These minutes were approved at the 2020 AGM.
Bike Edmonton Annual General Meeting Minutes for 2019
- Location: Ritchie Community League (7727 98 St NW, Edmonton, AB)
- Date: November 3, 2019
Attendance
- Meeting Chair: Nancy Milakovic
- Minute-taker: Sarah Rebryna
- Attendance: 25 members in good standing
- Regrets: Jasmine Farahbakhsh, Mike Pybus, Helen Frost
Call to Order
- Meeting called to order by Nancy at 13:12.
Approval of Agenda
MOTION
| To approve the agenda.
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| Moved:
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Jeremy
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| Seconded:
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Geoff
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| Aye
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No
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Abstain
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| All
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0
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| Carried
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Approval of Minutes from 2018 Annual General Meeting
| Aye
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No
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Abstain
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| All
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0
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| Carried
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Reports
See 2019 Annual Report.
President's Report
- Acknowledgment and thanks to board, volunteers, and staff for getting the AGM organized
- The AGM is an opportunity to elect new and renew current board members. I encourage you to consider applying to be a new board member if you’re interested
- Without our volunteers we would not be able to run our programs, workshops, or community outreach events. Volunteers are key to our organization. Acknowledgement that the board are all volunteers, too
- We changed our name to Bike Edmonton and we continue to build on the concept of an inclusive identity
- With the new provincial government we could see cutbacks to our revenues as we rely on grants and casinos for a good chunk of our funding
- Special mention to one of our current board members Nancy Milakovic who has been on the board for approximately five years. She has indicated that she will be stepping away from the board but will remain a volunteer in our shops. I want to thank her for all her hard work and dedication to the organization as a board member over the years and for serving as the board’s Vice President for four of those years. I am sincerely going to miss her on the board
- We have a mixed model for our board, which means we provide governance for the organization but we also are involved in some of the operational decision making for the organization. With this mixed model, we are focused on trying to optimize A. Our board and B. Our operations. As the current president I think there is a lot of work involved with a mixed model and this is something we will be looking at for the year ahead in terms of how to maximize our staff and board responsibilities to keep Bike Edmonton moving along
- Some of the things we’ve accomplished in the past year include renovations to the north shop with funds budgeted for that. With the renovation we saw major rebuilding and reorganization inside the shop with new racking and repaving the parking lot that was full of potholes. We are currently working on getting our updated signage up. We also had to refortify the bike hangers in our south shop, which involved a lot of work for our volunteers but was important to ensure everyone’s safety while in the shop
- In terms of our programming, we continue to have really good outreach activities. We are still involved in a lot of community events by providing our bike racks to support the biking community in attending these events in having safe places for them to lock up their bikes. In addition, we also do bike pop-ups and tune-ups for bike tune-ups, which provide a service to the community and create exposure for Bike Edmonton
- The Spoke program is one that is really dear to my heart in the sense that it is programming designed for our youth that allows them to work together in a group to get a bike, work on it, and learn about it. But at the same time it gives them the opportunity to learn about their own self-confidence and how to get along with other people. So I really think this program is a valuable as one of our complementary programs and I would love to see us being able to offer more programming like this. But of course that will involve sponsorships and future fundraising
- Back to the Board, we’ve had three committees in the past year taking care of our business. Our Program Review Committee looked at our programming, developed a logic model to guide our organization and an evaluation form to evaluate how our programs are performing. Helen was the Chair of that committee. We had a Revenue Committee, which looked at how we raised our revenues through our grants and other opportunities and they came up with the idea to help raise money through a Bike-Friendly Certification program, which we will look at in the coming year. Our Admin Committee had kind of a busy year in the sense that we had to transition our bookkeeper service as our previous bookkeeper who set up everything had overextended himself with his job and having a new baby, so we did some searching and eventually landed on a new bookkeeper. I had no idea how much work was involved in the process and it was a lot to learn
- Moving on to thinking about the outstanding work we need to focus on in the upcoming year includes Occupational Health & Safety. We have volunteers, members of the public, including children and an assortment of tools and equipment in our two shops and it’s critical that we have something in place that says we’ve looked at those risks, assessed them, and identified the things we need to do to mitigate them and ensure we are meeting the OH&S standards. That is going to require a concerted effort from our volunteers, so if anyone finds that of interest to them we would greatly appreciate the help
- Looking back on the downside of the year, we were running low on operational finances, we are sitting in a good position right now having run a successful casino and having strong bike sales in the Spring, which was important as we kind of got rained out this summer and that definitely impacted the number of folks coming into our shops.
