Notes from the OPN meeting on November 15, 2006

Attending: MJ (president), Cher, Mike (from Lima), Jenni, Ed (treasurer), Rob
No Quorum

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Topic: Sponsor Testimony Hearing 11/15
Discussion: OPN President, MJ, brought flowers and donuts to Senator Hagan's office as a 'thank you'. Brandy, MJ, and Michael met in Senator Hagan's office and went to the hearing with him. In his testimony, second on the docket, the Senator spoke about his ailing parents, asking committee members what they would do in that position. It was very moving. He spoke about 5-10 minutes. Chairperson Clancy asked for questions from the committee, but none were asked. Only 5 or so committee members were in attendance. With that, SB 74's Sponsor Testimony was over, and Senator Hagan moved on to another bill he introduced concerning the Canfield Fair. What WE want is the second hearing with proponent testimony, and we need to persuade committee members to ask for another hearing via our letters and phone calls. Dee Dee, Joe, Brandy, MJ, and Miles visited almost all of the offices of Criminal Justice Committee members, with about 5 saying they would request a proponent hearing for patient stories. At least two Senators agreed to press for the hearing. If we are granted this hearing, it won't be next Wednesday (11/22), but more likely 11/29, 12/6, or 12/13. We all agreed that we have about a 50/50 chance of having this hearing before the end of the year.

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Topic: Housekeeping and Other Internal Business
Discussion:
- OPN e-mail addresses -- Some people who are no longer involved, shouldn't necessarily keep OPN email addresses. <president@ohiopatient.net> is nearly all spam. Since there is no legitimate email coming in, Jenni can easily change delete that account. Jenni to disable <president@ohiopatient.net>
- Proxies -- All board members should have a proxy appointed. Brandy has Ed's proxy unless she's not here, then MJ.

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Topic: Website & Newsletter
Discussion:
- OPN Snail Mail Newsletter -- A print newsletter will have to be done totally separately from OPNews. OPNews drives people to the website to read the full stories. But some people aren't online or will pick it up just for reading material and go to the website. We can do it using the same content as OPNews, but I would have to completely format it. But you also have to have someone (s) to do the mailing, too. Could have a quarterly mailing party.

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Topic: Treasurers Report
Discussion:
- Toll Free Number -- (Please see Motions) Because of the cost, we need to stop using the Toll Free number for personal communications. The bulk of the cost is the phone card. It might be more appropriate to look into cell phones or using Skype or Paltalk.

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Topic: Outreach
Discussion:
- Video -- Miles who attended the hearing and lobbied with us is a degreed videographer. Ed to get in contact with Miles to follow-up.

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Topic: Membership
Discussion: Our goal has been to move to dues paying memberships by the first of the year, but we have to figure out nuts and bolts and who is going to handle this. One idea as to cost is $25 a year plus a $10 Kroger gift card.

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Topic: Fundraising Ideas
Discussion:
- Food Tasting Event -- As we were talking after the hearing, we stumbled upon the idea of having a food tasting event modeled on a chili cookoff. This could dovetail with cancer and AIDS communities. We could partner with health food stores and restaurants.