Auntie ABATE / “Cuz” Report

Dear Cuz,

From time to time I notice in the board minutes that ABATE of Wisconsin is offering “scholarships” to attend different things. Who is eligible for these, what do they cover, and how do they work?

Free Money is Good

Dear Free Money –

First off, it ain’t free but it’s a damned good value.

When the ABATE of Wisconsin board of directors approves money for these “scholarships” they are offering to help our members with the expense of attending the conference or training but it’s not a full-blown-all-expenses-paid-let’s-eat-steak-and-drink-the-night-away sort of thing. If it was, your loving Cuz would be begging for every trip.

What is covered? Here’s what our policy manual says…

Conference Registration. submit your registration form and payment in time to receive the reduced fee early discount. Date is usually listed on the registration form.

Travel Arrangements: whenever possible you will be provided with a list of other ABATE of WI attendees. We hope that you make every effort to combine travel to save money when possible. Ground transportation personal vehicle fuel costs only will be covered. Public transportation costs requires pre-approval.

All beverages and food costs (unless included in conference registration costs) are the responsibility of the attendee.

All attendees whose travel and registration expenses are paid for by ABATE of Wisconsin are expected to attend and participate in all general sessions and as many of the breakout sessions as practical. Not to the contrary we understand that there will occur circumstances where a more effective use of time and attendance will be meetings outside the set agenda, however, these should be kept to a minimum to the extent that they keep the attendee from the seminar itself.

Lodging Reservations: attendees are expected to stay at the conference facility and take advantage of the group-rate-discount. Standard room fee only, any add-ons or extra room charges will not be reimbursed. A minimum of two ABATE of WI attendees must be lodged in the room for the entire daily rate to be reimbursable. If this is not possible contact the ABATE State Office prior to the conference for guidance. Two-to-a-room is a minimum: is if works out three or four to a room is a bonus for us.

A bonus for “us”?  Yup. It’s you, me and all the other members that are paying for this. The money doesn’t just fall out of the sky, we make it the old-fashioned way through membership payments and fundraisers.

So, if we’re spending “our money” for this we should all get something out of it right?  Right. What do we get?

To be reimbursed for the expenses, the scholarship recipient is asked to do the following: learn as much as they can and come back to us with this knowledge willing to share it at Regional Meetings and to the membership through written reports that are shared in this newsletter as space allows.

ABATE of Wisconsin also “banks” this earned knowledge knowing that the more knowledgeable and trained our members are, the more effective our organization will be going forward.

So how do we decide who gets these scholarships? First, we decide how many will be offered. The committee involved and the board consider how important the conference or training is, how many people it will take to cover all the information, how much important information will be there to be learned, how much money it is going to cost (travel distance is always a consideration), and in some cases who from our membership as been asked to be a part of the conference as a facilitator. Then this formula gets voodoo’d around with what’s available in our ABATE budget and a number of attendees and a expenditure amount is approved by the board.

When you see a call for scholarship attendees announced, any member of ABATE of Wisconsin is welcomed to apply. We (ABATE of WI) recognize that it is important for people other than state and regional officers to be able to attend conferences to keep the membership active, informed, and motivated. When financially possible, the state will open conference attendance to a larger number of people, at any level of membership. The idea behind this is that not only do we need to keep our current officers up-to-speed we have to prepare the next line of defense (a.k.a. future officers.)

Sometimes the reimbursement rules are adjusted to the needs of the conference: good examples of this are when we host a conference like the Heartland STEAM conference and when the MRF’s Meeting of the Minds comes to our state.  For these conferences, scholarship people will be asked to work the event for a pre-determined amount of hours to cover all the bases of what we need to do. Ask anyone who has worked STEAM in previous years: you can work a few shifts and still have plenty of time to learn and have fun. In fact, a number of our volunteers feel that they get so much from the conference that they do not even request reimbursement.

And yes, these scholarships are reimbursement. We learned years ago that if some people didn’t pay upfront they “forgot” to show up to work or attend the conference.

I hope this answered your question… and I hope you consider one of the scholarships in the future. It’s not a “free ride” but it will help you and all of our members “Ride Free.”

“Cuz”