One Ringy-Dingy . . .

Our last Legislative Advisory Council (LAC) meeting was held last weekend on Saturday, February 2. It was to be held at OEA headquarters in Portland but because of the awful weather it was changed to a conference call.

What a great idea! First of all, the weather was universally hazardous across the state. Eugene had experienced 5 inches of snow earlier in the week and the coastal range had snow at 200 feet. As hard as it is for an Eastern Oregonian to relate to just a few inches of wet snow creating a huge obstacle for anyone driving in this area, the West-side snow fits this description. Here in Eastern Oregon Union County schools were closed on Thursday due to blowing snow (a condition that delayed school this week as well) and some schools in Klamath County were closed too. Second of all with 47,000 members in the Association many of them are far away from the I-5 corridor and spend several hours of travel time to attend a meeting (I count on 5 hours one way in good weather to reach Portland, in bad weather it is longer). Several members of the LAC would have been unable to attend the meeting because of these bad conditions and long distances to boot.

Conference calls are an excellent alternative to a face-to-face meeting. They are faster (our business was concluded in less than an hour), less expensive because of travel costs (the current IRS mileage rate is 50.5 cents per mile not to mention lodging and food expense), there is no travel time (minimum 10 hours round trip for me) and allow participants to do the business of the Association in the casual comfort of home. Certainly there are drawbacks. Conference calls are confusing because it is sometimes hard to track who is talking at any given time. Phone connections aren't always reliable and sometimes background noise can be a problem (I was harassed by my youngest cat and hoped that her talking wasn't a distraction to the other participants!). Face-to-face meetings allow participants to express themselves freely through raised eyebrows and other body language besides having side conversations during break times. Still, all things considered conference calls are efficient and allow members to meet with a minimum impact on their day.

With all of the technology available to us OEA should utilize some of these meeting methods when possible to get the most "bang for our buck" and still accomplish our goals.