Resident Communication Committee
4:00 p.m. July 13, 2005
Okatie North  Conference Room

Meeting minutes by Perry Molinaro.

Present – Debra Garner, vice chairwoman; Bob Rasmussen, Joan Schmid, Bea Boockholdt, Holly Field, Perry Molinaro, Al Reuben. Absent: Marilyn Fletcher, Steve Koehl, Richard Vetter.

Debbie opened the meeting in the absence of Marilyn, chairwoman.

Publications: Holly noted ongoing issues regarding routinely late copy, articles that are too long for the space (requiring extensive copy editing) and confusion caused by revisions of club news sent after copy has been submitted. She stated that this situation makes it extremely difficult to get the magazine completed in a timely manner. Al said he would discuss the problems with the Bob Mahnke and Ken Hull. Holly asked whether to bring the club news issue before the Interclub Council at its Friday, July 15, meeting and it was decided she should mention the issue without specifics. RCC members agreed that club news should be submitted only once by deadline and with no revisions after that. Members also agreed SunSations should be kept current; that is, clubs should list only activities for the publication’s month.

Broadcast: Joan pointed out that the live broadcasts of the Sunrise Reader programs started last Friday, July 8, without problems. One reader team will be leaving. The broadcast room has been redecorated and new chairs are being used. There seems to be a problem with the Sunrise Readers not being able to see the television monitor in the reading room and, therefore, don’t know when they are on or off the air. To help resolve the problem, Richard Vetter has set the equipment to run a couple of minutes longer in case the readers run over their time. A technical subgroup called the “technical committee” is being created with volunteers concentrating on technical aspects while the programming subgroup works on broadcasts, interviewing, etc. Joan said one problem is getting the program schedule in SunSations because of its early deadline. Bob suggested that the article note that anyone could request the schedule via e-mail. Joan said she will be stepping down as head of the subcommittee in August.

Newcomers: June activities: greeted 71 new residents from 41 homes; held three coffees with 57 attendees from 33 homes. First six months of 2005: held 21 coffees for 381 attendees from 236 homes; greeted 512 from 294 homes.

Telephone directory and map:  The directory supplement, at 45 pages, will be delivered with the August SunSations. For the future, Bob said he will consider the suggestion for a card to be inserted in the directory for residents to update their contact information. Also, it was suggested that we sell advertising space in the supplement since there is a lengthy list of advertisers waiting to be published in SunSations. However, the type size of the supplement would need to be reduced to accommodate the space taken up by the ads and prevent the need to publish additional supplement pages.

Miscellaneous: Al suggested that e-mail addresses be included in the listing of neighborhood representatives (phone numbers are shown now). 

Committee Fair: The July 12 event at Pinckney Hall was the first with the aim of getting residents to join board-appointed committees. For the RCC, several people took handouts and application forms home. Two filled out an application and four others indicated only an interest in serving on a subcommittee. RCC members agreed that efforts must be made to persuade residents to join RCC.

RCC replacements: Marilyn and Debbie will not be seeking reappointment, Joan will be leaving the RCC and Perry said he would consider reapplying if not enough applicants sign up.

Next meetings: 4 p.m. Aug. 10 and Sept. 14 at Hidden Cypress.