The Walter H. McClenon Fund

Wednesday 20 June 2012

Minutes of Meeting

 

 

Quarterly Meeting of Trustees

 

The quarterly meeting of the Trustees of the Walter H. McClenon Fund, Inc., was held at 7:30 p.m. on Wednesday 20 June 2012 at the apartment of Paul R. McClenon (5420 Connecticut Ave., NW, Apt. 322, Washington, DC 20015).

 

The President called the meeting to order at 7:31 p.m.  The following trustees were present in person and on the phone:

    • Bob McClenon – President
    • Carol McClenon – Secretary
    • Paul McClenon – Treasurer Emeritus
    • Chuck McClenon, Treasurer (phone)
    • David McClenon  (phone)
    • Jean-Michel Giraud (phone)
    • Carol Livaditis (phone)

 

  1. Approval of minutes of previous meetings of  29 March 2012:

The minutes of the Annual meeting and the Quarterly meeting were unanimously approved.

 

  1. Quarterly Report of Treasurer

 

The Treasurer noted that Board resolutions are needed to authorize him to frame language to establish new checking accounts at (a) local bank(s) in Texas and to authorize appropriate signers for Fidelity, including the President, the Treasurer, the Treasurer Emeritus, and the Secretary (if permitted).  A motion to this effect was made, seconded, and passed unanimously.  Chuck will follow up in identifying the appropriate banks.

 

The Treasurer verbally reported that there is no official quarterly report at this time.  The Treasurer Emeritus reported that he has prepared an unofficial report dated May 31, 2012.  It was agreed that he will e-mail it to all the Trustees.

 

  1. Quarterly Report of President

The President presented the 40-page report (previously distributed electronically).

    • General [Endowment] Summary (2 pages)
    • Special [Endowment] Summary (2 pages)
    • Unevaluated Summary (4 pages)
    • Long List [of Organizations] (32 pages)

 

 

 

3a. Any other comments by the President – none

 

  1. Reports of Ad Hoc Committees on Organizations

Seven Ad Hoc Committee reports were received:

 

a) NAMI

b) Freedom from Hunger

            c) Good Shepherd Mediation Program

            d) Human Rights Watch

e) Friends Committee on National Legislation (2 organizations, including a 50(c)3 and a

    501(c)4

            f) Global Fund for Women 

 

A report on C.U.R.E. was also received at some time but will be re-distributed by Paul McClenon for consideration at the next meeting.

 

  1. Any Other Reports – none

 

  1. Amendments to Bylaws  - a discussion about term of office for the officers will be deferred until the next meeting.

 

An amendment rescinding the restriction on the place of meeting was approved unanimously, written notice having been given on April 25, 2012.  The text of the amendment will be found in the following box.

Text Box: NOTICE OF INTENT TO PROPOSE AMENDMENT TO BYLAWS Bylaw 7E currently states: Meetings of the Board and of the members may be held at any place within the District of Columbia, the state of Maryland, or the state of Virginia, as specified in the call of the meeting, provided that the Board may adopt standing rules to fix the place where meetings may be held. At the next meeting, in June, I plan to move to amend Bylaw 7E to replace “any place within the District of Columbia, the state of Maryland, or the state of Virginia” with “any place in the contiguous United States”. With the use of teleconferencing, there is no reason to restrict the place of the meeting to a given area, and there had been a mention at the March meeting that the meeting could be held in Texas rather than the Greater Washington Area. The contiguous United States consists of the 48 States excluding Alaska and Hawaii, and the District of Columbia.

 

 

 

 

 

  1. Action on File of Grant Requests:

 

·         Nominations

 

The Trustees voted unanimously to accept the following recommendations:

 

NAMI                                                 Set to Currently Nominated (General) and Ineligible for the Special Endowment

            Freedom from Hunger                                    Set to Currently Nominated (Special and General)

 

Friends Committee on National Legislation    Set to Currently Nominated (General) and Ineligible for the Special Endowment

Friends Committee on National Legislation Education Fund Set to Currently Nominated

 (Special) and is Set to Eligible but not Nominated from the General Endowment

            Global Fund for Women                     Set to Currently Nominated (General and Special)

 

            Human Rights Watch                         Set to Currently Nominated (General and Special)

 

            Corporate Accountability International    Set to Not Selected (General and Special)

 

 

