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Members present: Betty Mattea, Catherine McKown, Lowell Smith, Donald Graff, Al Lozano, Dennis Brown, Sterling Harwell, Gene Dyer, Ted Freeman, Connie Kloh, Owen Haxton and Myra Berkowitz

Guest: Paul Libeu (from Sonoma), Patti Baseheart

The meeting of the Marin Chapter, Membership Meeting California Grand Jurors' Assn. Was called to order at 10:05 by President Betty Mattea.

The guest speaker Cynthia Murray, Chief Executive officer of the North Bay Leadership Council, was introduced by Lowell Smith. Ms Murray had been mayor of Novato and a former Supervisor of Marin’s 5th District.

The North Bay Leadership Council was an outgrowth of the Marin Council composed of Lucas, Fireman's Fund and others and evolved into a more active NBLC. She suggested we get additional details on the website: www.NBLC.org.

Cynthia Murray gave a most interesting and spirited history of the NBLC and at 10:58 she left our meeting.

President Mattea proceeded with the business meeting after the assurance that there was a quorum.

Two items were added to the Agenda: recruitment and successful Grand Jury reports.

Minutes of September 20, 2007 were approved

Foreperson Roberta Robinson's GJ report was very positive.- every committee has at least 2 RFIs in the making. Committees are well into interviewing and we have good writers and we anticipate good reports. The first reports may be coming out at the end February or in early March. She will remind her jurors that the oath of secrecy carries on even after they have completed their jury duty. (This last comment was in reference to a letter recently printed by the IJ from a former juror who told about decisions made by previous juries regarding how they decided what to investigate.) There are 19 wonderful members and one reserve juror - and all get along very well.

President's report:

A letter was written to Judi Lazenby, CGJA president, requesting information on various points of hosting an Annual Conference. Depending on her responses, we will either make an official offer or not. The motion to approve writing the letter of approval was not able to be offered for a vote since there was no quorum for both the October and November meetings. The December meeting was cancelled, so President Mattea sent the letter of inquiry with just BOD approval. There will be a vote of the membership upon our receipt of responses to our questions as to whether or not Marin will offer to host the 2010 CGJA Annual Conference.

Presentation of a needed addition to support the GJ - Gene, Irwin, Myra and Roberta will meet in March or April to find the required need, if indeed there is a need.

Lowell Smith discussed status of monthly speakers for our membership meetings and reminded us that he welcomes suggestions

February speaker is Gail Haar, Marin Head Librarian and colleague, Scott Bauer

March 20 speaker is Eckhart Sellinger - Director of Sons in Retirement (SIRS)

May 20 speaker at our Reunion is Tom Peters, CEO of Marin Community Foundation

October or September possibly League of Women Voters to discuss issues that will be on our Marin ballot.

Speakers Bureau for GJ recruitment: Catherine and Betty will speak to Grand Jury today. Catherine asked members present to speak to civic organizations, City Councils, wherever they could possibly speak. We prepared a sheet that has the main points of why someone would want to become a Grand Juror for your ease in getting your points across in the shortest time. It will be attached to these minutes. Also, Roberta will have an article in the IJ (the article appeared in a recent edition and is attached to these minutes)

Continuity Committee - working with Karin Hern, current juror, and getting good responses says our Gene Dyer, Continuity Committee Chair.

GJ Orientation - July 8-9-10 15 & 16 for new jurors, with the Reception for New Jurors on the 16^th at The Club from 4 to 6 PM.

Sterling is working on a review of the Manual, next major changes proposed are for 2009

Membership report and approval of Pilot Program - The Haxton Plan. CGJA is requested to authorize Marin Chapter to collect CGJA dues simultaneously with Chapter dues with one check using the CGJA application. .Chapter dues would be on a sliding scale:

March $5.00 MCGJA dues + $25.00 CGJA dues = $30.00

April $10.00 MCGJA dues + $25.00 CGJA dues = $35.00

May $15.00 MCGJA dues + $25.00 CGJA dues = $40.00

June $20.00 MCGJA dues + $25.00 CGJA dues = $45.00

The goal is to get as many Marin jurors to sign up for both organizations and as early as possible, thus assuring that all Marin members would receive a ballot for the next election in summer/fall of 2008.

Telephone Tree update - Al Lozano - The Telephone Tree Policy was approved with the caveat that it should be used for extraordinary events (not for monthly meetings) and only the inactive people should be called.

The meeting was adjourned at 11:55 a.m.

Myra Berkowitz, secretary