- New signage for Bike Edmonton is looking great; signifies inclusive approach that we want our bike programs to take
Executive Director's Report
- Membership/Volunteers
- New Membership Database
- Implemented this year
- New interface should make it easier to perform membership searches and updates
- Our membership is important for both our revenue and to present to City Council whenever we have meetings with them
- Our membership for the 2018-19 fiscal year has remained stable with no real growth or losses
- We have many volunteers and this past year we had over 2,300 volunteer hours logged
- With the increase in our shop fees we saw a 14% increase in revenue from shop fees for this past fiscal year, however, we did see a decrease in the number of shop hours used
- We are still focused on accessibility and our shops continue to be accessible to all
- North Shop Renovations Completed
- Saw an increase in this shop’s revenue by 19%
- We have a tidier, safer shop space now and this is all good news
- One of our longtime volunteers Alex helped a lot with the renos and the rebuilding of the fence after the paving, along with many other volunteers
- Bike Builder
- Jan is our bike builder and he built 170 bikes this year
- He also mentors our other volunteers and he ran 22 classes this year, including 5 winter cycling classes
- Sales
- Our bike sales keep happening earlier every year. This past year we saw a spike in our bike sales as early as March
- It’s important to note that these spikes and dips in our sales are very difficult for all of our operations and on our staff and volunteers
- The Spoke - Molly
- This is an earn-a-bike program, but also a confidence-building program
- Youth meet with volunteers and build up a bike over a 7-week period
- >75% of youth in the Spoke were youth in need
- Education Report - Molly
- Last year’s pilot program to teach Jr. High kids mechanics skills has had some hurdles. We determined that the program would only be cost effective if schools paid for services
- Although some schools have stated their interest in the program, none to date have found funding to run the program
- We partnered with Ever Active Schools. The partnership agreement provides a sustainable way for us to offer effective in class and on road cycling education to kids from grades 3-12
- Advocacy
- We have been less publicly active/visible/vocal in terms of advocacy
- We are focusing more on reaching our key stakeholders
- We connected with MLA David Shepherd
- Alberta Cycling Coalition - Annie McKitrick
- albertacyclingcoalition.com
- Currently looking at the Traffic Safety Act, which is an Act that includes all provincial highway and road systems
- As a result of our talks, which Chris was involved in, we have three asks of the provincial government
- 1). Is to require a safe passing distance of 1 metre and 1.5 metres for speeds greater than 60km/hr
- 2). Allow two-abreast riding when not impeding the flow of traffic, and
- 3). (This one is very applicable to urban areas) Cyclists are to ride as far to the right as is safe vs. what is practical
- Calgary has successfully passed safe passing laws
- We are working with Bike Edmonton to change the cycling bylaws in Edmonton and we would like you to sign our petition that we are hoping to bring before the Legislative Assembly encouraging the new government to take the suggestions of the former secretary and make the necessary changes
- Miscellaneous details
- No ghost bikes have been installed in the last couple of years thanks to the bike lanes helping to make cycling in Edmonton safer. There is still a lot of work to do
- Just to go back to volunteers - we had over 130 volunteers over this past year with a total of 4,100 hours, which, as I say every year, only includes the hours that we can convince our volunteers to actually record, so the number is likely quite a bit higher
- We had 16 volunteer orientations over this past year - if you don’t currently volunteer with us we would really encourage you to get involved in our shops or on our board, as well we have other opportunities available that do not require mechanical skills
- Our Volunteer Party is coming up November 23, 2019
- Question from the audience: Ron asked about where we were with regards to our application for charitable status that has been in the works for the last 2-3 years?
- Mike S. replied that our application was denied and that we are not focusing on that right now
- Chris Chan added that in order for our application to be approved this would require us to really focus our mandate a lot more along with several, significant changes to our current operations
Treasurer's Report
- Mike Sacha (Vice President and Acting Treasurer)
- Ali did a great job, but he had to step away as he was no longer in town
- It is clear that bike sales are a very key component to our revenue and are something we need to really focus on
- We presented a balanced budget for the 2018-19 fiscal year
- We were successful within 2% of that target
- Not all of our numbers match perfectly due to our bookkeeper transition, but we managed a balanced budget nonetheless
- Proposed Budget
- Proposing a balanced budget for fiscal year 2019-20
- From our typical revenue streams of grant funding, the City of Edmonton, the casino, and a number of smaller donors (Chris can expand on this)
- We were successful in our application for the property tax exemption
- Potential to run a BIke-Friendly Certification program
- This will incur initial expenses, but it should have a positive net result on our revenue
- Questions from the audience
- Where do we get our grants from?