The Trustees voted to accept the following recommendation unanimously with Carol McClenon abstaining:

 

            Good Shepherd Mediation Program   Set to Currently Nominated (General and Special)

 

           

Re-nominate (to restore status following contributions made at March 2012 meeting):

                                               

The Sentencing Project                                   Set to Currently Nominated (General)

            Institute for Justice                                         Set to Currently Nominated (General)

            DeNeuville Learning Center                           Set to Currently Nominated (Special)

            Good Shepherd Center of Baltimore                          Set to Currently Nominated (Special)

            Habitat for Humanity of Washington, DC     Set to Currently Nominated (Special)

 

·         General Endowment (501-c-4): 

The trustees voted not to make any contributions from the General Endowment during this quarter.

 

·         Special Endowment (501-c-3):

The trustees voted not to make any contributions from the Special Endowment during this quarter.

 

 

 

  1. Other New Business –

 

The trustees thanked the President for getting the mcclenonfund.org website up and running. 

 

  1. Ad-hoc Committees

All trustees are encouraged to make nomination reports at any time.  The President requested trustees to particularly consider making reports on organizations listed on the Unevaluated Summary that the trustee thinks we might want to contribute to.

There was discussion on the term “Inactive” describing organizations. Subsequent to the meeting, the President provided a more detailed explanation of the various designations of status.  His explanation, which was distributed to the trustees, is also attached to these minutes.

 

  1. Next Meeting:  The Quarterly Meeting will be held on Wednesday, September 5, 2012 at 7:30 p.m. Eastern Time at Paul McClenon’s apartment.

 

The meeting was adjourned at 8:41 p.m.

 

Respectfully Submitted,

 

 

 

Carol A. McClenon

Secretary

 

Attachment to the Minutes of 6-20-12  (Following Agenda Item #9)

LISTS OF ORGANIZATIONS 

There was some discussion at the Board meeting on Wednesday, 20 June 2012, which indicates that perhaps an explanation of the parts of the President’s report and of the President’s database are in order.  There may have been a conception that the so-called Long List consists of all of the organizations in the Fund’s database.  That is not correct.  It only consists of those organizations that are in some sort of “active” status.  In particular, as of 20 June 2012, the 32-page List of Organizations included 94 organizations.  There are currently 752 organizations in the database.  (That is, there are 652 more organizations known in the database than are shown in the List of Organizations.)

 The rules concerning the eligibility and status of organizations are defined in detail in Bylaw 3B.  To summarize, the organizations that are listed in the List of Organizations are those that fall into one of two classes.  The first is organizations that are active and not evaluated.  An organization is not evaluated if it was evaluated more than five years ago and has not been re-evaluated, or if it was never evaluated.  An organization that is not evaluated is active if mail has been received from it since its evaluation expired, or if mail has been received and it has never been evaluated.  The second is organizations that are currently evaluated and have an active or nominated status.  Organizations are not shown in the List of Organizations if they are ineligible or not selected from both endowments, or if they have failed to provide information for evaluation.  A finding of ineligible, not selected, or eligible lasts for five years.  A finding that an organization failed to provide information for evaluation lasts for three years.  An alternate way of explaining is that organizations appear in the List of Organizations if they are waiting for ad hoc reports after the Fund has received mail, or if ad hoc reports have been written that are waiting to be considered, or if they are eligible from either endowment and they either are nominated or may be nominated.   

There are three shorter lists of organizations in the President’s Report that precede the List of Organizations or Long List.  The first is the General Summary (General Endowment Summary).  As of 20 June 2012, it included 25 organizations, which could either be nominated or contributed to by the General Endowment, or were waiting for evaluation with respect to the General Endowment.  The second is the Special Summary (Special Endowment Summary).  As of 20 June 2012, it included 22 organizations, which could either be nominated or contributed to by the Special Endowment, or were waiting for evaluation with respect to the Special Endowment.  The third is the Unevaluated Summary, which included 77 organizations that were unevaluated but were active because mail was received from them after their evaluation expired, or from which mail was received and had never been evaluated.  It does not include organizations whose evaluation has expired that have not sent new mail. 

 The List of Organizations that is provided as part of the President’s Report  is NOT the complete list of organizations known in the database.  It is only the list of those that are “active” and are candidates for contributions or nominations or are in need of reports or of action on reports.

 I will try to answer any further questions.

             Robert McClenon

            21 June 2012