Cynthia Crawford called the second meeting of the Saline County Fellowship Steering Committee to order at approximately 10 AM on Thursday, November 17, 1999 in the Saline County Extension Center.

The minutes of the October 21 meeting were read and approved as read.

Tweaking of the Saline County L.I.F.E. brochure was done in preparation for a probable second printing.

It was announced that SOS has contributed $1000 to the L.I.F.E. project and that the County Commission has contributed $2500 as seed money. It is likely that $500 will be contributed from Excel funds, but this is not yet official.

It was decided to give each Saline County L.I.F.E. Steering Committee member authorization to grant--on the spot--up to a 50% scholarship if they believe there is a need and it would make a difference in decision making. Awarding such on-the-spot fee reductions should be done with discretion as the committee also decided that we should attempt to keep overall fee reductions to less than 33 1/3%. However, the goal of keeping the overall fee reduction to less than 33 1/3% is not to take precedence over an earlier goal that no interested Saline County citizen be unable to participate because of the cost.

It was decided that the procedure for awarding a total waiver of fees for a participant will be as follows:

• The person applying for the waiver shall submit a written application answering the following questions:
  • Why do you need the scholarship?
  • What do you plan to gain from the Saline County L.I.F.E. program?
  • What community leadership roles are you interested in?
• The application will be either approved or disapproved by the scholarship committee--consisting of Cheryl Zimny (chair) and Mary Ann Gilpin.

Mary Ann reported that the shirt cost will be $25.47 each except that there may be a slight additional charge for XXXL sizes. The $25.47 cost includes the embroidery using up to 3 colors. There is no minimum order. Shirts are unisex style, come in S, M. L, XL, XXL and XXXL, are 100% cotton pre-shrunk and are light blue denim.

For the embroidery the committee decided to use the logo on the front of the brochure with the following changes:

• Enlarged to the size of an enlargement that Gerry made on the copier during the meeting. The dimensions of this enlargement were less than twice the dimensions of the logo on the brochure (we tried twice the size first and that was too big).
• Decrease the font size of 'Saline County' and increase the font size of 'L.I.F.E.'
• Use rainbow thread, if available, for the outline of the county. PMS347 green (printer terminology that only Gerry understands!) was our second choice. So if the county outline turns out to be a pukey green it's all Gerry's fault. :-)
• The lettering is to be done in white.

Cynthia said that she has created a L.I.F.E. notebook which will include--among other things--the mentors and instructors scheduled for each month. Part of a mentor's responsibilities will be to extend friendship to participants, encourage attendance and to quickly greet participants and make them feel welcome as they arrive for a day of the Fellowship. Mentors are expected to work at recruiting participants--especially for the meeting at which they are mentoring. It was decided to waive the fees of the mentors, but they will be considered responsible for any mentor-related expenses that they incur such as--but not limited to--long distance calls to attendees or travel expenses.

On the matter of recruiting it was mentioned that the fee for the fellowship might be tax deductible and that we should clarify this matter so that we can be more definitive when we contact prospective fellows.

We next listed groups that needed to be contacted regarding L.I.F.E. and we designated specific committee members who would be responsible for contacting each group. Some Steering Committee members not present today were given assignments, and Cynthia will contact these members to let them know of their responsibilities. The assignments are as follows:

Steering Committee officers were elected. Tri-chairs were elected. Cheryl will be chair for Steering Committee meetings. Mary Ann will be chair in charge of recruiting. Cynthia will be chair in charge of program content. Mark will be recorder.

The next meeting of the L.I.F.E. Steering Committee is set for Tuesday, December 14 at 10 AM in the Saline County Extension Center.

Cynthia has tentatively scheduled a meeting with presenters to plan for program content on Monday, December 13 at 2 PM at the Saline County Extension Center.

Prior to adjourning a photo was taken by Gerry of the ceremonial presentation of $1,000 from SOS to Saline County L.I.F.E.

Submitted by Mark Belwood