MINUTES

                                          EXECUTIVE BOARD MEETING

                                               FEBRUARY 2 & 4, 2005

      The meeting was called to order by President William Shaffer at 11:03 am on February 2, 2005.

      The Invocation was then given by 1^st Vice President Don Bradley.

      President Shaffer then began with thanking everyone for attending and that he was looking forward to a good meeting and that the registration count was at 102 at the beginning of the meeting. President Shaffer went on to say that he wanted to personally thank Hotel chairman Jack Douthit and Secretary Rick Spitaels for all their hard work with the hotel arrangements and with book ordering and registration.

      Sec. Spitaels then took roll call of officers with Warren Goodrich and James Ochs absent.

      The meeting then turned to the minutes of the previous meeting . Don Bradley made a motion to accept the minutes as presented with David Soderquist seconding. The Motion passed with a unanimous vote.

      Treasurer Spitaels then gave the Treasurers report. He requested that everyone turn to the last page of the treasurers report and pointed out that on December 29, 2004 that a stolen check was cashed for $593.56 and that another stolen check for $406.44 was cashed on January 6, 2005. Sec. Spitaels went on to say that the people involved were being taken care of by the authorities and that all money and service charges had been repayed to the Association. John Weesner then made a motion to accept the treasurers report as presented. The motion was seconded by Jeremi Meyers and passed with a unanimous vote.

       President Shaffer then went on to assign Auditting Committee responsibilities to Fred Davis, Dave Schofield and Bud Wheeler. President Shaffer requested that the committee meet with Treasurer Spitaels immediately after the meeting this evening to audit the books and President Shaffer thanked the gentlemen for taking on this responsibility.

       President Shaffer then went on to assign Nominating Committee responsibilities to Don Bradley, Ed Johnson and Jack Douthit. Secretary Spitaels added since James Ochs had resigned and that he was to be 1^st Vice President this year that the nominating committee have that in mind when asking individuals to run for office.

