Katz , Rich Ventura, Jim Jones, Rina Williams

Others: Art Hanebury

The meeting was called to order by President Sandra Loebs at 10:10 AM.

Approval of the April minutes was deferred as they have yet to be distributed by the Board Secretary, Larry Gross.

Val Katz passed around a copy of the Overman Award submission to the board for review. Sandra said the President’s Award submission is nearly complete.

Sandra informed the board that the Philadelphia School District Fire Essay Award is set for June 4th and asked if anyone would volunteer to attend.

Rich Ventura said he is trying to obtain a Continuing Education credit certification for the June 17th breakfast program since it is about risk management.

Rick Lee distributed copies of the March and April, 1999 budget report. We did finally receive a March bank statement from First Union. First Union has begun levying fees, and as a result, we may be re-activating the Mellon bank accounts. We never closed the Mellon accounts when we set up the accounts with CoreStates. We did receive a dues check from the Society in March and another smaller check this month.

Rick said we have a problem with the amount budgeted in the COLC account. Pete Palestina said that the timing of the registration has been the problem. Do we want to pay the expenses as they incur or defer reimbursement to reflect the expense in the same year? Val and Rick preferred to reflect the expense when incurred. Also, Rick said the budget for the COLC account required another $17-18 to fully reimburse Pete for his COLC trip. Val moved and Jim Jones seconded a motion to incur the full expense for the COLC this year and to reimburse Pete the additional amount owed to him. The motion was unanimously approved by the board.

Val moved and Pete seconded a motion to approve the Treasurer’s Report as presented. The motion was unanimously approved by the board.

Pete said that the First Vice President of the Chapter did not attend the COLC meeting. Pete came back with many good ideas and he is energetic and enthusiastic about the upcoming year. The Philadelphia Chapter still appears to be ahead of most chapters. The Web Site in particular is comparatively advanced and cutting edge. He will however, need lots of help from the board members. If the Committee chairs cannot get work done because of lack of support, he will find the help for them. He hopes to reconstitute the liaison positions between board members and committee chairs to improve communication.

Pete plans to ask Lily Cowan to take over the ChapterGram for the year. The article deadline for the September ChapterGram is July 10th. We can do interims if we have the material.

Pete said we will try to do five (5) research projects this year. The Society changed the criteria for the award, in that projects do not need to be finished in a particular year in order to qualify; the projects only need to be started.

Pete expects to hold a summer planning meeting, probably in his home. He wants to develop a procedures guide and he needs a representative from the new designee class.

Sandra said she wants to applaud the New Designee Committee for their work over the past year, including handling the September breakfast meeting, helping with I-Day and holding the new designee recognition dinner.

Pete said John Kelly told him at the COLC that several chapters have Sections within the Chapter. We could provide this service at no cost. Art Hanebury said we could split-up the program responsibility by section chairs to better spread the breakfast program work.

Val is concerned about the lack of attendance and said we may need to talk to top corporate heads about allowing members to attend the breakfast meeting. Time continues to be the big problem. Pete said we need to call the corporate heads and ask them if certain employees would be good for committee work. Art said we need to visit the corporate heads and solicit from the top down. Rina said the inactive members told her that they do not see the value of attending the meetings. Val said we need to re-emphasize the need for individuals to build their own careers and we need to advertise more over the summer. Perhaps we can consider year round breakfast meetings to keep the momentum up. An orientation brochure or bound booklet might help. She also suggested milestone pins showing the years of membership. Pete suggested top quality name badges as special recognition for long term service. Val said we could also give away CPCU bookmarks or mouse pads. Sandra suggested CPCU baseball caps or tee shirts.

Pete said Phil Spinelli approached him about doing a fire essay contest in the Ridley Township School District. This may be viable. Pete did question however, the cost-benefit of the Philadelphia School District program. He said we continue to give money to the Philadelphia School District, but CPCU never receives any recognition. Val said those who receive money should sign a contract or memorandum of understanding in which they agree to fulfill certain obligations including helping with public relations for CPCU. We need a strong public relations chair. Art said that public relations is a recurring problem and there needs to be reinforcement to all chairs to strive to credit "CPCU" wherever possible, in all press releases or during public appearances.

Val said she needs meeting dates for next year. Sandra said it is the third Thursday except for December and March. December 3rd is I-Day and March 23rd is the Franklin Award.

Sandra said we still have no approved minutes for September, November, or December meetings despite making numerous requests of Larry Gross.