SouthSide Early Childhood Center
Board Members Present
Amy Moss
Nikki Rose
Tim Burke
Jason Riney
Katy Wittwer
Angela Cobb
Molly Duncan
Elizabeth George
X Gary Gray
X Lora Gulley
X Wendy Hershey
Jason Hartman
Danielle McPherson
X Rob Warner
Falencia Moore
Kelly Richert
Jim Rubin
Tony Angel
X Julie Thomas Sward
Carolyn Cotta
P Dawn Kotva
Jennifer Scheessele
Alice Coulter
X Katie Nagus
X
X
X
P
P= Phone, X= present in person, A = excused absence
Staff Present
Katie Rahn
6:05 Tim calls the meeting to order
Mission Moment : Katie highlighted the picnic – good attendance, parents enjoyed (a lot of newly enrolled
parents).
II. Consent Agenda (Requires vote to approve)
o Minutes of August Executive Committee meeting
o Forest Park Contract for SouthSide Golf Tournament
Carolyn moved to approve, Jason seconded. Approved unianimously.
III. Strategic Agenda
Tim thinks providing updates on the committee activities will be helpful for the rest of the board – expectations
are not for formal presentations but to share insights of committee activities and ask for support where needed.
2. High Quality Service
Program Committee Update - Elizabeth
Committee has laid out 5 objectives for the next year:
1. Wrestle down what is “the SouthSide Model” so that we can really describe what “it” is. Will ask the
committee to think about a task force to work on this.
2. Professional development – requests come to the committee – there is a lot of variation around what is
submitted. Will develop a process with a template, etc to drive more consistency – goal to have by
January
3. Committee frequently helps with family services events – often very last minute. Going to put together
an annual calendar so can be more proactive – December is the goal.
4. August open house
5. May teacher appreciation
3. Financial Sustainability
Finance Update - Tim – committee is working on the budget
Development Committee Update - Tim - doing something different this year – starting with how much do
we think we CAN raise, rather than what finance says we need to raise. Opportunities around increasing the
number of major donors (>$1000) - only have about 26 of these – AND increasing the ask of major donors. Had
a discussion about the board’s role in driving the fundraising and the positives of this year’s approach. Katie R.
made the point that board members don’t have to do the ask but they do need to connect us. Need to push the
board members to make firm commitment around who they can introduce to SouthSide. We’re also going to ask
board members to re-commit each year. Danielle – do we have a list of specific people that are not donating that
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SouthSide Early Childhood Center
we would like to target? Tim agreed that it is a great idea and we need to do more. Tony asked about what we
would spend additional money for: Katie R. and Tim answered: Teacher salaries, stabilizing the funding of some
of our key programs as well as beginning an endowment. Elizabeth suggested that we educate the board on what
they should do at events in terms of mingling with potential donors, etc. at events.
4. Communication and Visibility
Mar/Com Update - Katie W. A lot of current activity. Initially focused on full pay student recruitment –
that seems to be going well so moving more towards branding – look and feel of our printed material, etc. Have
brought on a graphic designer to help with this. The committee would like to engage the designer on an on-going
basis – investigating cost to see if feasible to budget. Also looking at focused event marketing and creating a
calendar of what needs to happen and spread some of the work more. Katie Nagus is on the committee and with
her strong background in media communications, she has created a media planning calendar for the staff to write
articles about key early childhood topics to get SouthSide’s name in the community as an expert in this space.
The committee is also exploring other publicity opportunities such as awards, etc that we can apply for. Tony
suggested SouthSide branded coloring books to pass out in the community – educational and gets our brand out..
Julie suggested tying some of the marketing to work to development activity such as planned giving. ASK: the
Marketing sub-committee needs 2-3 additional members.
5. Talent Management
HR Committee Update - Katie R.
Focusing on task force. Discussed the role of the committee: policy and procedures, performance management,
general HR issues, etc. Tony asked for a copy of the HR policies. ASK: this committee is also looking for new
members
Governance Committee – Jason – meeting tomorrow. Will focus on strategic recruitment and aligning
with development
IV. Announcements
 Danielle has agreed to be our YP liaison and is working on the re-launch of the group.
 We received the Ok from United Way to go forward with our Trivia social media campaign. We’re
picking up on table purchases. Reminder to buy your tickets
 Katie R: We’ve been asked to endorse “Raise your hands for kids” - initiative to increase tobacco tax to
support early childhood. The staff feels like this is a good policy (not perfect) – endorsed by other
prominent early childhood groups. It promotes a shared delivery model. Katie is comfortable that we
should endorse this. Per Elizabeth, the convenience marts and gas stations have come out against this and
they are promoting a different tax that would be lower and they have a lot more money and others are
trying to get the money to go to higher ed so it’s important that we support this and focus it on early
childhood. If board members could write letters as individuals that would be helpful as well. Katie has
sent out information on the initiative to the board.
 11/17 Forum on early childhood education and our community’s future. Business and early childhood
partners at the Nine Network. Information will be sent to the board about this event.
 Tim has a form that he’s put together to help for planning for 2016 – mission and objectives of each
committee for 2016. This will enable us to do more continuous strategic planning.
 We are not in compliance with our bylaws - they state that the executive committee is supposed to meet
every month. So Tim is going to put out a call in meeting out there to make sure we meet each month.
(this will cover any months when neither the full board or the executive committee have a face to face
meeting scheduled)
 Tim is suggesting that the marketing committee should be a full committee rather than a sub-committee of
the Development committee. Elizabeth suggested that we be careful about creating “forever” committee.
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SouthSide Early Childhood Center
Jason suggested that consider combining Governance and HR. Considerations are that committees take
up a lot of staff time and creating a new one requires an update to our by-laws so may want to run with
this as an Ad-hoc sub-committee of the development committee to test. No actions suggested or taken at
this time.
V. Other Business - none.
7:10 Meeting adjourned.
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