STATEWIDE INDEPENDENT LIVING COUNCIL
September 20, 2023
1:00 p.m. – 2:30 p.m.
FULL SILC Meeting
IN-PERSON AND ZOOM

Members and Ex-Officios Attending: Chair Carrie Dudley, First Vice-Chair Deborah Ritcey, Second Vice-Chair Randy Pierce, Secretary and Immediate Past Chair Jeff Dickinson (Remote), Member Jennifer Cook, Member Michelle McConaughy, Member Sarah Sweeney, and Member Ryan Witterschein  
Staff: Jennifer Beaulieu (SILC Assistant) 	
Guests: Matthew Greenwood (Member of the Public) and Ryan Donnelly (Nominee)
Communication Access: Laurie Meyer (ASL Interpreter) and Alyssa Grandprey (ASL Interpreter)

The SILC (Statewide Independent Living Council) meeting was called to order at 1:14 PM by Chair Carrie Dudley. 

*Quorum was reached. 

Approval of Minutes of 7/19 Full SILC Meetings
* Second Vice-Chair Randy Pierce made a motion to approve the 7/19 Full SILC Meeting Minutes
Second: 			Member Ryan Witterschein  
Discussion:			None				
All in Favor: 	Yes		Abstaining: None
Motion Carried.
Committee Updates
Membership
Jeff Dickinson reported out for the Membership Committee. He noted that there will be a vote and Q & A on an applicant named Ryan Donnelly. Jeff Dickinson noted that Jennifer Beaulieu was able to update the person-first language table in the orientation packet to a more screen-reader accessible version. He and Jennifer Beaulieu will work on the packet and send it out in a few weeks.  

A Q and A was held with the applicant Ryan Donnelly. He went over his experience and expertise in the field of advocacy specifically legislative advocacy. 

Deborah Ritcey mentioned that the council requires members to join a committee. The committees are the following: the Membership Committee, the Advocacy Committee, and the Governance Committee. She asked Ryan Donnelly if he thought about what committee he would like to join. Ryan Donnelly noted he would likely want to be on the Advocacy Committee. Carrie Dudley noted the idea of him hearing the committee updates before choosing a committee. Carrie Dudley asked what his impression of the SILC is. Ryan Donnelly responded that he knew that Jeff has been a part of the council for years but isn’t familiar on the work of the council.   

There were questions on if he can participate in a committee while waiting for his appointment to be approved. The answer was that he can be a part of any committee if he chooses, but he will not be able to vote until he is appointed as a member. 

* Member Sarah Sweeney made the motion to vote for Ryan [Donnelly] to be on the committee
Second: 			Member Ryan Witterschein  
Discussion:			None				
All in Favor: 	Yes		Abstaining: None
Motion Carried.
Governance
Deborah Ritcey reported out for the Governance Committee. She reported that the vendors are currently working on the Part B vendor consumer satisfaction surveys. The surveys will be sent out in October, and she will go over the results at November’s SILC meeting. 

She noted that the committee has updated the policies and procedures. She asked if anyone had any questions. Jennifer Beaulieu had a question on how per the recording policy, members can request a recording from a meeting for a limited time. She noted that currently the full council recordings are not housed on the NH SILC’s ZOOM account. She further noted that to use the full technology of the room, we must use VR’s ZOOM account. The problem is if someone asks for the recording of the meeting, she would be unable to give it to them because it’s not housed on our ZOOM. Deborah Ritcey recommended that we vote to approve all the changes made to the policies and procedures except the recording policy.

* Second Vice-Chair Randy Pierce made a motion to accept these tracked changes that have been represented to us with a note that we want to pursue how we can manage recordings to ensure we are in compliance. 
Second: 			Secretary and Immediate Past Chair Jeff Dickinson 
Discussion:			None				
All in Favor: 	Yes		Abstaining: None
Motion Carried.
Deborah Ritcey noted that she will work with Jennifer to update the recording policy by removing the mention that members will have access to the recordings.

Advocacy 
Randy Pierce reported out for the Advocacy Committee. The committee has two parts to its purpose. The first part is to provide outreach on behalf of the council to other organizations. The second part is to understand what needs are not being met and figure out how to get those needs met. The committee is still working on how to address that part. 

He mentioned that the committee is currently working on a one-pager about the council which will be used as outreach material. He will send the one-pager out to the council once its finished. 

Officer Elections
Before the election, Jeff Dickinson noted that he is still interested in being on the Executive Committee but found out this morning that something changed that will affect his ability to attend meetings in-person. He believes that HB 308 clears the way to allow members to participate remotely and still count towards quorum. Discussion ensued. One of the changes that HB 308 made to RSA 91-A was allow remote participants to count towards quorum and lowers the in-person quorum requirement to one-third of the council’s membership. Historically, remote participants didn’t count towards quorum and most of the council’s membership had to be in-person to meet quorum. 

