ASHI Board Meeting Report

Six new Directors, eight returning Directors and ASHI’s officers attended a Friday morning orientation session before the April Board meeting in Chicago. New Directors Charles Bellefonatine, Robert Fico, Bryck Guibor, James Lee, James Rooney and Timothy Stull went immediately to work that afternoon as Directors and Officers met as a committee of the whole to receive the results of the ASHI Membership Survey and hear recommendations from consultants Taunya Land, Leading Solutions Group; Gordon Rudow, Bonfire Productions; and Tom Hirschauer, Publics Dialogue. Saturday morning the branding session continued, with the Board addressing the following agenda items in the afternoon.  

• Although advertising revenue helps pay for improvements to the Web site and other Membership benefits, the Directors moved to protect the Society’s professional and consumer-friendly image by declaring ashi.org’s consumer pages off limits to paid ads. While the consumer pages will be ad free, advertising space will continue to be sold on Members Only pages.

• As the well-received ASHI@Home training program transitions to a college course, the Directors approved the recommendation to deliver all current and future ASHI endorsed education programs under the umbrella title, “The ASHI School of Home Inspection.” Specific programs will be identified within the title, such as “The ASHI School of Home Inspection, Correspondence Edition.”

• A request to expand the authority of ASHI’s Rapid Response Team from national legislative issues to include State legislative issues and InspectPAC matters was granted. The team is composed of the current president, current Legislative Committee co-chairs, the executive director and the assistant executive director.

• The ASHI Position Statement on the Regulation of Home Inspectors was reviewed and sent to the Legislative Committee with minor changes. Members of the committee will grade the states taking into consideration changes in legislation and new laws enacted since states were first graded when the paper was published last year. The updated version will be ready to distribute at the National Conference of State Legislators (NCSL) in July.

• In response to a request from an expelled member to be reinstated, the Board approved four Members to serve on a 2003 Special Hearing Committee: John Geiger, David Swartz, Brian Rawlings, and Mark Thomas (alternate.) Following the hearing, the CEPP will report to the Board with a recommendation.  

• Policies written to govern the Code of Ethics Committee after it was spun off from the Standards and Ethics Committee last year continue to be refined. The caveat  “other than complaints, which are the jurisdiction of other committees” was added to its description of handling all of the matters associated with the Code of Ethics, and the even numbered, two-year development cycle was deleted.

• The Board granted a request from five chapters in North Carolina to became one – North Carolina ASHI, and a request from the Southeast Chapter to change its name to ASHI Georgia.