February Executive Board Minutes

While the FHSLA website migrated, access to posting on the blog was unavailable. Thus, the purposes of the upcoming series of Executive Board Minutes is to catch the blog up with the minutes to allow for transparency from the Executive Board.

February 6, 2026

Attendance

Roxann Mouratidis, Angie Novak, Chris Eaton, Fiona Parkinson, Cali Robins, Kendra Heinold, Melodie Gardner, Carrie Adams, Layal Hneiny

Not in attendance: Courtney Pyche

Call to Order 

Meeting was called to order at 10:02 am

Approval of Minutes (January 23rd)

Angie suggested a correction to the meeting minutes of 1/23/2026, changing the Special Project proposal to a Bylaws Amendment proposal.

Carrie motioned to approve the corrected minutes from January 23, 2025; Cali seconded. All approved; no dissension.

Officer Reports

Treasurer Report (Kendra)

• PayPal: $4,589.83

• Regions: $8,186.23

• $3550.00 prepayment for the hotel has been deducted from the Regions bank account.

Membership Report (Cali)

• Cali is investigating if the purchase of a $5 raffle ticket benefiting FSDB can be linked directly to the FHSLA PayPal account. The winner will receive a gift basket.

• Guidelines and expectations for the committee are being drafted.

Honors & Awards Report (Carrie)

• Award/Scholarship applications/nominations:

  • Two nominations for the FHSLA Award of Excellence have been received.

  • Two applications from librarians for the Librarian & Paraprofessional scholarship have been received. Both applicants are providing an activity at the annual meeting.

  • There weren’t any nominations for Librarian of the Year.

• Three options were presented on how to provide these awards/scholarships:

  • One of the two FHSLA Award of Excellence nominees will be chosen to receive the Librarian of the Year award.

  • A member who wasn’t nominated for Librarian of the Year can be identified based on the award criteria.

  • The FHSLA Award of Excellence will be awarded this year but not the Librarian of the Year award.

• There haven’t been any applications for the Student Scholarship.

  • These funds can be added to other awards/scholarships this year. There is nothing in bylaws prohibiting it. Another option is for the funds to be saved and used in the next awards/scholarships cycle. There was an extra scholarship awarded last year.

• Carrie provided anonymized FHSLA Award of Excellence nominations for the Executive Board for review.

• Carrie and the committee will review if either of the FHSLA Award of Excellence nominations also meet the eligibility criteria of the Librarian of the Year award before pursuing other options.

  • This scenario will give directions to the committee’s policies and procedures to support decision making in similar future scenarios.

  • It was decided that selecting an award recipient by the Honors & Awards committee and Executive Board is the best practice when nominations/applications are not submitted.

• A timeline was not provided for how long this might take since there isn’t any precedent.

Continuing Education Report (Kendra)

• Nothing to report.

Webmaster Report (Melodie)

• Melodie shared the beta version of the new website with the Executive Board.

• The Membership page connects to the membership form. There are 2 boxes for payment of membership dues via PayPal, invoice, or special payment request. Kendra will generate an invoice upon request.

• Email notices can be sent to individuals when the membership form is submitted, and Cali will set up their online access.

• The website’s accessibility has not yet been evaluated. Color contrast is a concern, but the available color options were limited when Melodie first created the site. She plans to adjust the color contrast soon.

• Questions submitted via the website may be directed to FHSLA’s Gmail address. Responsibility for monitoring and responding to these inquiries will shift as officers rotate on and off committees.

• Information and documentation for all meetings will be included in the Annual Meetings page.

• Member accounts can be created, and access can be granted to a member portal that provides expanded access to website content.

• Currently, only the webmaster (Melodie) can grant member access, similar to the setup on the previous website.

• Nothing needs to be tested at this time, and Melodie is working on setting up notifications for the appropriate parties when website forms are submitted.

• Domain transfer from Bluehost to Wix.

  • The transfer may take up to seven days to complete. During that time, we may temporarily lose access to the old website and be unable to access the current one. Roxann is drafting a message to inform members of this possibility.

  • Our current website is still being used for informational purposes. It continues to host several important documents in PDF format, and the membership renewal option through PayPal has been updated.

  • The Executive Board granted approval for the domain transfer.

• Melodie is going to make the committees and bylaws pages active on the new website.

Marketing Report (Fiona)

• A draft of an Instagram flyer was shared.

• An 'About Us' Instagram post has been crafted which includes the FHSLA Mission, Goals, and membership information. It will be posted today.

• Fiona is working to increase the font size and limit the summary size.

• A flyer promoting the new website will be shared on each of the FHSLA social media platforms.

• Fiona will investigate options for including a slideshow Instagram post.

• Layal mentioned a service called Buffer that streamlines posts across social media platforms, and Fiona will investigate its features for possible use with FHSLA social media platforms.

Strategic Planning Report (Angie)

• Policies & Procedures

  • Carrie approved the updated wording for honors and awards nominations, clarifying that scholarship winners are "reimbursed". They do not pay the Annual Meeting registration fee, and after fulfilling the scholarship requirements, they submit their travel receipts for reimbursement up to $250.

  • A Vendor Coordinator section was added that includes language on limiting how many people vendors can bring to the annual meetings.

    • A limit of 2 people was approved for vendors at the Platinum and Diamond level.

    • The option for vendors to pay a fee to bring an additional person was retained.

