LFA Board Minutes - 2012-08-05
From LFAwiki
BOARD MEETING MINUTES
| Date: | August 5, 2012 |
| Location: | Enid Cox's Home |
Opening: Enid Cox
- Invocation: Doug Livingston
- Present: Mary Ann Swalberg, Enid Cox, Douglas Livingston, Dana Rogers, Trent Lewis and Daidre Hulick. Dennis Davis was excused and Lorraine Misener and Karolyn Hall were present via phone.
- Welcome: New board members, Daidre Hulick and Trent Lewis
Business
Board Assignments were discussed and assignments made as follows:
- Dana Rogers - Chairman/Newsletter
- Mary Ann Swalberg - Vice Chairman/Secretary
- Enid Cox – Treasurer
- Daidre Hulick – Reunion Director
- Doug Livingston – Research Director
- Loraine Misener – Genealogy/Research Committee
- Karolyn Hall - Membership Director
- Trent Lewis – Assist with LFA Website/Membership Committee
In order to meet the most crucial needs in the LFA, the assignments for the new board members were discussed. Trent will work with Ross Livingston (the website coordinator) to give ideas from the board, keep membership information current, and organize the photos donated before giving them to Ross to put on the WIKI.
Charlene Clark will continue to help with the newsletter lists.
Jeff Cox will be asked to help Daidre Hulick on the reunion committee as well as at least two members of the board.
Treasurer's Report: Enid
- Savings Balance as of June 30, 2012 - $3439.33
- Checking Account as of January 1, 2012 – $2139.25
- Expenditures at end of July - $1493.91
- Donations at end of July - $2972.00
- Balance at end of July - $3617.34
- Grand Total…………………………………………………………..$7056.67 FANTASTIC!
Enid felt the increase in donations at the reunion and afterwards was because we involved and honored members of the family for their accomplishments at the reunion. Those honored brought their families who made donations.
Membership Director/Newsletter Report: Dana
Dana gave the board a copy of the latest newsletter to look at. It had been reduced to 6 pages, which the board felt was long enough. (The prior newsletter was 10 pages and we had discussed at the last meeting the need to reduce the size.) She said she received a lot of them back and we need to go over the lists again to correct them. She will print out what we have and ask the board members to go over the names to see if we could help update the addresses. She felt that if we had board members without assignments that she could use a people to keep up the addresses and emails and help with the newsletter.
Another concern was that when someone registers on the website, Dana doesn’t get that information so their names can be added to the roster and reminder cards sent.
The next newsletter will be in October. It was suggested that we honor Bill and Jean Livingstone (our Scotland connection) because of their 50th wedding anniversary. It was also suggested that each member of the board make a report for the newsletter.
Research Director’s Report: Doug
The Livingston/McLea/Boggs DNA report was discussed. We have received Bill Livingston’s (Scotland) marker info back with 111 markers. Family info has 66, but we will try to get 111 markers soon on the family info. It looks like we come from a small group that used the name of Livingston and yet is linked to Ireland and the Boggs family. It is definite that we are linked to Bill and we think we know how. Doug will send the board a report as soon as he gets it.
The maps we bought showing Dalgetty, which is the first half of the project, have been very interesting and helpful. We now need to get the second half of the maps about Lancashire, which would cost about $250.00 to purchase. It was moved and seconded that this be done! There was $60.00 donated at the reunion for this very purpose. Doug’s presentation at the reunion was very interesting and a great addition to the program.
Doug felt it would be very helpful if we could tie into the satellite images so family members could see the very areas shown on the maps and “drive right to them”.
Doug also talked about the Henderson papers, which show the property and the years our ancestors would have been involved with the Henderson estate. We know where the records are and which ones we would like to get copies of and have gone ahead and requested them. The records are indexed, but not digitized, but will still have information on them we can use. There will be others later on that we can request that may give more information.
One of the main goals of the LFA is to extract the names of ancestors who we can then submit for temple work. Knowing the information from these maps, papers and other information will head us in the right direction for finding more family members to do the temple work.
Another of the goals of the LFA at this point is to make a correct record. As it is now, there are many mistakes that keep getting duplicated and passed on over and over. We want to make a correct record that can be put on the LFA WIKI and this is what Doug and his committee are doing.
Archive Director’s Report: Dennis
(Dennis made the following remarks via email after the meeting)
“I think it would be good to share our phone number and address with all those on the board, just in case we need to attend a meeting on one's house, mail a package, or something.
Regarding the meeting tonight and looking at our last reunion, I was very pleased with the location and amenities. From what I could see and what I heard, everyone was very pleased. My only "complaint" would be that I, myself, did not get down to the games and activities. Other than that, I loved the reunion.
I am also grateful to Ted who got the ball rolling on the Scotland trip so that we were able to renew family ties with Bill and all his family. That has been a blessing in my life. I am friends with several of his children and family on FaceBook. I would love to see our family continue to keep in contact with them. Having a Pen Pal used to be something many youth enjoyed. It doesn't seem to be as popular now. And, now we have so much more facility. Perhaps at a future family reunion, we could set up a "Skype" activity where we could talk on Skype with Bill and his family. It's totally free and would be very fun for some of our grandchildren to "meet" some of Bill and Jean's grandchildren. Who knows if some day one (or more) of our grandchildren might be called to serve a mission in Scotland and already have this door opened? I would be more than happy to talk with Bill about doing that at the next reunion. I think his family would enjoy the opportunity. They are a beautiful, gracious, wonderful family - of course :)
I continue to find and create "memorials" on Find-A-Grave for the Livingston Family and link them together. It's just another tool that puts our family out into cyberspace for others to find us.”
Reunion Report
All present gave their comments on the reunion. We felt it was a great success but three meals prepared by the board was too much work, especially for the board and their families who thankfully pitched in to help.
Next year we talked about having the reunion at a stake center and only have one meal, probably lunch. Everyone could have their own breakfast and then come to the reunion, have lunch there and then have dinner on their own. We need to have a reunion that lasts longer than 4 hours and include activities to help family members interact with and meet each other.
We talked about the pros and cons of having the reunion every year vs every other year and there were more cons than pros. We also discussed the fact that the Archibald Livingston family is very big and it may be better to find ways to divide the reunion into smaller family groups so there wouldn’t be such a “generation slip”.
Copies of the sign-up sheets at the reunion were made and given to those who would benefit from them because of the names addresses on them. We had such a good turnout at the reunion. Charles Livingston’s family had more there than ever before. In fact, the number of family members of Charles, William and James were nearly the same. The family of James had a few more, so that family got the traveling trophy. Now, what should be done with the trophy as it needs to be engraved? Enid has it at her home.
The “Livingston Rap” was such a success; Dana suggested maybe we could get Christie Cook or someone in the family to write another one highlighting another family story for the next reunion.
After Mary Ann left, there was more discussion. Dana sent the following email:
- “At the end of our meeting Doug expressed concern about using the word DUES and potentially affecting family members who might feel that they aren’t a member of the association if they don’t pay dues. We decided that the word Contribution would be more appropriate and then if someone is unable to pay at some point because of financial distress, hopefully they will feel they can still attend even if they don’t pay dues.
- Dana also wrote that “Doug and I were talking about having a file on the wiki (like a research log for individual family members) where information could be recorded about what they looked for and where they have looked and what they found, either nothing or the new info and the source. That way if someone decides they want to do some research on that person, they can check the log to see what has been done. We could have a board member enter the information about new research that has been done, or sources on existing information that has been found. What do you think?”