The Grinnell Family Association of America, Inc., board of directors meeting was called to order at 10:40 AM on Saturday, July 21, 2007 by secretary Lawrence J. Grinnell, presiding at the request of president F. Hugh Grinnell who was unable to attend due to excessive travel delays.

Attendees:

• Lawrence J. (Larry) Grinnell, Secretary and Director
  
• Kathleen (Kathy) L. G. Asbury, Director
  
• Marjorie (Marj) Murray, Director
  
• Edward J. (Ed) Grinnell, Director
  
• Alice Grinnell, Newsletter Editor
  
• Kay Erwin, guest
  
• Mary Blodgett, guest
  

Old Business

Larry asked for a motion to approve the 2006 "virtual board meeting" minutes as published on the GFA website. Marj Murray made the motion. Kathy Asbury seconded. Unanimous aye vote.

The treasurer's report was distributed but GFA Treasurer Chuck Ketchum was unable to attend the board meeting due to a previous engagement. Ed Grinnell moved to accept the report as presented. Marj Murray seconded. Unanimous aye vote.

Membership was discussed. President Hugh (F. Hugh Grinnell) telephoned Larry Grinnell on Friday with a list of points to bring up.

Larry did a quick tally of paid members, and the count appeared to be about 187. We will get this number verified prior to publishing the minutes.

The big question was how to stop or slow the number of non-renewals, and how to attract new members. Much discussion ensued. Hugh had asked for a single login for all GFA members to the website to ensure only members had access. Larry agreed to run some tests with multiple simultaneous logins to see if this would "break" the site. Larry also offered to put together a questionnaire for the membership that could either be mailed out with a newsletter or posted on the website.

In an effort to promote ourselves more, Larry has agreed to put together an 1/8 page ad design for New England Ancestors, Ancestry, and Everton's genealogy magazines for at least one year, and up to three years.

Hugh will be asked to negotiate fees by director Laura Prescott for future articles so it is clear what she will accept and what the GFA is willing to pay for future articles. Moved by Ed Grinnell, seconded by Kathy Asbury. Unanimous aye vote.

The genealogy book was then discussed. Chuck delivered a new GEDCOM file to Larry on Friday 7/20 with many new corrections. With all these changes, and the desire to get the section heads to do their bios and send them in, the publication date has been pushed out to at least late Spring 2008. Larry handed out CDs with a very large PDF file of an extremely preliminary version of the book so that the section heads will have an idea what things will look like. We would like to establish a cutoff for outside input by November 30, and final bios by Dec. 30. Final GEDCOM by 1/31/2008.

Newsletter report. Future articles include expansion on the Cornelius line by Laura Prescott, new bits and pieces including articles about a Grinnell model and a Grinnell police officer. Reunion pix will be prominent in the next newsletter. Larry will be doing an article in the future about the Matthew4 and beyond line.

Website report. There was discussion about moving the GFA website to an internet hosting service. Larry had no problems with this--in fact, it takes a big load off him should something happen, someone else could take over. Problem is, most of these services want payment by credit card, so it was suggested (without formal motion) to have Chuck obtain a GFA credit card with a very low limit (several hundred dollars). Hosting would be in the range of 10-20 dollars a month. It would also be useful every three years when the GFA domain (grinnellfamily.org) needs to be renewed. Currently, Larry renews with his credit card and sends the receipt to Chuck for a check. Finally, it was suggested we look into getting a PayPal account for the website so that members could renew online, book orders could be placed and paid for online, etc.

New Business:

Discussion about the 2010 reunion, perhaps considering an alternate site to Seekonk--perhaps in Providence. Hugh is already in discussion with someone from Little Compton to speak at the Friday dinner, and a tour on Saturday.

Kathy is offering some planning assistance for 2010, but it could be contingent upon getting her niece (Jim #5's daughter) to help. Needs to be fleshed out more.

One of Hugh's items was to look at the possibility of putting a term limit (5 years) on the presidency. As we really don't want to rock the boat with the state of Rhode Island (re: changing bylaws), this discussion has been shelved for the time being.

Meeting was adjourned at 12:45PM as the bus to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame was waiting.