MCPP Board of Directors Meeting  May 2025 Minutes

Virtual Meeting, May 23, 2025, 9am-10:30am

Present: David Freiband, Marissa Keep, Linda Young, Shil Sengupta, Miriam Lorrain, Tamra Frei, Alex Houseknecht, Elizabeth Waiess, Robert Cohen, Lisa Larson

President: D. Freiband

Voted to approve Sengupta’s April Minutes, factoring in the feedback that he has received on corrections from Freiband as well as other members of the Board. Young seconded. Board passed unanimously.

Status of recruiting Co VP for Programs and President-Elect

• No current candidate for President Elect
• Lorrain  has spoken with another candidate for Member-at-Large

Introduction of Prospective Co VP: Alex Houseknecht, PhD

•  Provided his background and curiosity related to this position including background and exposure to relational psychoanalysis,
• Encouraged input from the Board with respect to selecting speakers but emphasized that he is open to and flexible with varying degrees of input.
• Freiband specifically offered to provide input, especially in this time of transition.
• Conversation ensued about Houseknecht’s joining the Board
• Lorrain clarified one constraint: that Houseknecht would not be readily available to attend in-person meetings if they were to occur, given his primary residence in Grand Rapids.
• However, this is unlikely to be a major issue since the organization will only have two in person meetings next year with the others being virtual.
• Freiband moved that Alex Houseknecht be approved for Co-VP of Programs for MCPP. Young seconded. Houseknecht was unanimously approved.

Board Members’ Transition Announcement

 Mirriam Lorrain

• Lorrain announced that she will be going on maternity leave, which will prevent her from moderating meetings and attending Board Meetings  October and November of 2025.
• However, she will be available during this interval to send emails related to her position.
• She tentatively plans on being available full time starting Winter 2026.

 Elizabeth Waiess

• Will have to step away from the Board starting in Autumn 2025
• Is available to take on the bylaws role
• Freiband asked if we need somebody on the board to be on an ethics/bylaws position to satisfy APA requirements to be authorized to provide CEs.
• Waiess responded that Arthur Brickman was previously the bylaws expert prior to stepping away, but we’ve not had anyone in that position since.
• Waiess clarified that, according to our bylaws, we are supposed to review it periodically, which Waiess is willing to do.
• Lorrain clarified that having a bylaws person is a way of demonstrating to the APA that we have a person who  attends to key APA criteria (disability, accessibility, etc).
• Lorrain will send APA criteria, requirements to Waiess.
• Freiband will ask Weber to put Waiess down for that role on the website.
•  Freiband will follow up with Waiess periodically to provide input, regarding requirements and changes to the bylaws.
• Frei mentioned that she needs to refer to bylaws when she provides information for liability insurance

President-Elect Position

• Freiband described pressing issue that, despite having a healthy organization, MCPP needs to fulfill this key leadership position.
• Board discussed possibility of a more stripped down President Elect position given that individual members on the Board could take on distinct facets of this leadership position, allowing the position to be less daunting.
•   Freiband will check in with Arthur Brickman and ask him if he would be interested in being President

Treasurer: T. Frei

• UMCU Accounts went down from 15,172.65 to 12,692.93 in recent month.
• Offset by approximately $1500 increase in Schwab Account
• Total net worth down, but only marginally.
• Main expenses: Hazel Ip presentation, $570 deposit for Paesano (banquet), $800 for Kristen Dahl presentation, $800 for Social Work CEUs
• Young alerted Frei that yearly fee for Zoom will be coming up imminently, and that she will be in touch with her regarding this.

Co-Vice Presidents of Programming: M. Lorrain

New MCPP Presentation Proposal

• Lorrain received presentation proposal from Jerry Brandell, former President of MCPP.
• Proposal is a multimedia presentation on the link between Psychoanalysis & Film, which works best in-person.
• Freiband described that this is more realistic to schedule for the year after the upcoming calendar year, 2026-2027, unless there is a cancellation,
• Freiband suggested Lorrain ask about the blocks of time that Brandell will be available (since Brandell tends to have an extensive travel schedule).

ACCESS Program Update

• Key Issue: not good supply of active supervisors though we have advertised this program.
• Young suggested that given that there are issues to resolve with the ACCESS program, to not announce it for today’s session.
• Board will wait until Sonya Freiband can speak to us in Fall, before making further announcements about the program publicly

Committee Reports

Website:  Karen Weber

• All is good with the website
• Weber and Sengupta are in the process of adding Meeting Minutes to the website

Co VPs of Membership:  Linda Young and Lisa Larson

• Nothing to report

Social Liaison:  Marissa update about coordinating spring banquet.

• We have 12 people signed up (which includes Board members).
• We have set the deadline of June 2^nd to allow more people to sign up.
• Freiband suggested prompts to encourage people to sign up soon.
• Keep will send Weber message to send out email reminder for the Banquet
• Lorrain will make announcement about event at today’s meeting.

Freiband motioned to adjourn the meeting, Cohen seconded. Board passed unanimously. Meeting adjourned.

Next MCPP Board Meeting will be held virtually on September 21, 2025.