Meeting Called to Order by President Gary Ranker at 9:45 p.m. Eastern Standard Time

Present:
Gary Ranker, President
Keith councell, Vice President, Southwest
Dr. Malcolm T. Sanford, Executive Secretary

Board of Manager Representatives Present:

Roy Smith (BOM Representative) Escarosa
Bo Sterk (BOM Representative) St. Johns
Leonard Khan (BOM Representative) Palm Beach
Tom Nolan (BOM Representative) Suncoast
Byron Teerlink (BOM Representative) Levy
Kent Wooldridge (BOM Representative) Jacksonville
Wayne “Chappie” McChesney (BOM Representative) Alachua, Alternate for Dixie, Marion and Lake County
Reno Plenge (BOM Representative) Tupelo
Bert Kelley (BOM Representative) Ridge

Others: Many of those attending were the same as for the annual convention business meeting that preceeded this one but did not have voting privileges at this meeting. See General Meeting minutes on same date (October 27, 2011).

A 'quorum' was declared.

Given the lateness of the hour, only one item was brought before the group: Consideration of developing a new web site for the Association.

Background: The present Executive Secretary, Dr. Malcolm T. Sanford, has managed the web site since 2004, when it was established by Bill Overman, a Realtor in Pensacola, FL. Over the years, it has become apparent that it badly needs renovation, given advances in technology and possibilities for more artistic developments. Members have complained that the site is not dynamic or interesting enough to grab the attention it deserves, some calling it “embarrassing.” Given that he is not a trained web master Dr. Sanford has asked for help in this arena.

On October 11, 2011 (see minutes of the board of managers meeting on that date), a committee was appointed by President Gary Ranker consisting of Wayne “Chappie” McChesney (Alachua, Dixie), Tom Nolan (Suncoast) and Kent Wooldridge (Jacksonville). Two bids for updating the web site were received. One by Jonathan Fisher (Tampa) and the other by Dennis Riggs (Beekeepers of Southwest Florida). The committee on a split vote chose Mr. Riggs, who it was determined would be the best fit at the present time, even though his bid was higher than Mr. Fisher's.

Kent Wooldridge brought the committee's recommendation to the Board of Mangers, recommending Mr. Riggs, whose bid consisted of a $1,500 setup fee and a $360/yr routine maintenance charge plus $30 per hour for redesign and “non typical” applications. Motion by Mr. Wooldridge that the bid by Mr. Riggs be accepted to develop an improved web site. Second by Tom Nolan (also on the committee).

Subsequent discussion was spirited both for and against this nomination. It was revealed that some believed Mr. Fisher's bid had not received adequate vetting. According to Tom Nolan a member of the committee, the site already developed by Mr. Riggs revealed the greatest potential in providing what the committee was looking for, a professionally-designed site that is the “front door” to the Association. After some debate, Mr. Fisher withdrew his bid.

Other discussion revealed that there was a belief that the general membership had not been adequately informed about the situation, given the funds involved to carry this initiative forward, as it would have to be included as a new budgetary item. The present consititution states: “The general management of this Association is vested in a Board of Managers.” Thus, any discussion about this from the general membership present will certainly be taken into considertion, but the decision at the moment was up to the Board of Managers.

The question was called. The vote was split and could not adequately be resolved. Unfortunately, there was confusion about the number of votes possible and members of Board of Managers present (see attenance list above). Mr. Fisher decided to withdraw his bid in favor of Mr. Riggs, making the final decision moot, and a vote unnecessary. The officers will, therefore, will proceed with establishing the new site under Mr. Riggs' control and management.

The Board of Managers considers much of this a “learning experience” and will certainly be discussing this situation and the issues it brought up in future meetings. It reveals again the weakenesses that persist in the current constitution and bylaws that control how the Association operates.

Meeting adjourned, 10:10 p.m.



