The Roy Williams Foundation Meeting Minutes, Meeting 29

Date of Meeting: Meeting 29 11/21/2021 1300 MST (TBD)
 

Roll Call:

 

Chairman: Alhaji Bangura- Present

Vice-Chairman: Dave Newton- Present

 

Board Members:

Zach Krause- Present

Kit Steimle- Present

Matthew Anderson- Absent/Excused

Dexter Pitts- Present

Travis Garvin- Present

 

​Secretary/Treasurer:

Bret Collyer- Present

 

Assistant Secretary:

Vacant

​

Alternates: 2 Vacancies

​

Guests:

​

Call to Order.
 

Additions, Deletions or Changes to the Agenda? : Chairman Bangura stated that he had a
family issue and had to travel unexpectedly. In his rush, he accidently left his meeting materials
behind and suggested that the meeting would likely be shorter as a result of his being
unprepared.
 

Adoption of Meeting Minutes, Meeting #28 10/17/2021: Director Garvin made a motion to
accept the meeting minutes as written, seconded by Director Krause, the vote was unanimous.
 

Old Business:
 

Changes to website: Secretary Collyer informed the board that Cody Collyer (his son) has
updated the membership aspects of the website, to include Bangura as Chairman and Pitts and
Garvin as full Directors etc. He still needs to update our mission statement and catch up on
meeting agendas and minutes.
 

Recruitment of Alternates: Secretary Collyer asked members if they have found any interest
among their female colleagues. Vice Chairman Newton stated that his Alternate prospect would
like to help but seems to ‘have too many irons in the fire and can’t guarantee she will have time
to help’. Director Pitts stated the same was true for his prospect noting that his (LMPD)
Department is too short staffed and that nobody could fully commit to the RWF. Nobody else
had any leads, so Secretary Collyer spoke about a highly qualified woman that he learned about
from the Veterans Day edition of the local newspaper named Ashley Ottmer, a former Air Force
Veteran that has an extensive background in mental health care, is a licensed professional
counselor and now has a local practice called Spruce Creek Counseling. He added that she
specializes in vision related therapy as an optometrist in a field known as “Eye Movement
Desensitization and Reprocessing” or EMDR as well as “Brain Spotting” specializing in PTSD

related disorders. Director Pitts added that after his battlefield injuries in Iraq, he went through
EMDR therapy and believes it helped him, though cannot remember the specifics. Collyer
stated that he would scan and send all members a copy of the newspaper article and if
members concurred, and a consensus emerged, he would be happy to reach out to her to gage
her interest in joining us. Chairman Bangura stated that these positions shouldn’t go unfilled for
too long as our mission is too important and we need to keep moving forward, but he would
like to be sure that the meeting minutes reflect that we are making a ‘good faith effort’ to find
qualified females to fill these positions. Collyer stated he would be sure to note that fact.
 

Fundraising Letter Draft Review: (Bangura) Chairman Bangura stated that since he left his
materials at home, he was not ready to address this item.
 

New Business/continuing business:
 

Updates to bylaws/founding documents: When Secretary Collyer began preparing copies of the
original founding documents/bylaws, to mail to the members, he noted several changes that
need to be made to concur with the evolution of the RWF. Collyer will review these changes
with the BOD, then prepare changes for the BOD to consider for formal adoption during our
next meeting: Secretary Collyer began by explaining that the proposed edits that he sent all
members should be pretty self-explanatory. Although the original bylaws were written to give
us a lot of latitude and leeway to do business and evolve as an organization, the simply need to
be update to better reflect how we now do business. Chairman Bangura stated that he thought
that ‘proxy voting’ would fit best in section 8, but that “We need to make an effort to ensure
that everybody gets a chance to be heard prior to any informal action is taken’. Secretary
Collyer agreed and added that ‘any informal action should not include anything to do with
changes to the bylaws or any item involving money’. All agreed and then it was then pointed
out by several members that the quality of the copy that was sent to all members was hard to
read and follow with updates handwritten. Secretary Collyer suggested that the item be tabled
until he has a chance to type the changes on the original document. All agreed and the matter
was tabled until the next meeting.

 

Critical path/Structural Discussion for the RWF:
 

1) Finances/Fundraising update (Krause): Director Krause stated that he had nothing to
report on this matter since he was waiting on a fundraising letter.
2) Structure evolution (Bangura): Item skipped
3) Recruitment plan: Item skipped
4) Advertising: Item Skipped
5) Training (Steimle): Director Steimle stated that he was keeping an eye out for training
opportunities.

 

Financial Update:
Deposits: $271.02 Foundation for Good              $300.00 VFW quarterly donation
Checking Account Balance:           $ 810.63          Debits. Ck # 1093 $780.00-9/11 event advertising
Savings Account Balance:         + $4,399.65
Total Monetary Assets:                  $5,768.77
 

*Anything Else/general discussion: Director Garvin spoke about being in contact with Mr. Bove
with the ‘Washington Vet Corps’ organization about joining us at one of our meetings to speak
about his organization and what they have learned about addressing these issues. Garvin
wanted to be sure that we could ‘nail down’ a date and meeting time that works for all of us so
that we can fully commit so as to not waste Mr. Bove’s time. All agreed this was a good
approach.

 

*Next Meeting: December 5th
 

*Meeting Adjourned: 1340