Webmaster’s Note** - At the 10/28/06 meeting the minutes for the 6/26/06 meeting were approved. Below are the minutes from that meeting.

ATTENDING: Homer Lane, Tom Lyndon, Al Prescott, Bob Boder, Karen Atkinson, Barr Clayson, Bob Seltzer, Will Wright and Kim Goodwin.

Before the meeting started, George Sichelstiel called to say he would be a few minutes late. It was therefore decided to proceed with the first item on the agenda.

Meeting started at 10:30 AM.

1). Review and Approval of the February 26, 2006 meeting minutes. The minutes of the previous February 26, 2006 board meeting were reviewed with a correction to Harvard T-Shirt paragraph removing item iii. The minutes were approved.

2). Activities Report:

George arrived at 10:40 during discussion of financials statements for FY ending 3/31/06.

a. Fiscal Year ending 3/31/06 Financial Statements. There was discussion about changing the tax date to provide for issuing a cleaner presentation of the financial. The consensus of the Board was not to make a change in the fiscal year end but rather to improve the report format.

b. There were 1362 NEM members as of 5/22/06. This is less than the 1451 members the Club had in October 2005. While there will be some more registrations before October it was noted that much of the apparent decline in membership is actually movement of NEM members to the Great Bay Masters.

c. One Hour Postal Swim. A discussion of likes/dislikes was held with comments about improvements by Al, Barr and Tom.

d. Short Course Nationals. NEM had 39 entrants in the meet in Coral Springs, FL and finished sixth overall with 906 points. Discussion ensued that the camaraderie of the team was disappointing this year, that perhaps we need to get a block of rooms together and run a few workouts locally for the meet entrants in advance.

e. Other Comments – New England SCY Championships, Clinics. Bob reported that the clinics were going well. 12-18 sessions in Manchester and 13 at Bob’s location. Scott called Homer complimenting us that the clinics were a good idea and NEM should do more.

There was discussion on the different charges for NEM/non-NEM and whether this discouraged participation of non-NEM attendees. Also discussed were our objectives in holding clinics; stoke improvement, access to good coaching and general development. Al commented that clinics tie-in with those who like to compete in helping NEM clinic attendees become better swimmers and can have the benefit of encouraging non-NEM attendees to join NEM and participate in meets.

Some other comments; increase in Swim Camp do cut into clinics, not being able to schedule and have open-water clinic and doing videos at the clinics. Tom suggested the club consider buying a video ‘coach cam’ or ‘Super Scope’. Bob added that ‘Agua Cam’ works well too. Al brought up the issues of scheduling, publishing clinic/events on the calendar and coordinating with other events (time and geography). The calendar of events within driving distance is filling up (good news) and offering events every weekend with multiple events on a given date (sometimes bad news).

f. Mini meets. Karen reported on the status of mini-meets. She has heard back from Wheaton and Northeastern as possibilities this year. There were a good number of meets however many were ‘after the fact’ planned during the season. Al added that Maine Masters had 5 mini-meets January through March. Karen noted that we are averaging 25-30 swimmers at the mini-meets. The first LCM meet this year will be at the Jenny Thompson pool in Dover, NH on July 23rd.

Homer added that NEM is still waiting for its share of proceeds from the SCY Championship meet run by the Cambridge Masters.

Al then passed out a Communications Report. The remaining issues on the Agenda were addressed during discussion of the Communications Report. Al started with discussion about the handling of the NEM E-News. He explained that there was some disagreement on whether the E-News should be distributed on an “opt-out” or an “opt-in” basis. After a brief discussion of the pros & cons he asked for a vote and the majority of the attendees agreed that every NEM member should be sent the E-News with the option to be able to remove their name from the mailing list.

He moved on to announce that the new NEM website is running however the club is in need of a new webmaster. He noted that Nate McBride has resigned as Webmaster and as Treasurer. Laurie Damianos had also submitted her resignation as Editor of the Newsletter.

Al then requested that we discuss and set a policy regarding (and pricing) advertising in the Newsletter. Do we want to get into advertising? Supporting the costs of the Newsletter? Is accepting advertising an issue/non issue in regard to the clubs ‘non profit’ status? The attendees discussed what constitutes advertising versus promotion. A consensus developed that it may be good to do advertising but we should track expenses carefully, i.e. costs/revenues related to web site and newsletter advertising.

3) A New Organization Chart and Job Descriptions were available but not handed out. Discussion ensued regarding the positions of club officers, Board members and other volunteer positions. Homer provided clarification that VP of Communication as well as the VP of Mini-Meets were volunteer positions. During the discussions and in light of the recent resignations Barr asked that we focus on the process of filling these positions. Barr commented that we are all volunteers in NEM and not to dwell on personalities. Karen added that only Board members are elected and can vote and not on volunteers who are appointed. Discussion continued on the organization ‘structure’ with Barr suggesting that the Board take the proposed structure under consideration, holding further discussion during the summer.

Following this discussion Homer reported that he had asked Al to resign from his present position of VP of Communications but to remain on the Board as a director. Homer felt that Al could best serve the Club as a Board member rather than in a supervisory position. Homer cited three recent resignations as his reasons for requesting the change. There was lengthy discussion among the Board members to Homer’s request and Al’s desire to continue in his current role. With no immediate resolution to this issue, and in light of the need to fill the critical vacancies in the club, Barr suggested that we wait 60 days on Homer’s call for Al to resign. In that time, he and Tom will speak to Board members individually concerning the issue making a recommendation to the Homer and the Board. Bob Seltzer brought to the attention of the Board that the VP of Communications is an appointed position and that the decision regarding that role is that of the President.

The following agenda items were briefly touched on with the decision to include them in the regular annual NEM Board Meeting in October.

• Proposed new Scoring Divisions for Workout Group Championships
• New Approach for the NEM Newsletter
• Delegates for the USMS National meeting
• Discussion of new profit sharing approach to NEM sponsored events
• Possible Trade Marking of NEM
• Developing NEM Championship Meet Guidelines
• Nomination Committee – Activation & Succession Planning

The meeting adjourned at 1:00PM.

Minutes respectfully submitted: George Sichelstiel, Secretary