First meeting was a success! Next up, scholarships!

After some short introductions the foundation of the Foundation was built this past weekend when the Erickson Merkel Foundation held its first Board of Directors meeting.
The meeting couldn’t have gone better, and its doubtful that a more enthusiastic team could have been found anywhere.
Some background on the Foundation from incorporators Eric Jungels and Chris Erickson served as a precursor to the meeting, followed by a quick background on Robert’s Rules of Order to ensure smoothly run meetings in the friendly setting.
The first order of business was brought up by Jungels, who noted that the board would still be well-served by adding a few more members, bringing the total up to an even 20. Directors agreed to continue recruiting efforts. Those who had signed on by the time of the meeting were then split into three groups to help stagger elections for the future. For the time being, they were split into 1-year terms, 2-year terms, and 3-year terms, to better offset any internal elections and ensure that the board would not have to be completely rebuilt every three years. This also gave those directors new to board service a chance to get their feet wet while foregoing any major time commitment.
The organizational structure was then put into place, with Sean Merkel being nominated and approved as Board President. Eric Jungels was confirmed as Executive Director. Paul Jungels will serve as Finance Director, Chris Erickson will serve as Communications Director, JulieAnn Bischof will serve as Scholarship Director and Jeff Hare will serve as Web and Technology Director. Eric, Paul, Chris, JulieAnn and Jeff later signed the Articles of Incorporation, which will go into effect January 1, 2015.
The next agenda item found the board discussing reasonable goals for fundraising, ultimately coming to the conclusion that each director would pay a $100 annual due that would go toward operations costs. Fundraising goals for the first year would hover around $6,000, bringing each individual’s average responsibility to around $300.
Sales kits and marketing materials will be put together by Chris and Eric to ensure that each and every director has the materials needed to help raise scholarship monies for next year and beyond.
During those talks, committee assignments were made, including a communications committee to focus on refining mission and philosophy language, and a scholarship committee that would brainstorm ideas to refine criteria.
With the groundwork laid, the foundation’s organizational meeting concluded with the goal of applying that $6,000 to three scholarships to be awarded next spring.
The next meeting will take place in early March to select scholarship awardees.