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It's a great day at Michael Leavitt & Co Home Inspections! It has to be better than last week. You know the old adage that when you are at rock bottom, things can only get better. Words of encouragement are always appreciated by those dragging their knuckles, and I feel like I have been emotionally beat up this past week. As to last week's MMM Dip Tube information, you all must have already been dip tube experts because not one peep of feedback was shared..... Imagine that!?!?
Last week was full of many different
emotional struggles. Most of them will eventually grace the pages
of future Monday Morning Messengers. At this point, I will say
this...... Those of you who think that your liability is limited
to your clients only haven't experienced what I have. Others involved
in the transaction can provide equal stress in your lives and
damage to your pocketbooks. At one point during this past week
I was heard to mumble to my lovely wife..... "If we didn't
have E&O insurance right now the situation would be miserable."
If you don't have E&O, get it. It is one of the few items
that will let you rest at night when the non-client threats come
like flaming arrows at the bullseye that they have carved on your
back. Even with E&O, the stress and confrontations with non-clients
are emotionally draining.
AII™
BOARD MEETING MINUTESMMM EDITOR'S NOTE: Thanks should be given to Rick DeBoard who carefully documented the following minutes. It is not easy to go to a Board Meeting and document the events discussed. It is even more difficult when they are published electronically to the membership. I encourage all of you to send e-mails of thanks for the service that he is providing to the Association. Rick can be contacted via e-mail at: rickd@vom.com
American Institute
of Inspectors
Board of Director's Minutes
February 13, 1999
Board Members Present: Brent Foster, Steve
Bradley, Scott Merritt, John Griffin, Rick DeBoard, Randy Roth,
Ron Cloyd, Scott DeWitz, Bill Ball, Paul Domyancic, Bill Porter,
Patrick Ryan, Sarah Harrison.
Guests Present:
Don Kinney
Call To Order: Call to order was given at
10:38 AM by Chairman Brent Foster, and Introductions of members
immediately followed.
A) Agenda:
B) Budget
Profit & Loss statement was approved unanimously for 1998. The Board unanimously approved that the Budget for 1999 shall be temporarily the same as that of 1998, and that the budget be reviewed at every board meeting and revised as necessary.
C) Audit of Books
It was unanimously approved by the Board that the Association's financial records would be audited by two members of the Association on an annual basis. Brent will appoint someone for this duty, and Randy Roth will provide them with the appropriate records.
D) Monday Morning Messenger
In conversations between Michael Leavitt and Brent Foster, a plan was worked out for the continuation of the Monday Morning Messenger. Michael wants to continue the MMM, and Sarah isn't getting much help with the A.I.I. Newsletter, so the newsletter will be incorporated into the MMM. For this endeavor the Association will pay Michael Leavitt an annual fee of $2,400, much of which will be offset by the elimination of newsletter expenses. The Board unanimously approved this action. There will be a written agreement and Michael shall have legal copyright to the articles in the MMM. This will be an incentive to members to get online, but members who are not online will not be totally left out. The proposal is that one of the jobs of the webmaster would be to take pertinent information from the MMM and put it into a newsletter quarterly to be mailed to members who are not online.
F) Continuing Education
The Board unanimously approved revisement of the continuing education guidelines from last Board meeting as follows: 1) The types of approved continuing education shall be limited to subjects relating to the real estate industry or the home inspection industry. 2) Documentation of hours contributed to continuing education shall be submitted along with the member's annual dues and shall be self-governed. 3) The existing committee shall decide on the number of credits for the various categories.
H) New Committees
A Federal Licensing Committee was formed for determining the
Association's policy regarding federal licensing. Bill Ball will
assist on this committee since he already has invested time in
researching this subject. Brent will appoint someone to be committee
chairman.
The Board approved, with one declining vote, to change the title
"Certified Trainer" to "Certified Educator".
Brent appointed the existing Certified Educators to a committee
for the establishment of standards and procedures for the training
of inspectors. This committee shall also be responsible for responding
to complaints against Certified Educators.
J)
Website Development
Steve Bradley submitted a rough description of a website development
and maintenance plan to the Board for discussion. This plan was
verbally proposed by someone that Steve knows in the website design
business. The Board was generally agreeable that we need a viable
presence on the Internet and it was decided that Steve would get
a written proposal from this webmaster and also from another source
for comparison. He will also provide the Board with financial
figures to see how this will impact the budget. Some of the ideas
discussed for funding this expense included charging a fee for
having a member's web page linked to the Association's website,
using banner advertisements, and increasing the dues a few dollars
a year. Some concerns expressed were that a website in itself
would not necessarily bring in new business if there was no marketing
plan in place to attract website visitors, and also that the verbal
proposal from this webmaster included some of the duties of the
Executive Director and we don't know of his qualifications for
these duties.
