Maryland Collaborative Law Association
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MCLA Minutes - November 21, 2006

The Board of MCLA met on November 21, 2006 at 8:00 a.m. at the office of Michael Freilich. In attendance were Ali Doyle, James Motsay, Michael Freilich, Michael Mastracci and Harry Baumohl.

1. Harry Baumohl reported that the library presentation at Reisterstown was not effective as nobody showed up, Perhaps due to the poor weather that evening. Meg Oliver was very much involved and ready to proceed with Harry Baumohl for the presentation. Harry reported that the MCLA projector worked fine with his laptop computer and that synchronization was not an issue. The Board will revisit the issues surrounding the library presentations at the next meeting, including public awareness of the library presentations.
2. The proposed data collection form was discussed and will be further reviewed at the next Board meeting. Jim Motsay will contact Janet Brumley and Sherri Slovan to solicit their forms for data collections.
3. The minutes from the Board meetings should be forwarded to Gregory Pickett to be posed on the Members Only section of the website.
4. A training for 2007 was discussed. Both Marc Baer and Jim Motsay have written to Stu Webb. Harry Baumohl will call Stu Webb to find out how many people can participate in the trainings, when they can be scheduled, will Stu do an intermediate training on a Friday and Saturday, can he do it alone or should we do a combined two day basic and one day intermediate training and if so, the number of people who can register for each session. The focus for the intermediate session should be skill building and public awareness. Harry Baumohl may try to set up a conference call with Stu Webb and other members of the Board.
5. Jim Motsay will take care of ordering fifty copies of Stu Webb's new book on collaborative law for distribution to members of MCLA.
6. We still need a new articles from members to be posted on the website in order to keep our site high on the search engines. They should be sent as an attachment (preferably in Word format) directly to Greg.
7. Regarding the website, the Board has decided to route the email contacts for people who need further information among the Board members in a neutral fashion with perhaps a generic email address (i.e., info@MCLA.com). Harry Baumohl and/or Susan Land will contact Greg to discuss options.
8. The Board discussed the need to utilize the available position of Secretary and the benefits it could provide to the on-going operations of the organization.
9. It was decided to invite Mary Stengel to the next two Board meetings so as to receive input from the Social Worker perspective.
10. Michael Mastracci will obtain the MCLA footlocker, perhaps with wheels for storage of MCLA items.
11. The upcoming MCLA holiday party was discussed. It is important that the Board members make the telephone calls that were assigned last week. Ali Doyle will send another reminder to the members and to the general members of our email mailing list. Michael Freilich and Harry Baumohl will talk briefly at the holiday party where Harry will highlight the accomplishments of the MCLA over the past year and Michael Freilich will address additional areas in which members can participate in the goals of the committee. Harry Baumohl will drop-off a holiday invitation to Vince Ferentis. Jim Motsay will be in touch with the social workers.
12. The Board authorized a holiday gift to Gregory Pickett in appreciation of his efforts for MCLA. Harry Baumohl will coordinate this with Susan Land.
13. The Board decided that it was important that we create a master list of the inventory at MCLA as well as updating the list of contact information for our members.
14. Strategies for bringing in new clients will be the focus of the next meeting.
15. The possibility of a membership coordinator or committee from the Board to solicit new members might be worthy of additional discussion.
16. The point system for members and brown bag lunches will be discussed at the next Board meeting. It is suggested that perhaps a Membership Education Committee might be useful.
17. There was a discussion whether it might be appropriate to have MCLA Board meetings on alternate weeks as opposed to every week. The idea will be the subject of later discussions, as the Board felt it was unnecessary at this time to move toward less frequent meetings.
18. The next meeting of the MCLA Board will be held on Tuesday, November 28, 2006 at 8:00 a.m. at the offices of Michael Freilich.