There was discussion over how HB 308 requires a council or board to create a policy and make specific commitments. 

*Second Vice-Chair Randy Pierce would like to make a motion that we allow remote attendance subject to building a process to meet the requirements of HB 308. 
Second: 			Chair Carrie Dudley 
Discussion:			None				
All in Favor: 	Yes		Abstaining: First Chair Deborah Ritcey 
Motion Carried.
Carrie Dudley went through the officer ballot. 
The ballot was the following:
Chair: Carrie Dudley
First Vice-Chair: Jeff Dickinson
Second Vice-Chair: Randy Pierce
Secretary: Sarah Sweeney

* First Vice-Chair Deborah Ritcey made a motion to appoint Carrie as the Chair, Jeff as the First Vice-Chair, Randy as the Second Vice-Chair, and Sarah as the Secretary. 
Second: 			Member Jennifer Cook
Discussion:			None				
All in Favor: 	Yes		Abstaining: None
Motion Carried.

It was decided that future elections will happen after October 1st matching with the start of the federal fiscal year. 

Summary on HB 308
Jeff Dickinson further went over the requirements of HB 308. The requirements are the following: (1) The reason why a member is participating remotely needs to be in the minutes from that meeting; (2) 1/3 of the membership needs to be in-person; (3) Both in-person and remote participants should be able to see, hear, be heard, and be seen during the meeting; (4) Remote participants must identify anyone else that is in the area with them; (5) All votes must be made by roll call; (6) If remote access is offered to members, such access needs to be extended to the public as well; and (7) In an emergency defined by the Chair, the 1/3 membership in-person requirement can be waived but it would need to be stated in the minutes from that meeting. Discussion ensued. It was mentioned how the law doesn’t take into place people who are Blind, Vision Impaired, Deaf, and Hard of Hearing. 

SPIL Progress
Deborah Ritcey went through the parts of the SPIL that were assigned to the Governance Committee which are the following: (1) Oversee and audit vendors to ensure their ongoing compliance with Part B funding requirements; (2) Ensure that consumer satisfaction surveys are completed every year by the consumers of all Part B vendors; (3) Review results of annual consumer satisfaction surveys and develop action plans for areas of non-compliance that require improvement; (4)  Adopt updated SILC By-Laws; and (5) Develop and adopt updated SILC Policies & Procedures. She noted that although the Governance Committee has been assigned the task of overseeing and auditing vendors on the SPIL, it’s the sole responsibility of the DSE.  She also noted that the consumer satisfaction will be done every year, so its ongoing. She lastly noted that both the bylaws and policies & procedures have been updated and approved by the council. 

Carrie Dudley went through the remaining parts of the SPIL which were the following: (1) Update the job descriptions for all members, officers, administrator support staff, and the DSE representative; (2) Create and implement an Awareness Action Plan to improve awareness of the SILC and broaden the scope of its membership; (3) Create a Recruitment Plan to recruit new members; (4) Identify and implement current best practices relative to bylaws, policies & procedures, and operations of other SILCs; (5) Develop a process to disseminate funds should an existing CIL close or if SILC removes funding from a vendor; and (6) Create an Action Plan for continuing education opportunities for SILC members to learn more about IL history and philosophy, new developments in IL, and what other SILCs are doing. She asked Jennifer Beaulieu to put an item on the next Executive Committees’ Agenda to create job descriptions for members, officers, and the DSE representative. Deborah Ritcey noted that the job descriptions for the administrative staff has already been created. Carrie Dudley mentioned that that Ryan Witterschein used AI to generate the recruitment plan and the awareness action plan. These two plans can be edited to fit the council. She also mentioned that Jennifer Beaulieu did a lot of research on the best practices relative to bylaws policies & procedures, and operations of other SILCs. There was a discussion over how to use the data Jennifer Beaulieu retrieved from the other SILCs. Deborah Ritcey asked what the DSE’s policy was regarding disseminating funds should an existing CIL close or if the SILC removes funding from a vendor. Deborah Rticey noted that she thinks the funds should be shared equally with the remaining vendors. Regarding creating an action plan for continuing education, Deborah Rticey mentioned that Jeff Dickinson did a bit of that through the orientation packet.

Jennifer Beaulieu and Carrie Dudley will update the SPIL objective list and send it over to Deborah Ritcey so she can update the SPIL tracking tool. 

Adjournment 
* Chair Carrie Dudley made a motion to adjourn. 
Second: 			First Vice-Chair Deborah Ritcey
Discussion:			None				
All in Favor: 	Yes		Abstaining: None
Motion Carried.

Meeting adjourned at 2:30pm. 

Minutes Recorded by Jennifer Beaulieu