January 2011 Problem Gambling Task Force Meeting Minutes

Welcome/Updates: Debbie Snapp drew attention to an article that states how the new governor will be sweeping $35 million from casino gambling and redirect it to other means in order to balance the budget. 

SRS will be advertising for a coordinator in the area that will work with the taskforce to help further our efforts. They have already received funding for this. 

Problem Gambling Alliance – Report: Debbie stated that everyone can now access the report online at http://www.ksgamblinghelp.com to see what activities the Alliance is involved in. 

Kansas Coalition on Problem Gambling – Report: The Coalition also has a website to review their report at http://www.ksproblemgambling.org . Debbie announced that Mike Deines is no longer with the KRGC. This means that there is also no one on the state committee that represents SW Kansas and she wanted to make sure everyone is aware of this. 

Financial Report: Debbie gave the financial report and submitted a P&L for everyone’s review. It states that the task force currently has $4,726.62 to use for future projects, brochures, etc. There may be more to come from the 2% tax but it has yet to be determined what, if anything, that will be. 

Committee Reports : 

• Public Relations/Marketing : Frances Walden handed out a template of duties that the committee foresees them taking on and wanted to know if it was too repetitive or if it needs to be more concise? Dave spoke to it appearing to be a bit ambitious and Debbie felt that there were sections that overlapped with the Education committee. Jane went on to talk about how the group should be sending out the same message when the group is invited to speak to the public and wants to put together a PowerPoint to use. Jane asked about existing brochures – are there any or are we allowed to use the ones printed for the casino? Debbie suggested that we create our own to let everyone know who we are – should be 2 sided, glossy and contain our contact information. Dave Geist felt that we needed to make it a priority to have a banner created with our name and logo on it to use at upcoming events as well. 
  
• Political advocacy: Dave Geist handed out a list of duties for his group. Frances raised the question of whether or not he could generate a list of various representatives and government officials’ contact information that the group could use to reach out on various topics that would affect the task force’s efforts. 
  
• Funding: Patrick Klecker stated that their meeting seemed to have raised numerous questions. Until it is determined what the needs of the task force are, then they don’t feel that they can adequately plan the funding aspect. They are considering asking for corporate sponsorships as the needs arise and want to put in a donation box at various locations, specifically the casino and bingo establishments, to allow for contributions. They checked into grant possibilities but they need to know what the money is going for before they can submit requests for them. Kerry will check with the casino to see if a donation box can be set up there. Ethel raised the question of whether or not gambling establishments would feel that they are already paying it. And Patrick’s response was that the donation boxes would be free choice, the same as donation cans are set up in gas stations. Patrick went on to state that corporate sponsors would be sought for trainings and we would be putting a notice on the materials that this “training was brought to you by…..” to recognize their contributions. 
  
• Education: Sharon Stuart stated that the committee is making plans to set up at job fairs and area events in order to get the word out. Ethel raised the question as to whether or not the committee had plans to repeat the Urgent Challenge and Sage trainings as that is her idea of education as well. Sharon felt that these would go hand in hand with the job fairs and events. Again, it was brought up that the committees seem to be crossing over each other and we may need to narrow down the duties in order to get more specific for each group. 
  
• Special Events: Kerry Kaiser spoke to the intention of the committee to crossing over others here as well. It is felt that the committee would be “behind the scenes” for any of the events that are planned by the group as a whole .We would set up everything for any trainings that were being considered, a meet and greet session to raise memberships, job fairs etc. but otherwise, would have no idea of funds that we could use to plan other things. 
  

Debbie wanted everyone to go back to their committees and discuss further how to hone down the duties and set up some kind of prioritizing of the suggestions to present at the next meeting.

Other Business: Debbie spoke about data collection and trends in gambling and that, according to Jean Holthaus, this is already in place and being collected. She reminded the group about the information that Kevin Ford gave out in the previous meeting in which he talked about a multitude of data that legislature needs to be hearing but that he can’t share due to confidentiality restrictions. Debbie opened up a discussion about how else we could gather this information and stated that we could make suggestions to Jean Holthaus of other topics that we wanted to cover. Debbie asked if there was a release that could be generated for Kevin’s patients to sign in which it allowed them to release the information but it wasn’t felt this would adequately cover the state since it would only be implemented at New Chance. Kevin spoke to a suggestion that Carol Spiker had given in which it was thought that law enforcement officials could add it to their questions and we could get some feedback that way. Frances suggested this could be expanded upon in the KCPC during the upcoming time that they are updating that material. 

Review of Vision Statement: “The Southwest KS Problem Gambling Task Force envisions united communities free from the harmful effects of problem gambling” was decided upon for the task force’s vision statement. 

Members Present: The following members were present at the meeting:

1. Debbie Snapp 
   
2. Kerry Kaiser 
   
3. Patrick Klecker 
   
4. Sharon Stuart 
   
5. Dave Geist 
   
6. Kevin Ford 
   
7. Jane Longmeyer 
   
8. Ethel Schneweis 
   
9. Frances Walden 
   

Next Meeting: The next meeting will be held on the 2nd Thursday in February, 2/10/11. Meeting was then adjourned.

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