Minutes in Seconds from the August 13, 2023 Board Meeting:

• Accepted the following members into the Golden Council: Regional Vice Presidents Kyle Bischoff, Sara Casey, CJ Cook, Danielle Gohman, Zachary Hanson, Angi Coston Jones, Laura Olivencia, Ma Melanie Parazo, Noel Miller, Ron Neto-Taylor, Grissel Rodriguez, Louise Santos, Rebecca Wells, Katie Whalen, National Collegian of the Year Brennen Feder, and Central Office Staff Sara Erl.
• Proposal for new vision statement was not moved, with additional feedback being solicited during the Feedback Sessions during GCC.
• Updated policy to formalize current practice of delegating the authority of assistance and discipline actions to staff in consultation with Regional Vice Presidents.
• Changed responsibility of designating a GCC Host Committee and Chair to the Grand President, taking the Board out of the process. 
• Updated policy so that Regional Vice Presidents have clear responsibility to take action on chapter issues, rather than just reporting issues to the Provincial Vice President.
• Clarified staff versus volunteer responsibilities and removed duplicative or assumed processes in regards to LEAD Provincial Conferences and LEAD Schools.
• Instructed staff to update all gendered language in policies to be gender neutral, while not changing the meaning or intent of any policy. Updated policy will not go into effect until March, after Board review of updates in January.
• Updated policy related to a Standards Hearing appeal process. 
• The following policies were updated to support a more strategic Board:
  • Removed Provincial Vice President approval of off-campus initiations, instead making staff responsible for approval.
  • Changed approval of campus specific qualified programs from the Provincial Vice President to the Executive Director.
  • Cleaned up policy to match previous changes related to the Executive Director handling offers of receivership.
  • Granted authority to the Finance Committee to write off chapter debt up to an amount as restricted by the Board through the budgeting process.

• The following policy updates were approved to support cleaner governing documents:
  • Aligned policy with practice related to the version of Robert’s Rules of Order used. 
    
  • Removed specific requirements or policies related to outside education conference cancellations. In the event such program was restarted, appropriate program-specific policies would be implemented.
  • Removed chapter Congress reporting, as it is not used. 
  • Adjusted policy to reflect current practice of allowing alumni chapter affiliation changes 12 months a year and simply those requests to reflect the Central Office’s handling IRS reporting.
  • Removed specific reference to collegiate dues exception as relates to CMP, aligning with previous decisions to remove CMP requirements from policy.
  • Removed additional reference to the Awards and Recognition Guide regarding alumni chapter awards.
  • Removed reference to outdated regalia ordering processed.
  • Removed outdated communication expense reimbursement for volunteers. 

• The following policies were removed due to redundancy:
  • Removed a declaration of responsibility that the Board of Directors will determine price of the official badge, listed elsewhere.
  • Removed a statement that appointing committee members is a duty of the Grand President, addressed in Bylaws.
  • Removed duties of the Vice President-Finance and additional duties of the Past Grand President, listed in Bylaws.
  • Removed redundancy of Regional Vice President duties already assigned to District Directors, managed by the RVPs.   

• The following unnecessary policies were removed:
  • Removed a contradiction within policies as typically “Central Office” is used to refer to the staff, not the building. Clarifies the responsibilities of the Board of Directors to control purchase, rent, or lease of land or buildings, thus limiting a relocation of the headquarters building without needing to explicitly call out the Central Office location.
  • Removed specific conference requirements for LEAD programming.
  • Removed restrictions regarding overlapping Provincial Council Meetings.  

• Discussed the Board’s role in the approval process for chapter petitions. 

• Discussed the Board’s stance on legislative items that would be discussed on the Congress floor. 

Minutes in Seconds from August 18, 2023 Board Meeting:

• Appointed Stephen Dominy as National Standards Committee Chair; Claire Roberts as National Professional Development Committee Chair; and Kayleigh Lot as National Scholastic Development and Awards Chair.
• Noted vacancies in Central and Capital Regions and plans for holding those special elections.
• Board shared feedback on campaigning policies and business session delegate education which should be reviewed prior to the 2025 Grand Chapter Congress.
• Approved to move previous alumni chapter franchising and chartering fee bylaw amounts to policy, asked Finance Committee to review and submit a formal recommendation for 2023-24 fees.  
• Board members were encouraged to think about how best to handle special meeting or mail vote from Resolution and to think about scope of what the Board wants to bring to the Grand Chapter before the September meeting.
• Board discussed printing of new Ritual Books. Staff will bring options to the September meeting.
• Vision Statement Task Force will be recreated with similar charge to review feedback from GCC and submit new recommendation in September.
• Membership Qualifications Task Force will be recreated with exact charge as before. 

To request a copy of the full meeting minutes, please email deltasigmapi@dsp.org. To submit a recommendation to the Board of Directors, please complete the official recommendation form and submit it via email to the Grand President and Executive Director.  Other ideas or suggestions may be sent to ideas@dsp.org.  If you’d like to get involved in a committee, please complete our volunteer interest form.