TSO Council Meeting Minutes

May 22nd, 2024

Attending: Jerry Bunce, President; Steve Denison, Ted Watts, Sandi Medendorp, Donna Oberembt, Jan Reha, Chris Steele, Andrea Smith-Clark, Bette Murphy

• Jerry Bunce read the TSO Mission statement
• Minutes for March TSO Council meeting were approved
• Jerry reported that he had previous met with the President of the BC Faculty Union. He informed the union that TELOS instructors have to go through the full faculty HR hiring process. She was surprised at this. I suggested that they include a slimmed down hiring process for TELOS instructors and she agreed. Jerry has tried to visit the Faculty Union office after his Views class but the office has been locked. After his last class he did a drop in visit to Liz Hollerman. Jerry told her about his visit with the Faculty Union. Liz shared that she is on the BC bargaining committee and that she is asking for the same thing , eased hiring process, for all Continuing Education instructors including TELOS. We are on the same page.
• Jan Reported that we have ~7000 dollars remaining in our accounts
• TELOS Spring Quarter had 15 classes and 230 registrations and 14 instructors. Jerry showed the TELOS Course Trends chart maintained by Donna. Discussion on the gradual decline in courses offered, instructors and registrations.
• Steve Denison reported the date scheduled for our next TSO General meeting on Saturday, August 24^th. The North Bellevue Community Center is reserved from noon to 3 pm. It will be $300. He is convening the usual suspects to plan the meeting. Jerry offered to ask Will Stump if he and Ron will play music at the event. Steve is looking at options on the food for the event and more coffee. Plan for 60 – 80 people attending.
• Jerry shared a draft of a letter to Trustees. We had discussed this at the last meeting and he had committed to write a draft. We have not committed to send such a letter. Is the Board of Trustees the right place for such a letter? What do they do? Influence legislators and financial support for the College. President David May also has a focus outside the College more than day to day operations. Jerry committed to share this letter with Liz Holleman.
• Recruiting Instructors and Attracting Students
• We discussed the recruitment of new instructors the challenges of attracting new students. They considered various sources for recruitment, including contacting potential instructors at UW Osher and possibly Edmonds CRI. Ted raised a concern about competition from retirement facilities offering in-house seminar programs. The team acknowledged the need for quality instructors to attract students and discussed the difficulties of attracting new students without instructors, and vice versa.
• Next meeting is July 24th at 3:30 pm on zoom.
• Adjourn

ThenTSO Council Meeting Minutes

March 27^th, 2024

Attending: Jerry Bunce, President; Steve Denison, Bryan Leyton, Sandi Medendorp, Donna Oberembt, Jan Reha, Laura Stanley, Chris Steele, Barb Warburg, Andrea Smith-Clark, Bette Murphy, Jerry Harkleroad, Chris Stoynov

• Jerry Bunce read the TSO Mission statement
• Minutes for January TSO Council meeting were approved
• TELOS Winter Quarter had 19 classes and 281 registrations
• So far: TELOS Spring quarter has 11 classes filled with 203 registrations
  • Final update: 15 classes (3 below minimum) with 232 registrations
  • Four fewer classes filled and 49 fewer registrations
• Most of the TSO Council received email and the catalog for Spring quarter
  • Jerry Bunce received neither
• Edmonds CRI (Creative Retirement Institute) is doing very well
  • 34 classes – 4 hour classes are $38
  • Andrea took a class recently, it was a great class with free parking
• There will be no meeting with Dr. May
  • His focus is outside the College right now
  • We were referred to Liz Hollerman. We have already met with Liz and it was decided to meet with her after a few quarters go by to see the impact of no TSO support for TELOS.
• After discussion we decided to plan another general meeting in the summer at a date to be decided. We still have money in our TSO account. Everyone agreed that the last general meeting was fun and important information was provided. Make it like the last meeting. Steve Denison will lead the planning for a June or July general meeting.
• Jerry and Barb committed to follow up with Sue Nightingale, President of the BC Faculty union, regarding faculty contract negotiations. Will the new contract exclude Continuing Education and specifically TELOS instructors from the full HR Hiring process. Negotiations are ongoing to be completed by August 10th.
• Jan proposed that we initiate a letter writing campaign to the BC Board of Trustees. Letter examples could be provided at the TSO general meeting. Bring everyone attending the general meeting into the process.
• This suggestion spurred a lot of discussion. We could do this. But what is the purpose? What do we expect the Board of Trustees to do? If Edmonds CRI is the model then are we willing to run the program as their TSO like council does? We just burned out without a role in running TELOS. Our biggest concern is the BC staff.
• Jerry Harkleroad suggested one big reason for the college to be interested in TELOS is the possibility of fundraising and estate grants from happy seniors taking great TELOS classes. This is not the case today. BC is not promoting the value of the College in the community.
• Most people taking TELOS classes do not know what is going on and do not want to get involved.
• We can vote on continuing the current Board at the next meeting.
• We can continue to meet as long as we have money in our BC account.
• TELOS generates very low income to the College. It may lose money on TELOS.
• There was concern from BCCE about the TSO website being out of date and getting phone calls from people about out of date information on the website.
• Jerry Bunce committed to reviewing the TSO website.
  • Update: the review has been done, problems identified, Steve has corrected or removed the problems and broken links.
• There was no resolution to the suggestion to do a letter writing campaign to the BC Board of Trustees. What is it that we would ask the Trustees to do? Would anything change as long as the current BCCE staff person is in place? If the model is the Edmonds CRI program, are we ready to take on the work and responsibility that our Edmonds counterparts are doing to make their program successful? Didn’t we just burn out?
• If the message is that there are people in our community with money to donate. Yes, but who among us wants to donate to a program that we perceive to be on the decline and hard to work with?