Organization > Chapters > Greater Philadelphia > Minutes and Reports
Minutes
June 19, 2003 Meeting
The Greater Philadelphia Chapter of the Visual Resources Association met on June 19, 2003, at the Fisher Fine Arts Library, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, at one p.m. Attending were Alice Bampton, Villanova University; Joan Beaudoin, Bryn Mawr College; Cara Burns, Rosemont College; Carol Campbell; Bryn Mawr College; Heather Glaser, University of Pennsylvania; Laura Grutzeck, Swarthmore College; Jennifer Hintlian, University of Delaware; Lenis Northmore, University of Delaware; and Karen Stanford, Kutztown University.
Reports from the Visual Resources Association annual conference held in Houston were presented by Mary Wasserman (read by Heather Glaser), Heather Glaser, and Joan Beaudoin.
Heather attended the "Leadership Breakfast" as representative of the chapter. Mary Wasserman reported from the Outreach session that the Association is concerned with increasing its membership, that dues may be raised, but institutional members would then receive greater benefits, and that there will be a summer institute organized by John Taormina and held in conjunction with ARLIS. Heather reported that at the leadership breakfast two topics were addressed: how to encourage leadership and how to get new members involved. Suggestions made were to have a leadership lecture, workshop, or award; to provide a year long mentor for a new member; to form a student group within the larger membership; to offer a student travel award to the annual conference; to have the national organization notify local chapters of new members in their areas; to hold a session for new curators; and to make workshops free or less expensive so more people could attend. Carol noted that although the financial support ($100 from the Education Committee for a workshop attended by designated local member Joan Beaudoin) had not yet materialized, Joan did attend workshops. Joan reported, as a requirement of the promised support, on three workshops, one each on HTML, personnel issues, and 'influencing skills for positive outcomes.' Carol, reporting on the Education Committee, noted that communication has been received from Carolyn Lucarelli, Pennsylvania State University, who is liaison to our chapter, and Carol provided the URL for that committee's 15-18 pages of useful networking information.
There was a short discussion about outreach at Drexel University.
The dues issue was discussed once more with Carol reporting that Elisa Lanzi, VRA President, stated that local chapters must collect dues in amounts from $5-$15; Philadelphia chapter of ARLIS has dues of $10. The Greater Philadelphia Chapter must discuss this and make a decision at the fall meeting. Carol suggested that we keep dues as cash initially since the amount collected would be too small for a bank account presently. It has been customary that the local host institutions absorb the cost of a meeting, and that we collect at a meeting money for a speaker's honorarium if appropriate. Since it will be too late to collect dues for 2003 in the fall, we should do so now. Alice moved that we collect $5 per member and Joan seconded the motion which passed without further discussion. Dues were collected from the two officers, and an announcement about 2003 dues would be sent by e-mail to VRAP-L once Carol received clarification from national (to ask Elisa Lanzi by e-mail) on whether national institutional members should pay local dues. Our chapter has several persons in that category.
Carol reported on elections: that there had been no reply from national in 2001 regarding our Article V (mechanism for choosing officers, if no volunteers polled, by next name in alphabetical order on our active list) and that she had resubmitted her request for Article V review and was waiting for a response which we would act on at the fall meeting. National did respond approval to our Article IV with alternating election years for the chair person and the secretary-treasurer.
Our web site is http://www.brynmawr.edu/Admins/DMVRC/vrap
New business: Our next meeting will be in October, hosted by Alice at Villanova University.
Minutes from the previous meeting were distributed.
The business meeting was adjourned at 2 p.m.
Refreshments were served, followed by a program, "Online Image Collections at the Penn Library," presented by Delphine Khanna, Digital Projects Librarian, Fisher Fine Arts Library.