Respectfully submitted,
Malcolm T. Sanford
Executive Secretary

MEETING MINUTES:  [ Board of Managers ] [ General Meeting ] [ Archived Minutes "Members Only" ]

FLORIDA STATE BEEKEEPERS ASSOCIATION ANNUAL MEETING
October 27, 2011
Orange County Extension Service, Orlando, Florida

Attendance:

Michael Richert
Elmore Herman
Millie Herman
Roy Smith (BOM Representative) Escarosa
Keith Councell
Melissa Councell
Joseph Redemson
Josh Gentry
David Mendes
Joyce Smith
Raymond Vickerman
Debbie Bohannon
Tom McConnell
Barbara McConnell
Bo Sterk (BOM Representative) St. Johns
Donald Murray
Rebecca Wilson
Ben Parks
Jim Arnold
Lisa Fessel
Kevin Rader
Rich Yacso
Leonard Khan (BOM Representative) Palm Beach
Bebe Kahn
Al Salopek
John Gentzel
Angel Silveira
Yesemina Silveira
Jonathan Fisher
G.M. Jawadis
Usman Jawadis
Emilie Christie
Oscar Brookins
June Brookins
Keith Eldridge
Mike Depianta
Linda Hackenberg
Noel Blanchet
Marie Blanchet
Johnny Walker
Amy Walker
Michael Anolfo
David Smith
Tom Gillaspie
Jayma Gillaspie
Jayla Gillaspie
Dennis Riggs
Virginia Riggs
Raynae Williams
Beth Fox
Ernest (Peaches) Peach
Sherry Hutchinson
John Hutchinson
Troy Dere
Ray Claxton
Gary VanCleef
David Lyman
Christopher Stalder
David Webb
John Adams
Jeff Curry
Dexter Honeycutt
Kevin Lausman
Lynn Osborn
Tom Nolan (BOM Representative) Suncoast
Michael Leach
Byron Teerlink (BOM Representative) Levy
Kent Wooldridge (BOM Representative) Jacksonville
Sue Wooldridge
Rosemary Van Wandelen
Wayne “Chappie” McChesney (BOM Representative) Alachua, Alternate for Marion, Dixie and Lake County
Reno Plenge (BOM Representative) Tupelo
Laurence Cutts
Holly Jones
Bert Kelley (BOM Representative) Ridge

Call to Order by President Gary Ranker, 7:50 p.m.

Presidents Address -Orlando Convention 2011

Welcome to the 91 Annual FSBA Orlando Convention. I had a very active year as your President.

The first main event was at the FL State Fair working in the Honey Booth, this 10 day selling Honey and promoting beekeeping. Attended the Agriculture Hall of Fame Banquet along with 8 others, including FL Honey Queen Jayla. I registered FSBA and became a 2010/2011 Hall of Fame member.

Organized a group to travel to Tallahassee for the FL Farm Bureau Legislative Day. We visited several legislatures in their Capital offices to discuss the Beekeeper Protection Bill and visited Commissioner Putnam's office and staff.

Attended 2 HBTC meetings in Gainesville. We developed the Beekeepers Survey from the results of the first meeting. The survey was sent to all registered beekeepers in FL and the result tabulated. We learned what was needed to move forward in the Beekeeper's Protection Bill.

I am a member of the Farm Bureau Apiculture Advisory Committee, which meets 2 times each year to develop policy for the Farm Bureau.

I wrote a letter in support for the Rish Honey House Restoration Project for the Panhandle Pioneer Settlement in Blountstown. A request for this project has gone forward. This original early 1900 Honey House is a gift of the Rish Family.
We received a Proclamation from Gov Scott, declaring FL Pollination Week, June 20/26 under the leadership of Past VP Roger Twitchell.

The FL legislature passed new beekeeping law by redefining the term "farmer" to include beekeepers and provide penalties for bee hive theft. Nancy Gentry deserves much credit for this legislature.

The Small Scale Bottlers Committee finally came to an end, after about 5 years of work, when Honey was included in the Cottage food Legislation and now Honey may be bottled and sold lawfully to the ultimate consumer and without the burden of fees and
inspections.

I applied to the EPA for a Section 18 for Hopguard and now FL beekeepers have a new "tool" to treat and control varroa mites. Past President Elmore Herman helped in the endeavor.

Concerning the funds held in a FSBA escrow account for the FL Honey Co-Op Contributors start up fund. I contacted the 24 contributors to dissolve this issue. All but 3 who contributed the $100 amount, have now donated their amount to FSBA General Fund. Checks have been forwarded to the 3 individuals. I wish to thank the 21 beekeepers for their donations.