Ideas which were expressed which might be incorporated into the
web page are: Links to inspector web pages, listing policy statements
and training guidelines, link to the MMM and many others.
L)
Mid-Year Conference
After much discussion it was unanimously approved that there is
not enough time to prepare for a mid-year conference, therefore
we will devote the time and energy to insure that the Annual Meeting/Conference
is an exceptional one.
M) Annual Meeting/Conference
Most of the conversation was regarding combining our annual meeting with the national convention of the Housing Inspection Foundation, an association of home inspectors and real estate appraisers. We would be sharing facilities and expenses with H.I.F. in an effort to put on a more attractive and exciting conference and be able to do so at more of a profit. The idea was attractive to the Board and information will be e-mailed to the Board members regarding the financial arrangements with H.I.F. If necessary, a virtual Board meeting or an e-mail vote will be held after receiving the information.
N) Presenter Compensation
Discussion was held regarding annual meeting speaker benefits. There is a current policy in effect and it was decided that this policy would be put in writing.
O) Executive Director
Brent Foster presented to the Board his idea of doing away with the Executive Director position and distributing the duties of that office to several different people. Some of the duties he would take on himself, others would be handled by the proposed webmaster, others would still be handled by Sarah Harrison. This idea is still before the Board, as it is an integral part of the web page design and maintenance proposal.
Adjourn: 2:20 PM
PRESIDENT'S
PERSPECTIVETo all AII™ members:
I wish to congratulate all of the participants of our first Board Meeting held this year. Everyone participated and contributed greatly to the success of this meeting. Thank you for your insight and expertise in making this meeting a success. Especially all of the members who had to travel and take time away from their families.
I encourage
all AII™ members to attend all of our Association Board Meetings
whenever possible.
AII™ held the first Board Meeting for 1999 on February 13, in Sacramento, CA. We all accomplished a tremendous amount of business while in session, even though we didn't complete all of the items on the agenda.
It is my intention to keep all of the membership informed on the results of this meeting and any subsequent Board Meetings this year.
The minutes of the meeting have been submitted to the MMM for inclusion for all members to review.
I want to share with each of you a "thumbnail sketch" of some of the topics discussed. I will be addressing one or more topics each week in the order they appeared in the past MMM.
BUDGET
Our first item on the agenda concerned the 1999 to year 2000 budget--The Millennium!
This year's operating budget was presented to the Board as a mirror to the 1998 to 1999 budget. It had been determined the membership had not grown substantially and the ongoing expenses were within reasonable guidelines.
After discussion, the proposed 1999 budget was approved.
AUDIT
The following item on this topic concerned the requirements for an annual audit of our Association's income and expenses for the fiscal year of 1998 to the present.
This motion passed and will be performed by two members of our Board.
During the course of discussions the board also agreed to draft a policy statement letter concerning our Annual meeting presenter room accommodations to prevent any misunderstandings or misconceptions that various AII™ members may have had.
The letter will be drafted and the Board agreed to the following:
Any AII™ member who is a presenter at our annual meeting will (and I believe this will include a mid-year conference if we choose to have one) receive a complimentary room at the facility we are conducting the meetings at for each day they are presenting.
A non-AII™ member who is a presenter will receive an honorarium and also receive the same courtesy as an AII™ member presenter as acknowledged above.
MONDAY MORNING MESSENGER
I am sure all of you who are on the Internet agree with me and the Board Members that Michael Leavitt, our premier author of the MMM and frequent conscience-raising past President, has been performing an outstanding function for our organization. To ensure our AII™ Membership will continue receiving the MMM, the Board agreed to compensate Michael for his outstanding publication he presents to us each and every week.
With this, I am closing for now. I trust you have found the information informative and should any of you have any questions please do not hesitate to contact me at: www.inspector@oregonhomeinspector.com.
Respectively, Steve Bradley - AII™
President 1999
ALWAYS REMEMBER THOSE WHO SERVEQUOTABLE QUOTES: "No success in life can compensate for failure
in the home" David
O. McKay
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AII™
Web Site: www.INSPECTION.org