Thank you from Cossatot River State Parks

[Renee H]

Stan Speight sent a thank you message to the Arkansas Canoe Club (via snail mail) and wanted to convey the message to the entire club:

"We would like to again extend our gratitude to the canoe club for their continued support of our resource management effort in the monitoring of the three major tributaries entering the upper Cossatot. This project would not be possible without the club's financial backing. In fact, if our gratitude could be converted to rainfall, we would be seeing you paddling the Tot in August! Please convey to everyone our heartfelt appreciation for this very generous donation."

[Jim Krueger]

Renee,

Thanks for sharing Stan's note, that was certainly nice.


Best Regards
Jim

[prophet]

what is this about?

[Renee H]

what is this about?

The ACC made a donation to this water study that the Cossatot River State Park is doing that involves the tributaries coming into the Cossatot River.

[DeBo]

Cossatot State Parks and the ACC have a partnership to help each other provde good stewardship for the river and provde access. This study will provide baseline data which will be used to moniter and maintain the health of the river. We will also do cleanups on the river and a new access below the falls is being provided for us. We also send great thanks to Stan and his staff for working with us for the Cossatot.

[hdh]

New access?? Cossatot Study??Rockport?? Im sure I missed it, but this is the type of infomation I wish the Board would pass along to the Members at Large.

Thanks

Harlan Hughes

[DeBo]

Renee and I are board members. Consider it passed along.
Seriously, we did discuss this at the last meeting. The water quality study just now became a done deal.

[CAPTAIN ALEVE]

How much was the donation? Minutes of Board meetings have not been posted since "Winter 2009" and don't include the treasurer's report when they are posted. Why the lack of information in general and the missing and incomplete minutes? If you need a volunteer to type this info and send it to the newsletter editor I'm sure we can find someone willing to do it.

After all, the ACC's tax returns are required to be made public upon request, and are actually posted on the internet by an oganization whose mission is to "grade" nonprofits. For instance, you can find out what percentage of a nonprofit's income is spent on fundraising (none in the case of the ACC). One nonprofit that solicited funds from my late Mother-in-law spent a mere 85% of donations they received on fundraising, the worst I ever heard of. The website is www2.guidestar.org. It costs nothing to view the tax returns and all other available data on federal nonprofits, but you do have to register.

Captain Aleve, alias Mike Coogan

[Gordon Kumpuris]

My fault for not paying attention but this news about a new access below the falls has my full attention. Details please!

[Cowper]

If you need a volunteer to type this info and send it to the newsletter editor I'm sure we can find someone willing to do it.

Find him/her. Send his/her name to Tom Burroughs. I thing a "board going's on" summary would be a good addition to the newsletter, and to the "members only" forum on this message board.

Personally, I don't think everything should be posted on the "general" message board; due's paying members deserve to have a little bit better access to the information than the public at large.

[OzarkTom]

Hi Folks,

I would like to comment on some of the discussion on this thread.

As I assume you all know, your chapter presidents are all members of the ACC Board of Directors. They are required to attend every board meeting or at least assign a representative/proxy. If you yourself do not wish to attend the quarterly meetings, which are open to all current members, then you need to be asking your personal representative to the board (your chapter president) to share their notes and give your chapter a report of what happened at the meeting.

All chapter presidents have copies of financial reports, minutes and everything else that transpires at the meeting, and if they do not attend, they can still easily get this from the club secretary and treasurer.

So if you want to see a change in distribution of information, please take the time to go to your chapter meetings and tell your chapter president that you want them to share this information with you!

Our organization is and has always been open to our membership, and our board members are just members who care enough about the ACC to be willing to drive all over the state(s) and attend meetings, answer e-mails, facilitate our club's events, write letters and meet with state and federal officials and many many other things that would fill pages.. all on their own time. If these aspects of the club are of interest to you, then come on out and get more involved! We need more of our membership to step up and help row

I hope helps clarify this subject a bit, if you have more comments come on out to the Winter Board meeting!

Cheers!

[CAPTAIN ALEVE]

Aren't minutes kept of the Board meetings, with paper copies distributed at the following Board meeting, and then approved as being correct? Why don't we just resume posting those typed minutes on the Members Only section of our website? Why don't we also post the Treasurer's report there, too, since it is already typed and ready for presentation?

Now that we live in the era of the internet, two years is along time to go without updating our minutes on the web, heck, two weeks is a long gap.

I respectfully request that all the missing Board meeting minutes be put on our website. This should take next to no effort since they are already computer files.

If this is more work than I'm assuming it is, I volunteer to do whatever it takes to get this communication gap closed. Call me, 501-224-1868, for assistance.

Mike Coogan, alias Captain Aleve

[okieboater]

Mike,

Thanks for stepping forward to help with the posting of minutes.

Not sure why it stopped, but posting on the members msg board sounds like a good communication tool for us over the hill members who do not get out as much as they used to.

Dave Reid

[Liz Caldwell]

Re putting the minutes in the newsletter: As secretary from May 2007 to May 2010, I sent a summary of the minutes to the newsletter editor after each board meeting. Most times they were printed.

I subbed as secretary at the October 30 meeting, and submitted a summary for the January newsletter, so watch for your next newsletter.

The minutes were never intended to be posted on the message board. They go on the website in a section for members only. This capability just became available in the last year or so with our new software. I believe the past minutes are in the process of being posted.

Communication in our club has always been loosely organized at best. When I was a new member, my chapter president used to report back at chapter meetings about what happened at board meetings. As for the perceived lack of access to board minutes, I have never received a request for a copy of the minutes. If anyone wants to e-mail me at lizcaldwell2000@yahoo.com, I will e-mail you a copy of any of the ones I have.

The new Cossatot access just became available, or may even just be in the approval stage. Since there's been no water, I don't think anyone thought to make a big push to let everyone know about the new access. I'm sure when the river starts running, that news will be more prominently discussed on the message board. Or your chapter president can provide details.

[Gordon Kumpuris]

Hey Liz. Do you know where the access is located?