January 26, 2004

OATA Officer and Board Meeting Summary

Attendance: Jim Wolf, Nathan Watermeier, Scott Metzger, David Sever, Harold Watters. Due to a cleaning session at Der Dutchman we moved to the Dutch Kitchen just down SR 42 from Plain City.

Minutes from last meeting - Harold

Minutes posted to the web by Nathan. Approved as read.

Treasurer's report – Scott

We have two new members. We need a letter to go to currently listed members requesting that they join with a $10 membership fee. We discussed that we need to get our ducks in a row regarding our plans, programs and services for the future. We also discussed how to go about setting up a non-profit corporation for the OATA in Ohio . This would enable us to handle money more efficiently as well as apply for grants and funding. For the moment we need to have checks coming in to be payable to: Scott Metzger DBA OATA.

Ohio Regional InfoAg Conference – Nathan

Nathan met with Harold Reetz about two weeks ago. Harold encouraged us to do the regional InfoAg and to work with the PPI folks, Ag Retailers and the Meredith Publications (Crop Life) people on this. We proposed the dates as August 10 and 11, and will need to find a location that would allow some field demonstrations and an air conditioned classroom area. Locations discussed were: Washington CH, Van Wert, Urbana, FSR site, Madison County Fairgrounds – we have not contacted anyone with these facilities and want input back from interested parties on this. We also discussed whether or not to run concurrent sessions over the two day period. We discussed that we might also run two separate programs – one per day – with perhaps one directed to retailers and another to others. No decision was made on these items, again we are looking for input.

RFID - Radio Frequency ID – Nathan

We discussed a future program on the use of RFID chips in agriculture. These are inexpensive chips that store and broadcast identifying information. These could be used in livestock, for field or crop identification, emergencies, etc.

A program on ideas using RFID, identity preservation, field verification and ISO standards for agricultural production would be valuable for the future.

OATA – Profit or Non-Profit? – Harold

There had been some talk about setting up a for-profit group, but after discussion the group felt we could better serve the industry as a non-profit group. We may in the future set up a for-profit group as well. Scott and I will look into how we set up a non-profit corporation in Ohio .

Email CCA members for recruiting...? – Harold

We discussed raising money from dues by inviting CCA members of Ohio as members of the OATA. We will hold off on sending a request for members and dues from CCAs for now. We will send minutes and invite them to participate however. Again it was felt we need to get our business in order before we make any great recruitment efforts.

CTTC Agenda – Looks good! Details needed? - Group

We have a good program for the CTC in Ada for February 26 th . Speakers have been contacted and confirmed. Nathan will bring in the satellite uplink trailer as a rural WWW demonstration. He will also have a wireless web set up at the conference. As a real bonus Jim Schwartz with iCorn.com will be doing an actual Webinar from the meeting room on the conference day with the audience viewing at the same time as the participants on the web.

Other items

The officers will meet at the CTC at 11AM in room D to discuss final details and setup for the OATA seminar.

Nathan has updated several items on the OATA website: http://agnr.osu.edu/oata

Next Meeting

March 29 th, Dutch Kitchen near Plain City at 6PM. All are welcome to attend. Please let us know you are coming so we can arrange enough room. Last meeting the Dutch Kitchen gave us a private meeting room with no prior arrangements… very helpful.

Send agenda items to Jim Wolf: jwolf@icorn.com

Address for the next meeting – and a link for a map: