Meeting Minutes

The Scholarship Committee meeting for 2009 was held on Saturday, July 4th at 5:25 p.m. at the home of Vicki Dove.

In attendance were: Gene Winebrenner, Ruth Neal, Betty Neal, Vicki Dove, Frank Ruckman, and Diane DiPaolo

The meeting opened with a review of the six scholarship applicants for this year, one applying for the first time, and the rest being repeat applicants. After discussion of last year’s award amounts, a motion was made and seconded. The awards were decided upon as follows:

New applicant – $1000.00
* Sarah Lawrence

Repeat applicants – $500.00 each
* Michael Lawrence
* Blaine Higby
* Rachel Smith
* Rebecca Smith
* Natalie DiPaolo

In the next order of business, Vicki shared the financial records from the Edward Jones account from the past year, during which she stated the financial gains the account had made despite the economy.

The next order of discussion involved the new and improved scholarship application form. All members agreed that it was sufficient. The only change that would be made to this would be in the directions to the scholarship applicants as to how they should apply for a scholarship.

* Repeat applicants need to send in the application form and transcripts/grades.
* New applicants would send the same as above, plus 3 letters of reference.

Vicki shared with the committee the forms from Edward Jones which showed the amount sent to the school for each recipient in 2008. She also brought up for discussion about looking into a CD with the money in the account. It was decided that we would take direction from the consultant at Edward Jones as to the amount of the CD and when to invest.

One of the last items of discussion were the outdated, ambiguous bylaws. It was unclear as to the number of years and terms a committee member is able to serve. Our concern was also that the committee needs to have several experienced members, as well as new members for the meeting to be run efficiently. It was agreed that we need to form new bylaws, but not at this time.

The last of our discussions concerned the Ruckman website. Frank will continue to add new information, as well as adding the minutes from the past scholarship committee meetings.

The meeting was adjourned at approximately one hour later, at 6:40 p.m.

Respectfully submitted,
Diane DiPaolo