Board of Directors Meeting Minutes 2024-11-04

OCIA Nebraska

Board of Director’s Zoom Meeting

Monday November 4, 2024---7:00 p.m.

Roll Call:  Rick Schuchardt, Karen Ostry, Simeon Mosel, Genny Mosel, Dustin Blair, Kim Mosel, Heather Lurz

President Simeon called the meeting to order at 7:03 pm.  Minutes were sent to all board members and read.  A motion was made by Rick, seconded by Genny and approved by all present.

Treasurer report dated 11-3-2024 for time period of 7-26-2024 to 10-16-2024.

Income for this time period totaled $315.00 from memberships, income to the LPL Financial account was $649.47 from dividends.  I got a call from Furstenau Financial on the fees for the LPL Financial.  I directed them to take the fees out of the dividend.  Expenses were as follows:  Advertising-$125.00, Conferences-$210.00, Supplies-$153.00, Food and Dining-$164.72, Labor-$1380.00, Mileage-$841.92, Promotional-$1888.86, Scholarship-$500.00, Office Supplies-$40.49, Totaling-$5304.49.  Balance as of 10-16-2024 was $24,593.41.  Furstenau Financial money market account:  According to the Quicken report, the LPL Financial balance is $55,013.70.

Received $12,000 from the TOPP Program for making of farm videos.

Motion was made by Karen to accept the treasurer’s report, seconded by Rick and approved by all.

Program Administrators report:  Tim Johnson decided not to continue with the chapter after two years of transitioning.  Mark and Candy Masek will join the OCIA Nebraska chapter in 2025.  There are 69 members with Chad Hurrell not paid up for his membership.

Old Business:  Preparing Annual Meeting for Jan. 4, 2025.  Speakers for Annual Meeting so far are Margaret Smith from Albert Lea Seedhouse, MN will do a Zoom meet with us rather than traveling for half an hour speaking engagement.  She’ll send her presentation in December for us to review.  It will be mostly about oats and other small grains.  Rick can add to her talk about his experience with growing oats in Nebraska. Can’t get hold of Mark Smith from S&G to be a speaker.  Reaching out to Scoular for a talk on grains.  Dustin will talk to John Meuret from Dakota City if he will be able to share his knowledge with the chapter.  Rick suggested to ask Dave Vetter to talk about popcorn in Nebraska.  The speakers will be presenting from 1:00 p.m. to 2:30 p.m. then a farmer panel from 2:30 p.m. to 3:00 p.m. Press release will direct people to OCIA Nebraska website for more information.  Philip Schuchardt will help with the website for the channel on YouTube for videos on farming.

EZ texting took a little work, but it is in place for our members.  BOD had texts sent to them and it worked.  We need work on having a website link on the text to OCIA Nebraska website.  The next texts will go out to the members near Dec. 15th and Jan. 3rd before the Annual Meeting.

New Board Member nominations and bios for the Annual Meeting:

Andrew Texley from Albion, NE

Aaron Hoefer from Battle Creek, NE

Matt Adams from Seward, NE

There may be more nominations on the ballot.  Rick has been calling potential candidates.  Ryan Volk has not participated in the Board of Directors.   A letter will be sent to him and ask him to resign his position if he doesn’t have time to be active.  If he doesn’t respond in a month, we’ll consider him resigned.  We need to call Heather Lurz as our BOD Alternate and ask her if she wants to become an active member.

Chapter Trifold Brochure:  Genny is working on it, but she’s not satisfied with the clip art.  Rick and Philip will help with finding pictures for printing the brochure.

New Business:  NSAS in Nebraska City on January 31 and February 1, 2025.  Keep posted as date comes closer whether to have a booth there for OCIA Nebraska.

Genny suggested we set up a better booth at Husker Harvest Days and other places.  She would like to see more ways to educate the public with asking questions and winning a prize rather than just handing out free stuff.  We could dress up our booth to make it more welcoming.

Dec.5 UNL Organic Transition Meeting at Utica Research Center. 

Kearney, NE has an ag-expo on Nov. 19-21. Rick will take care of the booth.

Lincoln, NE has there ag-expo Dec. 10-12

Rick made a motion to move our 5 organic farming videos from YouTube to our OCIA Nebraska Website.  Seconded by Dustin and all approved.

Rick made a motion to add to our supplies with roadside signs, tour signs and dolly cart with Kim choosing the materials.  Seconded by Genny and all approved.

Next Zoom meeting will be on Monday Dec. 2 at 7:00pm to finish up the agenda for the Annual Meeting.

Karen made a motion to adjourn the meeting, seconded by Rick and all approved.