Blue: Motion
Red: Responsibilities 

1. Members Present: Jennifer Fish, President; Mark Wilson, President-Elect; Brent Sohngen, Secretary; Dave Libben, Member-At-Large.

2. Call to Order and Minutes: President Fish called the meeting to order. 

• The Executive Council Meeting minutes from May 6, 2003 were reviewed. Mark Wilson moved to accept the April minutes, seconded by Dave Libben. Motion carried. 

3. Treasurers Report: A treasurer’s report will be provided by Jim Bennett shortly.

4. Newsletter (Sean Browning):

• The latest newsletter will be a bit more costly because the old bulk permit had expired.
• Sean reports that a new process is being used for printing the newsletter.  The cost with the new process actually has declined. With 4 newsletters per year, the total cost will be around $450 per year. The new process does much better with printing pictures.  Turn-around time is about 1.5 weeks.
• Dave Libben moves that given the success and the declining costs with Spencer-Walker Printing, we permanently shift to Spencer Walker for printing, and re-coup our money from the post-office for our bulk mailing permit.  Mark Wilson seconds.  Motion carries.
• Sean was unable to get any member profiles for this newsletter. Will continue to work on that for future newsletters.  Jennifer suggests that we explore shorter profiles, i.e. 1 – 2 sentences on what individuals are doing professionally, in order to make sure that we have something about our members in each newsletter.  Dave Libben suggests an alternative approach, by focusing on members who have businesses.  Dave Libben agrees to take care of the membership profile for the next newsletter, focusing on a private business run by a member.
• Upcoming newsletter deadline is July 15.
• Membership update (new members? Dave Libben).
• Scholarship winner (Doug Deardorff).
• Op-Ed piece on conservation policy to headline the newsletter.
• Sohngen will set up a list-serv and use the latest email addresses for the membership and let the executive council know when it has been set up.

5. Summer Meeting (Mark Wilson)

• Date: September 11, 2003.
• Mark is working with Lloyd Owens, Larry Antosch, Dennis DeWeese, and Brent Sohngen regarding topics and agenda.
• Main technical component will be working on the self-assessment tool that Farm Bureau is working on developing, along with developing on-field examples to be accomplished at the meeting.
• Mark also proposes that there will be presentations and discussions about the on-going research projects at the ARS lab (Long term CT; rhizometers; carbon sequestration).
• Potential discussion about policy issues:
• Pollution abatement issues related to agriculture.
• EPA enforcement of pollution complaints in an urban setting.  Concerns in the legislature that it is not getting done.  Considering options for having additional enforcement at the local level (i.e. health departments, markets).
• Conservation policy in Ohio: Potential people: Gary Mast (NACD), NRCS person (Charlie McCluskey? Kevin Brown?), Brent Sohngen.
• Watershed people from that region of the state?
• Mark is thinking about sponsorship (Ohio Farm Bureau?). The executive council believes this is a good idea and agrees that Mark should move forward with attempting to find sponsorship, potentially to offset the luncheon costs.
• Mark will get the details of the summer meeting to Sean by July 15.   

6. Committee Reports

• Membership (Dave Libben):
• Working with Dot on the transition.
• Trying to develop a student member list to get in touch with those individuals and encourage them to participate and recruit new members.
• NRCS has 30 or so student internships; Dave will give them all a brochure and suggests that we consider allowing new members to come to the summer meeting for free.  Group suggests that we wait until we see if we can get sponsorship for the lunch and if so, that will be a good idea.  Alternatively, they may have to pay the cost of the lunch.
• Jennifer will ask Doug Zehner to help her keep in touch with the remaining committee chairs. This will facilitate communication among the executive council and the committee chairs.
• Long Range Planning: Larry Antosch is willing to serve as the chair for that committee.
• Nominating Committee: Jennifer will follow-up with Lloyd Ownes, Chair, to handle the nominations.  Nominations must be finalized by November.
• Brent Sohngen moves to change the filing date for petitions to nominate individuals for executive council positions from August 10 to September 11, at the summer meetings.  Mark Wilson seconds.  Motion carries.

7. Other Business

• Jennifer would like to find someone to fill John Clark’s role as assistant (counselor) to the executive council (by laws allow us to have an assistant to the executive council).  Jennifer will ask Norm Fausey to serve in this role this year.
• Mark raises the issue that we need to update the web page.  The last minutes are from January 2002.  Brent and Sean will follow-up with Nathan on updating the web page.
• Mark asks if we have a more formal version of the strategic plan.  Mark suggests that we contact Larry Antosch to get a formal version of the strategic plan handed out at the summer meeting.  Note that the latest version of the long range plan was passed at summer meeting, 2001.

Next Meeting Time and Place: Meeting will be at the Franklin Soil and Water Conservation District Office in Grove City, Tuesday, July 8^th, 9:30 am. 

Brent Sohngen moves that we adjourn, Dave Libben seconds.  Motion passes. 

Meeting adjourned 11:18 am.