        President Shaffer then opened the floor for any discussion that anyone wanted to bring to the board. Dave Stalf said that he thought we should talk about Mr. Ochs. Dave wondered if anyone had talked directly to him because all he had gotten was an e-mail saying he was no longer going to participate with this association. President Shaffer stated that he didn’t know if anyone had talked directly to him. John Weesner stated that he was unable to contact him and that he was under the impression that he was upset with the direction that our chapter was heading and didn’t want to participate with the association as long as it was heading this way. John further stated that Mr. Ochs had mentioned the fact that the IABO was doing more for education then we were and John said that yes IABO had stepped forward and was doing a lot of educational seminars of late. Don Bradley stated that at last years February meeting Mr. Ochs discussed with him  that he felt that we should be doing more to help the residential side of inspections. Bud Wheeler then turned the discussion to the meetings. He stated that there had been discussion at one time of having two meetings a year instead of one. He further stated that there had been some thought in making the February Meeting only two days, Wednesday & Thursday from 9:00 am until 5:00pm and then having a one day seminar type meeting somewhere else later in the year. Bud stated that it was just getting harder and harder for some of the inspectors to get away from their office for three days. Bud further stated that he had been leery about the price of the meeting with the added book costs included but had found out that the books were the big selling point for quite a few of the building departments. Bud said that there were quite a few contractors from his area coming because of the deal they were getting on the books.  John Weesner added that if we do have a separate meeting that we should think about having a seminar for just residential inspections. John further stated that there are a lot of young and first time inspectors out there that would really benefit from a seminar on residential inspections. Bud Wheeler stated that if we would do something with the IRC book that Mike Johnston from the IO had a great book for IRC and NEC cross referencing and that he had been telling his contractors to just buy that instead of buying 2 or 3  code books.  Bud also stated that we were going to have to require the code panel to start referencing the IRC and NEC when they answer residential questions at the meetings. Alan Nadon then stated that the IRC is always one code cycle behind and that the old 1 & 2 family code book used to say to just reference the NEC. John Weesner then said that the State was trying to rectify that by amending the IRC so that it is in the same cycle as the NEC. Bud Wheeler then said that a lot of the problem is that some inspectors don’t put the Indiana amendments in their book so there are problems with consistent enforcement around the state. John Weesner then said that the reason the IRC has an electric portion is so the homeowner doing wiring in his house doesn’t have to get a IRC and a NEC code book. Dave Stalf went on to state that he agreed with the statement earlier that we try to keep the meeting down to the level of residential questions because he thought that when we talk about wiring for gas stations and health care facilities that there are only a few people interested in such things. Bud Wheeler stated the reason we have those topics is because that is what the attendees have requested when they fill out the survey. Alan Nadon brought up the idea of maybe tying a 1 day meeting in with our October meeting since we were all going to the meeting anyway. President Shaffer then added that he didn’t know of any rule that stated that we had to have our board meetings at the same location  as our annual meeting and that we might want to think about  changing the location of the board meetings. Secretary Spitaels then stated that it was all well and good about having more than one meeting a year but who is going to be doing the printing, mailing etc because the February meeting is almost a whole year endeavor for the Secretary. Bud Wheeler then stated that we need to look at some kind of compensation for the Secretary because the job is just getting so large. Secretary Spitaels then stated that wasn’t why he brought up the fact about additional  meetings he just wanted everyone to know that extra meetings meant extra work for everyone not just him. Secretary Spitaels then stated that he puts in over 600 hours  a year himself not including the time that Assistant Secretary Wheeler puts in getting the code panelists and so on. Secretary Spitaels further stated that he wasn’t doing any more work than his predecessors did and that compensation wasn’t necessary but just remember the Secretary when you start discussing additional meetings. John Weesner  then tried to calm everybodies fears about his department being disbanded by telling everyone that it was his firm belief that his department will still be there once all the smoke had cleared from the Governors changes.  President Shaffer stated that these were all valid comments and that we should probably talk some more about it after the meeting on Friday. The meeting was recessed until Friday at 12.03pm.

       Newly appointed President Don Bradley started the meeting on Friday February 4, 2005 at 12:00 pm. President Bradley thanked everyone for staying on the board for another year and went right to business.

       President Bradley opened the discussion about buying the power point program for the 2005 code changes. Ed Johnson stated that since our cost on the power point programs was $149.00 or so that the Chapter think about buying two, one for the north section and one for the south. After some discussion William Shaffer made a motion for the chapter to buy 2 sets of the 2005 code change power point program. The motion was seconded by Ed Johnson and passed with a unanimous vote. Bud Wheeler then opened discussion of  the chapter charging a fee for use of the programs or equipment or both. After some discussion Ed Johnson made a motion to charge a $50.00 rental fee to any organization that wanted to rent the programs. The motion was seconded by Fred Davis and passed with a unanimous vote. Ed Johnson then began discussing the power point projector purchase. Ed stated that he had obtained the projector for around $2,000.00 which was quite a bit cheaper then the $3,500.00 we had budgeted for the projector. Ed went on to state that he felt we should charge a rental fee on the projector if an organization wanted to use it. Ed further stated that a new bulb alone would cost around $ 500.00. Ed also stated that we needed to decide who was to keep the projector. Secretary Spitaels stated that he felt that the equipment should be kept somewhere in the center of the state so it wouldn’t be a hardship to get the equipment to people in the southern part of the state and also for the northern section. After some discussion it was found that there was access to a projector in Evansville and in Crawfordsville so the equipment would be used mostly in the northern section of the state so Secretary Spitaels was appointed to keep the equipment in South Bend. After some discussion Bill Shaffer made a motion that we charge a $100.00 rental fee for the use of the projector and lap top, if needed, above and beyond the $50.00 we were to charge for the use of the program with transportation costs to be the responsibility of the user. The Motion was seconded by Bud Swathwood and passed with a unanimous vote.

