In attendance: Forrest Parker, Michelle Marie, Braden Elliott, Sydney Householder, Danny Ritter, Wren Keturi, Eric Coker (after his substitute teaching); guest members Sneha Gantla (B-Team), John Osborne (briefly); Ashley Bromley, Angela McClendon
Meeting called to order at 10:15 AM
Minutes from 4-23-13 meeting – Approved!
Email Decisions – (1) Decided on dates for the Strategic Retreat; (2) Approved Ashley signing up for the May 5 Safe Space Training (instead of the June one that conflicts with StratRet).
Bargaining Update (from B-Team member Sneha) – First session was Thursday the 25th. The teams learned (more) about IBB, discussed ground rules, and talked about some language changes. Subsequent meetings were scheduled for most of the remaining Mondays and Thursdays of the term, next being May 6th. Then on Saturday the 27th, CGE’s B-Team met for a day of training, ground rules, and discussion of our bargaining goals. We’ve sent a long list of general goals to OSU with a note that we’ll update it when we’ve analyzed the survey results.
GMM Recap – We had some positive comments about the delicious food (although the ratio of beans to everything else was a little off). We need to remember to bring our own can opener and knife! There was some difficulty in the meeting when (1) a lot of people were chatting and (2) a lot of people left after eating. In the future we’ll try to have a clearer separation between eating time and business time. We need to work on making sure members know we need to get business done at the GMMs. We also might try paring down the number of agenda items. All the C&B amendments were passed (with a little amendment) and we’ll get those on the website pretty soon.
Solidarity Fair – It’s this Saturday at 11 AM! We still need to get a few CGE volunteers lined up. We’ll contribute $30 worth of chips and dips (including pretzels for necklaces).
Budget Report – Forrest has a YTD expense report with a couple of notes and recommended changes. (1) We’ll cancel our third phone line that we’d gotten for the RA Campaign; Angela will do that. (2) The over-budget in office supplies/equipment is mostly investment in furniture/making the new office work. (3) The over-budget in recruit/orient lit is because we needed new membership cards – they’ll last a while. (4) We have extra funds in the staffing expenses items because we didn’t have an organizer for a couple months. (5) We need to increase the bargaining sessions/committees item since we’ve started up intensive bargaining; we’ll put $300 toward bargaining committee and $200 toward member participation. (6) We’ve spent extra in the RA Campaign item because we had a big recognition party. (7) We need to look into the costs of fruit trees to donate as compensation for paper use in the campaign. (8) Michelle has advanced the brilliant idea of cold/hot water in the office; she will look into the pricing. (9) Michelle proposed getting a small CGE pick-up for moving food ‘n stuff around; she’ll look into costs/insurance.
Steward Elections – Nominations are now closed: we have 34 nominees in 26 (of 49) areas! Braden will send an all-member reminder email just before the election email goes out this afternoon so people know to look for it. Make sure you tell everyone you know to vote!
Ed Ray Meeting – This is next Thursday, May 9th, at 10 AM. Alas! this conflicts with bargaining, so we’ll have fewer people able to attend: Wren, Braden, and Michelle can go. Michelle will talk about work-life balance and whether anyone is available in OSU HR for members to talk with when they have issues with that balance. Other potential topics are family/medical leave, e-campus tuition coverage, and “by the way, we’re bargaining.” We’ll take a retirement gift to Mark McCambridge (a t-shirt, a card, maybe chocolate?).
Alta Gracia Update – The university has agreed to use some fair-trade/labor-friendly apparel!
Meeting adjourned at 11:50 AM