New permanent name tags for Life Members have been printed and are now being distributed at this convention. This gives special recognition to our Life Member and Extra Milers and will be great to wear when visiting our legislatures, city councils, public meeting and events or anywhere requiring beekeeper identification.

The BOM has met regularly during monthly teleconference calls and in person at the Summer Bee Jubilee summer meeting. A lot of the association activities are addressed and much progress occurs during our usual 1 hour calls. I want to thank the BOM for all their support and help this year to make the FSBA such a great organization to belong to. Thank you all.

No other President has given such a comprehensive report of their activities. The Association owes a debt of thanks to Gary Ranker for keeping the organization on track.

Motion to approve the minutes from last year's meeting as published in the convention brochure by Elmore Herman, seconded by Chappie McChesney. Passed

Executive Secretary's Report: Excerpted from the following e-mail sent to President Ranker concerning specific duties of this position and the compensation involved:

1. Managing the membership database (last year I spent numerous hours on this, entering information from Bert, you and others sending in registration forms). Note that there are now almost 1,000 members; when I took this job over there were 330. Every new member and renewal is sent a confirmation e-mail and an invite to join the Ezine (this is something I have added on my own and might be cut as I get few positive responses from this effort). Membership related duties also include printing and sending out receipt booklets to clubs to help them sign up members, a yearly letter to members whose dues are in arrears (Bert wanted me to do an annual "renewal" letter, which I resisted for a while), a yearly letter to the presidents of each local association, attempting to get a report about their membership status and their officer list. We encourage members to do renew through local clubs, but many are not affiliated with locals and might get missed that way. Updating the web page with relevant information, including updates of local associations (officer changes, events to put up, etc.) The above could all be rolled into duties of "membership management," something a committee might be appointed to oversee in conjunction with website management.
2. Maintaining the FSBA ezine, which includes publishing not only minutes and announcements of the Board of Managers meeting, but also special announcements when necessary. I set up the ezine with the support of Bee Culture; the magazine pays the fee for this in conjunction with its subscription to Ezezine.com. This was my idea as something to be for "members only"; however, perhaps the ezine isn't worth the effort; less than half the members are subscribed after two years struggling to get everyone signed up. We could open it up to be a public ezine, rather than a membership perk, which would eliminate the management issues, but also would mean it no longer is something that we can advertise that is for "members only." Dennis may have some ideas here; one is to eliminate the Ezine and implement what many web sites have, a "members only" area; username and password required, perhaps with an internal "ezine" or members only e-mail service of some kind. A membership directory might be developed and maintained as well via the web site.
3. Entering data on the facebook.com page. This is something new this year; I have already made Dennis Riggs an "admin" ; we both can add information.
4. Writing the minutes to the Board of Managers meetings and general meeting.
5. Writing and publishing the newsletter (4 per yer)
6. Publishing the melitto files inserts (4 per year) - something added that was not in the original job description.
7. Publishing the convention pamphlet (the ad campaign and sending out letters of thanks to advertisers) .

Queen Report: Queen Jayla from the Beekeepers Association of Southwest Florida has attended 20 beekeeping events around Florida, including a major one (viewing of Queen of the Sun and talkback in Gainesville hosted by the Alachua Beekeepers Association, also in conjunction with National Honey Bee Day. She will be going on to Las Vegas in January to compete in the American Beekeeping Federation's selection of the National Honey Queen and Honey Princess. She urged local associations to begin selecting a successor queen. So far, there have been no nominees from any of the twenty-plus local associations that now exist. She thanked everyone on the Association who has helped her during her time as Florida Queen. Queen Committee Chair Beth Fox also reiterated the tremendous contribution of Jayla's parents who have accompanied her during her tenure.

State Fair: Bert Kelley reported that the events at the State Fair in Tampa were the usual success and he is ready to chair the committee for next year's event, February 9-20, 2012 http://www.floridastatefair.com/state-fair He asked those in attendance to consider volunteering for next year. He runs two shifts of two people per day, more on weekends.