    • Melodie can create a vendor registration page separate from the membership page for future meetings.

  • At the 2026 Annual Meeting, the Strategic Planning Committee will present the Bylaws amendment as New Business, and the members will vote on the updated Policies & Procedures.

Nominating Committee Report (Angie)

• 39 people have voted in the election for Vice-President and Treasurer which closes a week before the Annual Meeting.

Old Business

• Bylaws Amendment: Special Projects Committee

New Business

• Inactive Committee Members (not Executive Board members)

FHSLA Executive Committee Google Drive

• Account owned/managed by fhslasecretary@gmail.com – we now have access to this account.

• Courtney provided login details for fhslanews@gmail.com.

• FHSLA Account Login Google Doc:

  • [Linked excluded from public minutes]

• The FHSLA archivist will be involved in any backup/document transition to OSF or other platform.

  • The goal is to transition to a more stable platform that has greater accessibility.

  • It will be a future project after the annual meeting and could be a Special Project Committee project.

Annual Meeting action items/updates

• There have been 28 registrations for the 2026 Annual Meeting.

• There will not be ribbons for badges at this year's meeting.

• Signage

  • Vendor signage – Angie created an hors d’oeuvres sign for Wolters Kluwer and is adding signage for the other sponsored vendors to the meeting slide deck.

  • “Conversation Starters” signs (14)

  • Membership Check-in sign

  • Membership renewal QR sign

  • Raffle sign

• Raising money for Florida School for the Deaf & the Blind

• Joy Carriger declined honorarium

• Panel Presentation

  • Roxann sent 10 prepared questions to the panelists.

• Library updates

  • 5 people have confirmed that they are providing their library’s update and 5 people have responded that they might be providing the update. Layal will reach out to them.

  • There is a time limit of 3 minutes per update with not more than 3 slides.

• Poster presentation

  • The time allotted for presentation depends on how many posters are being presented.

• Vendors

  • Angie has the vendor list and Melodie needs the list.

Meeting adjourned at 11:04am

February 20, 2026

Attendance

Roxann Mouratidis, Angie Novak, Chris Eaton, Fiona Parkinson, Melodie Gardner, Carrie Adams, Layal Hneiny

Not in attendance: Kendra Heinold, Cali Robins

Call to Order  

Meeting was called to order at 10:01 am

Approval of Minutes (February 6^th)

Due to lack of a quorum the minutes from February 6 were not approved.

Officer Reports

Treasurer Report (Kendra)

• PayPal: $5043.02

• Regions: $5214.37

• $6570.92 – hotel venue and food/drinks paid

Membership Report (Cali)

• No report.

Honors & Awards Report (Carrie)

• All preparations have been made for the annual meeting.

• Only one Honorary Membership request has been received from Susan Harnett.

• An In Memoriam segment for Gretchen Kuntz will be included in the FHSLA Annual Meeting as part of the Honors & Awards presentation.

• Traveling plaques are no longer used for award winners, we now provide individual awards which have been ordered and will be arriving soon.

Continuing Education Report (Kendra)

• No report.

Webmaster Report (Melodie)

• The URL redirect for the domain is now in place for the new website.

• The new website has a membership page for completing the membership form and paying for renewal.

• Search engines still redirect to the old website, which is no longer accessible. SEO optimization updates have been submitted to resolve this.

• Melodie is working on adding the committees and bylaws pages to the new website.

• Board members are encouraged to explore the new website and contact Melodie about any nonfunctioning website issues.

• There is still an issue with transferring the old website domain which will be addressed after the annual meeting. Moving forward, FHSLA email addresses should be used for future account access.

• Courtney is ready to send blog content when the website is ready. An account will need to be set up for Courtney and Fiona to share content to the website.

Marketing Report (Courtney & Fiona)

• The Buffer account proposed at the last meeting is now up and running, and it has been successfully tested with Instagram.

• Today's social media post will be for last minute annual meeting registration and vendor related information.

Strategic Planning Report (Angie)

• The Policies and Procedures Guide has been retitled to the Operating Procedures Guide and is ready to be presented at the annual meeting. A vote for approval won't be called because the guide is not changing the bylaws.

Nominating Committee Report (Angie)

The election has concluded and 45 votes were cast. John Reynolds has submitted the election report which Angie will be presenting at the annual meeting.

Old Business

New Business

Annual Meeting action items/updates

• Angie does not need anything else for the slideshow.

• Schedule changes:

  • The 2 poster presentations and 2 library updates will be presented from 1:45 PM to 2:15 PM.

  • The NNLM update has been moved to 2:30 PM.

  • The meeting will conclude at 4:00 PM.

• Melodie has added the vendor lineup to the meeting guide and each vendor will give a 10-minute presentation in the 10:45 AM to 12:00 PM time slot.

• Links to CE course contents have been added to the meeting guide.

• Items to bring:

  • Badges (Cali)

  • Fans (Roxann)

  • Registration check-in form (Roxann)

  • Signs and sign holders (Angie)

  • Old FHSLA swag (Angie)

  • Gavel (Roxann)

  • Raffle basket (Cali)

• The hotel is providing snacks.

• Kendra has followed up with the vendors regarding the AV setup.

• Executive Board members need to be at the meeting by start time or just before.

• Some vendors have shipped boxes to the hotel.

Meeting adjourned at 10:25 a.m.