         President Bradley then moved on to committee appointments. President Bradley began with the Bylaws Committee . President Bradley stated that the chairman had been Warren Goodrich but that Warren had been going through a lot with his job and that he didn’t feel  comfortable in putting Warren in as chair again this year. Ed Johnson then said that he had talked with Warren and that Warren would still like to be on the board and on the Bylaws committee and that if he saw by the June meeting that it wasn’t going to work out he would then resign. After some discussion President Bradley appointed Bud Wheeler as Chairman of the Bylaws Committee with Bud Swathwood and Warren Goodrich filling the other openings in that committee. President Bradley kept Alan Nadon as chairman of the Fire & Safety Committee along with David Soderquist. President Bradley then appointed Jeremi Meyers as chairman of the Membership Committee with Dave Stalf and Bill Shaffer filling the other two openings. President Bradley then appointed Charley Weber as chairman of the Education Committee with James Koryta and Dave Schofield joining him. President Bradley then appointed Ed Johnson as chairman of the Code Clearing Committee with Bud Swathwood and Fred Davis joining him. President Bradley then moved on to the Hotel and Entertainment Committee appointments with Jack Douthit Chairing and Ed Johnson helping him. President Bradley then appointed Bud Wheeler to spearhead an investigation of changing the Annual Meeting to 2 days and having a another meeting for 1 day in the fall.   

Dave Stalf  then began discussion on the meeting that had just ended. President Bradley felt that the meeting had gone well with the code panel doing a good job on answering the questions. Charley Weber felt that it would be good to have the questions and the answers on the web site if possible. Rick Spitaels stated that he felt the books had a lot to do with the good turn out and Bud Wheeler agreed.  Rick Spitaels also stated that the inspectors he talked with said that the books were a good selling point to their bosses. Rick Spitaels went on further to state that in the future what ever our topics are to be at the meeting to see if there are books available for those topics and include them in the registration fees. He further stated that it was much easier following a speaker when you have the book in front of you that the speaker is quoting from. Dave Stalf then added that sometimes it’s hard to grasp what the speaker is trying to get across in the short time that is allowed per question. Bud Wheeler stated that if anyone had pictures to go with the questions they submitted that we have the capability with our copier to copy those pictures and be able to present the question with the picture and that might make following the speaker easier. Ed Johnson added that we should send him questions in the course of the year as we run across them and he will compile them during the year. Ed said to not wait until he sends out his plea at crunch time to send questions in.

      Bill Shaffer then turned the discussion of door prizes for the meetings. Bill stated that he had to have an emergency meeting to decide what to do about door prizes since only 3 good door prizes were donated. Bill stated that after their discussion that he appointed Jack Douthit and Dave Schofield to go to the store and get door prizes. Bill stated that for less than $200.00 we had great door prizes. Bill went on to state that with wholesale houses and the like not being quite as generous as years past that we think about just adding a  line item for door prizes in the future and just buy them. Bill further stated that the code panelists used to bring all kinds of things from their companies to give away but those companies just aren’t doing that anymore and we shouldn’t have to run around at the last minute to get door prizes. President Bradley fully agreed and added that it’s good public relations to give the attendees goods prizes to take home. Bill Shaffer also stated that it also makes getting the attendees back in the room after breaks sooner if there are a few door prizes given right after  a break.

      Bud Swathwood then added that he felt that the Board had done an excellent job with the meeting and all that goes with it.

       Bud Wheeler then stated that he was glad to be the Western Section Representative again but the fact was that he is planning to retire in 4 years and that we need to start thinking about a replacement for him and that we don’t want to wait to the last minute. Bud further stated that it was only going to be 7 or 8 years before the Indiana chapter is going to be eligible to have a President of the Western Section and that person was going to have to begin soon to have the qualifications.

       A motion to adjourn the meeting was then made by Bud Wheeler and seconded by Charley Weber and passed by a unanimous vote. The Meeting  adjourned  at 2:12pm.