Board Meeting Minutes  MCPP Board of Directors Meeting Minutes March 27, 2022

March 27, 2022

Present: Jerry Brandell, President, Marybeth Atwell, Janet Boyer, Liam Faulkner, David Freiband, Lisa Larson, Shil Sengupta, Elizabeth Waiess, Karen Weber, Peter Wood, Linda Young. Regrets: Michele Rivette

Minutes for February were approved.

Jerry Brandell, President: The focus of the meeting is on the future of MCPP, given that we now have no one stepping forward to fill the roles of president, secretary, or treasurer. Peter Wood has proposed that the time has come to lay down the organization.

Discussion: We need to include the membership in such a decision. But including the membership is not likely to change things. People stepped forward last time. We continue to provide rich programs. Why not continue. Can we do it in a modified way? (PW outlined a proposal to reduce Board meetings, eliminate the role of member-at-large and use interested people to staff the membership and program committees.) If we don’t dissolve now and decide to do that a year from now, who will carry out the needed activities? MPC was once a vibrant organization, providing training and a yearly professional journal as well as programs, with a more robust membership. Now reviving the training seems unworkable. What do we need to do to have an interest group that provides programs, even if not as many as we do now? Answer: we need a psychologist and social worker to oversee their respective CE credits, a treasurer, a web site person and above all someone to get speakers and venues.

We currently have 71 members, down from the average of about 100 that we had years ago.

We’re talking about three things here: getting people to come to events; the number and quality of events we’re prepared to offer; and getting people to be involved in leadership, given that we don’t offer a training program. Seems like we are shifting our identity, but toward what? We could continue to provide programs in a reduced way. The concern here would be the need for some sort of executive oversight so that things don’t fall through the cracks.

The Board decided not to lay down the program at this time, but to write a letter to membership know of the evolution in MCPP that needs to take place.