April 2023 Board Meeting Minutes

IMIYA BOARD MEETING

Thursday April 20, 2023

7:30 PM

ATTENDING

 President: Joanne Pearson

Vice President: open

Treasurer:  Cecilia Huisman

Membership: Suki Kim (Kyoung Suk Kim)

Communications:  Melisa Sweet

Guest: Charlotte Hardwicke (possible secretary position)

Absent: Secretary, Rebecca Wallace

MINUTES

BOARD

  • IYNAUS update : Basecamp meeting MARCH 22, 2023
    • Joanne and Suki attended.
    • During the meeting they talked about changes at IYNAUS, they are hiring a business manager. They are trying to be more supportive towards regions. There is talk about doing board training with each region. There is a pilot program with the Northwest region.
    • They talked about membership and what different regions are doing: teacher gatherings and yoga retreats for members. It sounds like everyone at the meeting expressed the need for more leadership from IYNAUS. We all have volunteers, but we don’t necessarily have the skill set required for the job. Joanne feels the need to assess what our region is about. She suggested maybe sending a survey to members.
  • Convention: IYNAUS is asking  people to lodge on-site at TOWN & COUNTRY
  • Volunteer at Convention
  • Place the ad in the convention brochure. The brochure is already printed. It is possible to put an ad online.
  • Role of Secretary: Charlotte Hardwicke’s interest: She is interested.
  • Role of Vice President: Rebecca Wallace is interested after transitioning from secretary Position
    • Â The board was interested in having Rebecca move to the VP position.
  • Bylaws-review 1 pg
    • Annual meeting by-law
    • What’s the purpose of the annual meeting?
      • Could present a financial picture to members
      • Membership situation: how many members do we have
      • Scholarships report
      • Ask members what they would like to see IMIYA doing.
    • This bylaw talks about voting with members about nominations to the board. No nominating committee currently. It doesn’t appear that that process has been happening for a while. We don’t do this because there aren’t enough volunteers or members.
    • Rewording of bylaw. We may not want to remove this from by-laws. We can keep it in and try to find a nominating committee or we change the language of how we replace board members. Currently, board members solicit interested parties. We can rewrite it but someone else has to approve it. Does IYNAUS need to review as well?

Annual meeting for members. We don’t have an annual meeting for members.

  • Bylaw language re annual meeting: financial picture of the preceding year, approval of the budget for the coming year. This isn’t that feasible with less involved membership.
  • Let’s dedicate the June meeting to bylaws. Board members read the whole thing and come up with ideas and thoughts.
  • Talked about exchanging ideas with other regional organizations and seeing how they are interacting with their members.
  • IYNAUS is providing scholarship money of $950 to each region. Two online scholarships were were awarded. Any unused money is returned to IYNAUS. Names need to be submitted to IYNAUS by April 30.

    SCHOLARSHIP     (MANDY)
  • Update on scholarship applications/recommendations (IMIYA AND IYNAUS)
  • Online scholarship recipient:
    • Debra ? 
    • Bobby
    • At this point, any remaining funds have to go back to IYNAUS. We still have a week and half;  we could see if anyone else is interested in the remaining funds for online scholarship. 
    • Suki can create posts about the convention and see if anyone else is interested in the remaining funds for online scholarship.
  • MEMBERSHIP(Suki):– Update for building community & membership.
  • Thinking about interviewingscholarship  recipients and posting on social media. Do some reels and/or photos at the National Convention to post. 
    • When do we interview them? At the convention. 
    • Do some reels and/or photos at the National Convention to post. 
  • IMIYA Gathering 2023
    • Talked with Leslie that she is planning a gathering (Hands on adjustment workshop) in the summer. Maybe IMIYA could do a collab with Leslie and have IMIYA be part of the gathering 
    • We don’t currently have an event in our region – hard to gain traction with members and potential members. Suki could talk with Angie and see if she is interested in holding a class for members. Plan to brainstorm a little when we are in San Diego.
    • Survey for members. This was discussed last year and decided not to do it. We have all the members’ phone numbers. We could send a text message, Google form, or survey monkey.

       TREASURER (Cecilia)Update: Trademark: Cecilia

  • has paid for this. It has been taken care of.Scholarships: Update
  • on online convention scholarships Budget: Cecilia
  • sent this out after the March 2023 meeting. 
  • We also got 1,025 dollars from IYNAUS from member dues. $275 in January.
  • YOGA AND EQUITY (Melisa/Joanne))
  • Melissa wrote a draft and sent it to board members for review. Do we want to post it to the website?
  • The board is still unsure what to do with the library resources. They are currently in 3 boxes at the past president’s home. Talk with ARCHIVES at the convention. (Joanne & Mandy will volunteer with ARCHIVES. Other organizations have similar issues. 

WEBSITE (Rebecca) 

  • WordPress: Spoke with Annie Catura: The website could be cleaner and more straightforward. Some broken links. Could not find things twice; others were overly prominent. Has further ideas regarding font and headers
  • OUTREACH/COMMUNICATION (Melisa)
  •  Basecamp – March 22, 2023
  • Social Media communication
  • OTHER
  • IMIYA gathering(s) for 2023: TBD
  • IYNAUS Convention 15 – 20, 2023 – IMIYA May meeting could be scheduled during the convention (TBD).
    • Convention in-person meeting for IMIYA board and members. Discussion about having a board meeting that is open to members. We can have a board meeting to discuss board matters and then open it up to general members with the purpose of community-building. 
    • Closer to the convention, pick a date/time. Will need to check the schedule. Maybe we could add the schedule to the minutes. How do we let the members know? Email, instagram maybe both venues. What are we going to talk about with members?
      • Financial picture
      • What they would like to see from IMIYA

 The primary aim of yoga is to restore the mind to simplicity and peace, and free it from confusion and distress.  BKS

MISC:

Mission Statement: The Intermountain BKS Iyengar Yoga Association is committed to serving the Iyengar yoga community, by offering both educational and financial resources to current Iyengar yoga teachers, Iyengar yoga students and the wider yoga community.