Treasurer's Report: Bert Kelley reported that the bank account balance is $58,335.78. Most of the funds provided to begin a Florida honey cooperative several years ago, which didn't get off the ground, were donated back to the Association ($2,150). Dues of $9,375 (625 members) were collected in 2011. The apiary reported taking in $3,170 last year. There are currently over 900 members, but it is difficult to figure out their yearly contribution as dues come in over the entire year and non-renewing members are purged irregularly. The membership report in the Convention brochure and those provided in each newsletter are snapshots only. Thus, in the brochure distributed in Orlando, 926 members were reported included (222) 2010 and (515) 2011 (now up for renewal) and (98) 2012 and later. Also included are (74) life and (17) extra milers. Income producing projects include the State Fair honey sales, the newsletter ad campaign, and association apiary. Income losers are state conventions and other special meetings. Motion to approve the Treasurer's report as presented by Kent Wooldridge, seconded by Byron Teerlink. Passed.

Apiary Report: Vice President Keith Councell said that the association apiary (representing dues of both life members and extra milers as listed in the convention brochure) was in a long-term renovation mode. A new yard of 9 colonies has been established at Mr. Councell's place. Tommy Duggar's yard (approximately 60 hives) provided income of $3,600. These colonies are in need of supers, some of which have been donated by David Mendes and Jerry Latner (Dadant & Sons, Inc.). These hives also presented two (2) barrels of tupelo honey (around $3,000) for bottling and selling at the Tampa State Fair. Lee Del Signore's colonies (48) provided an income of $1,500 and those managed by Elmore Herman (21) resulted in an income of $479.25.

There was a discussion of the arrangement under which these colonies are managed. It is on a 50/50 share basis. Half to the beekeeper-manager and half to the Association.

Legislative Committee Report: In the absence of Tony Hogg, who has been invaluable in sheparding through the Cottage Food Legislation, Roy Smith provided information on the labelling issue. It calls for a certain language in at least 10 point font size, “Made in a cottage food opera-tion that is not sub-ject to Florida’s food safety regulations.” Mr. Smith is working with the administrators in an attempt to clarify this label regulation. This information does not easily fit, for example, on a honey bear. Possibilities include some kind of hanging or a label that can be folded in a way to preserve the wording. More information on the is found at: http://www.freshfromflorida.com/fs/CottageFoodAdvisorySeptember2011.pdf
It is important to bear in mind that cottage food can only be sold to the end user; no middle men, dealers or Internet sales.

Election of Officers: All current officers stated they were willing to serve next year with the exception of Bert Kelley, the Treasurer. The nomination committee brought before the membership the names of Debbie Bohannon and Jonathan Fisher. Nominations from the floor resulted in a third name, Elmore Herman. Debbie Bohannon was elected by paper ballot distributed to those in attendance deemed eligible to vote.

Bylaws Update: Chappie McChesney brought to the convention an updated draft of the bylaws and consititution. An earlier draft was described at the convention last year by Brendhan Horne. Because this project has gone on so long, the Board of Managers voted to bring it to the membership in its entirety for an up or down vote as reported in the minutes of its September 13, 2011 meeting conducted by telephone conference call.

The current consitution states:

Article XI
This constitution may be amended by a two-thirds vote of the members present at any annual meeting, or any special meeting called for that purpose, provided 30 days prior written notice of amendments have been presented to each member. When an amendment is ratified, a copy of said amendment will be included in the next available newsletter to all members of the Association.

However, the bylaws state:

Article X
These by-laws may be amended by two-thirds vote of the members present at any regular or special meeting called for that purpose.
When amendments are made, a reprint will be made to incorporate the changes and printed in the next newsletter. Copies shall be made available to all interested parties upon request.
The current business meeting was indeed announced for this purpose in an ezine post and on the Facebook site, and copies of both the old and new consititution were distributed to the membership via the web site, FSBA Ezine and paper copies at the convention. The vote failed via a paper ballot distributed to those deemed to be eligible to vote. There were 38 no votes and 23 yes votes. The Board of Managers will, therefore, have to establish a new strategy if it wants to continue this initiative in the future.

Discussion of Eastern Apicultural Society representative. There was a report by Betsy Roberts who attended the EAS in Rhode Island last summer as a Florida representative in the convention brochure. David Mendes suggested that Florida should make more of an effort to appoint up to four (4) representatives alloted, and perhaps consider hosting a meeting. This could be best facilitated by the FSBA leadership communicating with EAS in terms of nominating delegates and promoting attendance by Florida beekeepers.

Meeting adjourned at 9:40 p.m.

Respectfully submitted,


Malcolm T. Sanford
Executive Secretary