Committee Meeting Minutes: January 2023, Co-Chair Appointed

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Jan 26, 2023
by Skylar Washington

Our bimonthly Committee Meeting was on January 24th.

Adele Abrams, DE BEST Committee Chair. 

We discussed meeting format, purpose and goals going forward. Participants provided feedback about ongoing program activities and suggestions for future development. Committee Co-Chair nomination was made, Jeff Goldstein accepted. Secretary position remains open - to be discussed at next meeting.

Meeting Minutes are below. If you were unable to make the meeting and have suggestions, questions, or concerns please reach out to Celeste or Skylar. Next Committee Meeting is tentatively scheduled for March 28th, 2023, 6:30 pm - 7:30 pm

 

DE BEST COMMITTEE MEETING MINUTES

Volunteer-Run for Volunteers

January 24, 2022, 6:30pm - 7:30pm

Virtual via Zoom Meeting

Attendees:

Celeste Peart, Program Manager Adele Abrams, Committee Chair  Fred Kurz
Skylar Washington, Admin Assistant Bonnie Perratto  Faith Hurley
Milton Filiberty Wade Jones  Elizabeth MacKay
Alicia Filiberty Rehana Rizvi  Jade Graham
Anne Biddle Elizabeth MacKay  
Anthony Policastro Padmaja Charya  
Jeff Goldstein  Linda Bradford  

 

 TOPIC

QUESTIONS

ACTION ITEMS, RECOMMENDATIONS and NOTES

 1) Welcome

(Adele) called to order at 6:30 p.m.

 

 2) Review/Reconstruct Mission Statement

(Adele) - Reviewed purpose and role of DE BEST Committee. Extends appreciation for all participants devoting their time and efforts toward the program. Our corps depends on you all, and you've exceeded the purpose of the team and met the needs of our community because of it.

[DE BEST mission: To serve the state of Delaware by establishing, implementing, and sustaining Delaware's reserve units of volunteer mental health and peer support to strengthen the substance and mental health response infrastructure, improve emergency preparedness, community crisis response, and increase resilience throughout Delaware.

DE BEST Committee mission construction: to align with organization mission. The purpose of the committee is to act as a volunteer-run, volunteer-attended engagement of volunteers with intention to provide direct feedback to DE BEST leadership about community needs, networking/recruitment/outreach opportunities and other recommendations for team development and programming.]

(Celeste) - Mentioned before stepping out out of meeting, Any volunteers with ideas of what they would like to focus on as a committee, please email cpeart@udel.edu so we can start reconstructing our mission as a committee.

Nominations requested for COMMITTEE CO-CHAIR

Jeff Goldstein NOMINATED and ACCEPTED. Motion passed.

Secretary position remains open.

Congratulations NEW

COMMITTE Co-Chair

Jeff Goldstein!

 

Action Item for next Meeting:

Secretary Position still needs to be filled. 

 3) Recruitment Measures

 

(Adele) New Registrations have been increasing since the new year began! What are some thoughts on how we can approach recruiting this year? Discussion:

Recruit from the colleges,  psych majors helping out.

Note More opportunities for outreach events like that in the Spring and Summer.

(Padmaja) reaching out to students/faculty at West Chester University where she attends. She would be happy to spread our resources and to recruit there. 

(Jeff) Suggested: we find events similar to the Peach Festival he attended, where we can share our resources. Also asked if there is a directory for 2023 with a list of events we can recruit at.

(RuthAnn) SCORE.org, which is a volunteer recruitment organization that can assist with attaining more volunteers. 

Volunteers list of activities/events in 2023 that fit with DE BEST. Send to Celeste for review for appropriate recruitment events 



 

 

 4) Volunteer Development

(Skylar) Announced to volunteers that we will be having an in person interactive training for next training opportunity.(Highly Requested)

(Skylar) Requested feedback on location of  the training

Most volunteers voted for it to be held in Dover.

Action Item: Find a location in Dover to set up this in person training 

 5) Engagement Opportunities 

 

(Adele) requests ideas and comments for increasing volunteer participation in program activities

(Anthony) Asked if we have any volunteers from the Federally Qualified Health Centers on the committee because they deal with high risk populations. Which would be another volunteer opportunity for DE BEST in the future. 

(Wade) He has  a connection to a community response team and will send more information to Skylar/ Celeste

Reminder of Future Events:

    • Food Banks Distributions: (3) monthly, one in each county- 3/27, 3/29, and 3/31 

Action Item: Send out  Survey to get Volunteer Feedback 

 

 6) Knowledge Sharing/Reminders

Reminder of Future Events:

    • DE BEST Quarterly Meeting - 4/12

 

7) Open Forum

(Padmaja) The need for the support in the Faith services. Recommended to us possibly doing a training for women at risk. 

(RuthAnn) Having a caregiving/first responders day to help with burn out they deal with and increase volunteer networking simultaneously.

(Anthony) Doing a training on Implicit Bias. Will send Celeste more information on how we can add that to our trainings in the future.  

All volunteers are called to activate and visit team portal regularly:

https://debest.galaxydigital.com/

 8) Closing / Adjourn

(Adele) called for adjournment at 7:30 p.m.

Next Committee Meeting is tentatively scheduled for March 28th, 2023, 6:30 pm - 7:30 pm