- Chris replied that our major grants this year came from Velo Canada Eco Action Grant, Community Investment Operating Grant from the City of Edmonton, a grant from the Alberta Transportation and Safety branch, and from some other smaller donors. Our major funding, again, is from grants, the casino (approximately $75,000 every two years) - there was a lot of concern around the longevity of this funding in particular due to the recent changes to the new government’s lottery funding, however, this is separate from casino funding and, therefore, should not impact Bike Edmonton
- Ali asked about the impact of the property exemption and Chris clarified that it should be close to approximately $14,000 for the year, which is reflected in our shop operating costs
- Question about Chris’ comment on stepping back from advocacy and if that would be continuing moving forward?
- Chris replied that we had stepped away from this role this past year largely due to our lack of capacity and that he would like to see us step back into that role
MOTION
| To receive the reports as presented.
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| Moved:
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Robert
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| Seconded:
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Geoff
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| Aye
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No
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Abstain
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| All
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0
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| Carried
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Recognition Awards Presentation
- Jack Grainge Memorial Award awarded to Shayne Stonehocker
- Dale Alsopp Memorial Award awarded to Bruce McIntosh
- Ian Helgesen Memorial Award awarded to Eric Tremblay and Larry Sandulak
- Pater Pal Memorial Award awarded to Richard Ruman
[Break: 14:12-14:27]
New Business
- Budget 2017-8 (5 min, 14:27-14:31) - Mike S.
- See appended Budget package
- Proposing a balanced budget for the 2019-20 fiscal year
- Based on expectations for increased shop sales coupled with increased operating costs to be incurred by hiring a second bike mechanic. ***Overall, our expectations should have us meeting a balanced budget
- Question from the audience
- Ron stated that he noticed we are anticipating lower revenues from grant funding and asked why this was?
- Chris replied that we received several one-time-only grants in the 2018-19 fiscal year and that we are trying to be very conservative with our budget to leave room for any unexpecteds
- Nancy mentioned that we posted a net gain of $7,200 for the 2018-19 fiscal year and she wanted to extend a special thank you the Bike Edmonton staff for all their hard work in making that possible and exceeding the board’s expectations, especially knowing how challenging it was
MOTION
| To approve the 2019-2020 budget as presented.
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| Moved:
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Geoff Davis
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| Seconded:
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Ali
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| Aye
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No
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Abstain
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| All
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0
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| Carried
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Board Elections
- Overview of Election Process - Nancy
- We have 7 returning board members, and ideally we would like to have 12 members, so we will be looking for some new board members for this upcoming term. We have no nominations in advance and are looking for nominations from the floor. You may nominate someone else or you may nominate yourself. We will ask you to give a short introduction and what you will bring to the board and organization. We have 3 board members that need to stand for re-election and we had 2 members join mid-term who will also need to stand for election. So there will be 5 names on the ballot plus any floor nominations
- Nominees on the ballot are: Mike Sacha, Jasmine Farahbakhsh,Talha Zafar, Annya Hundal
Some board housekeeping notes: we typically meet Monday nights, once a month, so if you want to be a part of the board but have immovable Monday night commitments then it might be really tough for you to be on the board, but keep in mind that there will be other opportunities such as committees and other non-shop work that Chris had mentioned earlier
- We would like to thank the contributions of our outgoing board members for fulfilling their terms, Nancy Milakovic, Ali Charkeih, Michael Wilson, Helen Frost, and Mark Husband
- New nominations: There were no advance nominations
- Matthew Hoyt and Rachel Keglowitsch nominated themselves from the floor
- Nominations and Candidate Introductions (1 min each)
- Matthew Hoyt: Chem/Bio degree. Travelled to Amsterdam in 2010 and was impressed by their bike infrastructure. Entered the Navy after high school. Is 6’4”, 220lbs and so he can ride where he wants, when he wants, but bike infrastructure is very important for people like his wife and kids
- Rachel Keglowitsch: was briefly a former EBC board member and hopes to be given the chance to complete her term this time around
MOTION
To recognize
- Jeremy Shepherd,
- Mike Sacha,
- Talha Zafar,
- Jasmine Farahbakhsh,
- Sarah Rebryna,
- Mike Pybus,
- Annya Hundal,
- Rachel Keglowitsch, and
- Matthew Hoyt
as the 2019-2020 Bike Edmonton Board of Directors.
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| Moved:
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Jeremy
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| Seconded:
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Geoff
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| Aye
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No
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Abstain
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| All
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0
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| Carried
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Adjournment
- Nancy’s contributions were thanked by Adrian and supported by all in attendance. Nancy stated that she will continue to volunteer with the organization on Tuesday evenings
MOTION
| To adjourn.
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| Moved:
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Geoff
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| Seconded:
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Ali
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| Aye
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No
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Abstain
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| All
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0
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| Carried
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