Special Needs Interest Group Business Meeting
NAEA Convention 2004
Denver , Colorado
8:00 P.M.

Jan Fedorenko, President Elect presided over the meeting.

13 members present: Jan Fedorenko, Beverly Levett Gerber, Susan Loesl, Suesi Metcalf, Mandy Yeager, Julia Kellman, Pricilla Lund, Nancy Murphy, SooJin Koo, Joyce Centofanti, Valerie Eggemeyer, Katy Murphy, and Barb Suplee.

Printed minutes were distributed and reviewed. Mary Lou Dallam, present Secretary was unable to attend the meeting: Susan Loesl acting Secretary for this meeting. Barb moved to approve the minutes, Beverly seconded the motion. Motion carried.

Jan distributed the Master List of members for corrections. Members will make corrections and get to Sue.

Election of Officers

Beverly nominated Sue Loesl for Secretary, Pricilla seconded.
Jan nominated Beverly for President Elect, Sue seconded.
Suesi nominated herself for President Elect, Mandy seconded.
Jan closed the nominations and directed Sue to create an electronic ballot for the positions, including brief biographies. Paper ballots will be sent to those not on line. Ballots should go out as soon as the member list is ready.
Membership lists will also be handled by the secretary.
Jan distributed Bylaws with changes to review. It will be sent to the membership along with the Election Ballot. Jan will send Sue an email version of the Bylaws.

Jan led a discussion of new goals for the group and membership.

•  Increasing Membership

Suesi brought up the point that NAEA determines the number of presentations in the conferences based on membership numbers in Issues groups. This past year we had about 75 members and 6 presentation slots. She suggested that we increase our membership through Universities.
Beverly suggested that all members “each one, bring one” to the group during this next year.
Barb suggested that the membership form should be on our new website for easy access for new members. Suesi indicated that she would like to work on the new membership form. Members indicated that they all had a variety of contacts and will send new members' names and information to Sue for adding to the membership roster. Members of this group must also be members of NAEA.

•  Increasing Proposal Acceptance

Jan indicated that on the Proposal Forms that we need to indicate in the area of Issues Group-Special Needs, or it might get into the general grouping and not ours. This happened last year to a few members and they were not forwarded to the Special Needs Group. Beverly will add to the website the proposal form and these instructions for writing in the Special Needs Issues Group information.

•  Increased opportunities for professional recognition and informal meetings

Beverly suggested that each year we set up a membership dinner. Peter Geisser in Boston will be contacted for the meeting in 2005. Jan suggested that we begin recognition awards and an award committee. Suesi will contact at colleague and Beverly will look into P Buckley Moss' organization for ideas. Deadline set to create an award was June 1, 2004.

•  Non-NAEA members as presenters

Jan discussed the CEC (Council for Exceptional Children) and other organizations fee or ability to present if not a member. Beverly discussed that other organizations offer a reduced one-day fee for non-members (especially the CEC) to co-present. Jan suggested that we look at other organizations and how they handle it to make a case for the Board of Directors. Beverly made a motion for the group to pursue other organizations' non-member policies for presenting at conferences. Suesi seconded the motion . Motion passed.

Meeting was adjourned at 9:15 P.M. Suesi Metcalf will preside as acting secretary at the next meeting on Sunday.