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NYSATRC
Scholarship Committee
Project
Meeting Report
Robert
C. Peters - June 16, 2002
MEETING
OVERVIEW
On May 30, 2002, members of the Scholarship
Committee met with Caroline Reichenberg, the acting Chairperson
of the NYS Town Clerk's Association's (NYSTCA) Scholarship Committee.
The meeting was called based on the decision by the NYSATRC Executive
Board to use the presently utilized NYSTCA scholarship administration
model to shape our related initiative.
Attendee(s):
Judy Crawford, Robert
Peters
Contact(s):
Caroline Reichenberg
Town Clerk
Town of Dover
126 E. Duncan Hill Rd.
Dover Plains, N.Y. 12522
PH: (845) 832-6111
FX: (845) 832-3188
SUMMARY
Caroline
explained the overall structure of the NYSTCA and showed us a
rather lengthy book of documentation containing various association
and committee related forms, letters, procedures and by-laws.
She explained that the NYSTCA has 2 Directors in each district
(groups of counties partitioned by the Association) and committee
chairs are appointed to 3 year terms as required by their by-laws.
NYSTCA
committee chairs conduct 4 regular meetings per year and are directly
responsible for distributing information to their almost 900 members.
Along with Town Clerk membership, the NYSTCA also allows Associate
and Honorary memberships. Their annual conference attracts
an average of 400+ regular members and 25-30 vendor booths.
The
NYSTCA has an affiliation with an international municipal clerk's
association (IIMC) which some use to supplement the state based
education programs and accelerate certification or retention of
certification.
The
following points related to the scholarship issue were gleaned
during the balance of the meeting:
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NYSTCA accepts
applications up to two months before their annual conference
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They receive
an average of 30 applications per year
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The Executive
Board reviews the applications at an annual meeting, approves
the number of awards and their amounts to be given this year
and selects awardees by quality of application, experience
and other more subjective benchmarks
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One month before
the conference, awardees and non-awardees are notified via
mail of their application's status with a cc: to their Supervisor
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Awardees receive
a voucher with their notice
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Non-awardees
receive a letter
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They average
6 awards per year and 2 awards for IIMC Annual Conference
attendance
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The average
award amount is $250.00 per recipient
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The recipient
clerk submits a copy of the voucher with their attendance
request to the town, who pays the balance of the costs and
includes voucher when sending in payment to NYSTCA.
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Annual silent
auction is used to fund scholarships along with direct contributions
from vendors.
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Annual disbursements
for awards are taken out of the NYSTCA General Fund.
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The NYSTCA
has an attorney on retainer.
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The current
NYSTCA Treasurer is Rebecca Haines, Town of Bemus Point.
Caroline
provided us with sample documents including:
-
NYSTCA Scholarship
Award Guidelines
-
Sample Scholarship
Application
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Sample Award
Approval Letter
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Sample Award
Rejection Letter
These
documents have been posted to the NYSATRC Scholarship Committee's
Project Management Site at http://www.nysatrc.org/nysatrcproj.
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