NCIFT MEETING MINUTES

Meeting Minutes August 29, 2012

August 29, 2012
Meeting was brought to order by Chair – Carol Cooper.
Minutes need to be approved from February meeting, Carol to send them out later this week.

Agenda includes:
National IFT Review
Unified Membership Update
Chair Updates
New Web Page Design
New Professionals Group
New Treasurer/New Social Media Chair
Budget for 2012-13
New Business

National IFT Las Vegas June 2012
NCIFT provided 80 volunteers for the National Show in Las Vegas. Our support has earned the NCIFT a couple checks totally $4000. The committee decided to use this money to assist the New Professionals group as well as supporting Fresno State, UC Davis and San Jose State Food Clubs on each campus.

Web Page
Marketing Designs has the capability to make necessary changes to update current NCIFT web page. They will utilize the templates from National IFT to reduce cost. Committee approved budget of $3000 (maximum) for Marketing Designs to implement changes and have new web page ready by the end of 2012.

Unified Membership
National IFT is changing the way they collect membership dues. They are eliminating local section dues and making national membership mandatory for future involvement. The goal is to become more relevant and be the leader in the food industry. NCIFT collects over $11,000 in dues which represents almost 10% of our annual revenues. We need to contact other sections to see how they are adjusting to the upcoming change in collecting dues.
Membership benefits will need to increase to make up for the additional cost to our members. National has numerous ideas to assist each section in improving the value of membership to the IFT.
Josh Ashby is going to follow up with Susan Kneebone at National to assist our section in this transition. If you have any questions or concerns, please contact John at 209-483-1283 or at john.ashby@cnp.com

Programs
UC Davis Student Recognition Night will be February 21, 2013. Christine Braun is confirming availability of facility at UC Davis for this evening. We also need to secure a speaker for this event preferably a UC Davis graduate.
Holiday Dinner is scheduled for December 6th at Roundhill CC. We need to send in a $1000 deposit to secure our date.
CLFP is February 5th and 6th. Need volunteers to cover our booth at show.
Summer social gathering at La Pinata on August 7th was a success. Erin Evers has volunteered to Chair the New Professionals group after successfully organizing summer social.
Supplier’s Night and Golf Tournament is scheduled for May 7th and 6th respectively. We will be playing golf at Ruby Hills and our Supplier’s Night will once again be held at fairgrounds in Pleasanton. Attendance was good with 368 registered attendees and 312 actual attendees.

Membership
Russ Nishikawa reported that NCIFT currently has 884 members including 702 National members. New Unified Membership changes are a concern, but our section is looking to New Professionals Group to add membership over next year.
New Professionals Group
Erin Evers has taken on the challenge of increasing involvement of younger professionals to NCIFT. She is planning on working with each college campus to hold events to showcase NCIFT and the importance of joining our association. The executive committee is supporting her effort with $1500 budgeted for 2013. First formal meeting is planned for September 13th in Dublin California.

Hornblower
Susan Howe is our current editor and has requested that her assistant editor be paid with the current profit generated from the changes they have made to the Hornblower. NCIFT is a volunteer organization and we feel it is not in our best interest to pay anyone for their efforts. Marketing Designs has capability to take over this task as long as we can generate enough articles for publication.
UC Davis Food Tech Club/College Bowl
Food Tech Club was voted most improved in 2012. The college bowl team performed well especially considering the tough questions faced in competition.
Treasurer/Social Media Chair
Elizabeth Cuff notified Carol Cooper that she would need to step down as treasurer due to new employment opportunity. We have found a replacement with Darrin Cohune volunteering to take over position. Elizabeth then contacted Carol stating she could keep her position. The committee has decided to move forward with Darrin as treasurer and ask Elizabeth to take over as Social Media Chair. Hopefully this is a win/win for NCIFT.

Budget
Carol is updating numbers so we can approve the budget for 2013. We need to have our current tax preparer handle this year’s duties, but all future tax work will be handled through Marketing Designs tax professional saving NCIFT almost $1000 annually.
Printing of Membership Directory is an expense we are trying to avoid. The cost is now between $7,000-8,000 and we are not sure our members really want a hard copy directory. We are looking at placing a PDF on web page with a login required to obtain membership listing.

New Business
Thank you to Carol Cooper for all her hard work. Good luck to Earl Weak as he takes over the reins of NCIFT.
Respectfully submitted by:
Scott MacAdams
Executive Secretary