Board Minutes June 2015

These minutes were approved at the July 2015 board meeting.

EBC Board Meeting Minutes for June 17, 2015

Board meetings are open to the EBC members and the public.

• Location: Rm 213 Ed South, UofA
• Start Time: 6:30pm

Please RSVP to [board@edmontonbikes.ca] if you plan on attending. Please include a brief summary of any agenda item you would like to table. Thank you!

Attendance

• Meeting Chair:Jonathan
• Minute-taker: Anna
• Food by: Nancy
• Board attendance: Jon, Nancy, Anna, Alexey
• Staff attendance: Chris Chan, Marianne, Coreen
• Regrets: Rachel, Geoff, Dan
• Absent: Adrian, Chris Co
• Guests: Michael O'Neill, Nathan Treloar

Call to Order

• Meeting called to order by Jon at 7:18 pm.

Logistics for Next Meeting

• Date: July 15 2015
• Location: Room 213 Education South U of A
• Chair: Geoff
• Minute-taker: Anna
• Food by: Alex

Approval of Agenda, Minutes, Reports (5 min)

• Motion: To approve this June agenda, the May 2015 minutes as amended, April 2015 minutes, March 2015 minutes. Moved by Nancy. Seconded by Alex. Motion Carried.

• No reports this month.
• incomplete motion from May minutes
• need explicit acknowledgement of Michele's resignation.

Current & Completed Business

Updates on Action Items From Previous Meeting (5 min)

• Everyone log your 2015 board volunteer hours for the past month.
• Everyone sign reports that you have reviewed each month.
• Committee Chairpersons to post all committee meetings to EBC calendar - public ones go on "EBC Events", other committee meetings go on "EBC Internal" calendar.

COMPLETED

ED Update (10 min) Chris

• May report is forthcoming. Likely done tonight or tomorrow.
• Marianne is leaving to move in Sept. Have met with Nancy to rework the admin of her position. Some of her duties will be delegated to Les. He is already overworked but figuring out whether he can manage the added responsibilities.
• June has been full of events, all paid. One struggle: having enough skilled contractors to work these events. Has been first time that we have such high demand for off-site instruction of mechanics.
  • Nancy: Busy because its Bike Month or...? Chris: Yes, Bike Month, Enviro Week, farmers markets, etc.
• Art Ride = 80
• Bike To Symphony = over 100 people rode their bike out of ~800 tickets at the symphony (MS Bike Tour was the next day)
• Women, Trans, Gender Non Binary program. Overall increased awareness and support for the program. Criticism from MRAs, mostly from USA.
• Coreen was sick for much of May, struggled for volunteers at shops in May. Working on improving volunteer schedule so that we have more confidence.
  • Marianne: Had over 35 volunteers at orientations this month! Now need to figure out next steps to retain and mentor.
• Bike Builder position is behind on revenue generation but better for May than April. Still moving toward its target.
  • Nancy: Are built bikes eligible for discount? Coreen: Discount only ever applied to bikes that have NOT had tune up or fixed.
  • Coreen: While I was sick in May, Keith was using some of his time to cover for me so that should also be considered.
  • Nancy: Knowing what his hours are going toward are really helpful to know what is happening versus the budget. Still need to do work on optics of this position to differentiate this paid position from the same work that volunteers at BWN are doing. Need to keep working on optics and messaging. Jon: This is why we need to hold Bike Building position accountable to the budget/goal of production to be able to justify paid vs volunteer. Alex: If position is covering costs of parts and generating quality bikes, this should be recognized. Nancy: Absolutely, but if volunteer does same repair with same skill... Alex: Having finished bikes allows volunteers to spend more time with people, also we dont always have volunteers but it is nice to have finished bikes available for patrons. Alexey: Had an experience at shop that one patron was so impressed that they could buy a perfectly tuned bike for less than their previous bike - this person's word of mouth and praise is invaluable!
• New patio at BWS. Have some small physical changes at BWS. Plan to bring these to BWN but want a full plan for BWN first.

Charitable Status Open House (35 min) - Alexey, Jon, Nancy

• Charitable Status Open House held last night at no cost for venue.
• Attended: Jon, Nancy, Alexey, Chris Ch, two EBC members
• Presented powerpoint
• One member had experiencing with other organization to pursue charitable status. Too often group has revenue shortfall and seeks charitable status to solve problem. Suggestions:
  • File on time
  • Do not do biz with groups outside of Canada
  • Political activities. What are boundaries?
  • CRA must approve our objectives, but CRA can change their rules at any point which then could not be approved.
  • Foundation arm of org? Discussed that EBC would not do this.
• What are penalties if default on charitable status. Had 3 page list of penalties but did not include revoking charitable status.
• Our objects, accounting are in line with CRA. New position will also explicitly seek qualifications for this.
• One member had other suggestions:
  • Splitting programs. Bring "the brand" together to allow for synergies of the overall organization and programs. Duplication of governance duties if two separate organizations.
• Debate merits and shortcomings of charitable status for EBC (8:00-9:10)
• Anna: Felt that the presentation was biased and assumed board was in favour of charitable status. Concerns raised in Jan board meeting and committee meeting were not address and still remain for me. We should have set a quorum for the open house because i'm not sure we have done sufficient member consultation if 2 people attended. Can we post the presentation on website and have basic survey to get more feedback?
• Nancy: I had 3 concerns before and feel satisfied now. 1) Amount of funds available to charities 2) 3) Administration of accounting and tax receipts.
• Coreen: CRA as a political tool (not non-partisan) of current govt. Have concerns that we may be open to this.
• Alex: EBC is currently a pretty good org. In future, org could change and not be as organized and the requirements for charities could get us in trouble. Also, this could change how we are perceived by community - shift away from direct... just dont want to become an ivory tower organization with layers between the organization and the community we serve. Want to pursue charitable status but want to engage the membership more before we do.
  • Alexey: People trust charities more.
• Coreen: EBC did not start as a mainstream organization. If we want to be more mainstream, this is a big shift in our organization.
• Chris: We are running a deficit, there is a sense of urgency for our organization for more funding. Two of our main programs, spoke & YCR2, both require more funds to continue.
• Nathan: EBC general membership supports bikes, but spoke supporters might not even be cyclists or like bikes but they will donate to the program directly. Also, board of HIV Edmonton went from society to charity a few years ago. The bigger they got, the harder it was. I dont see EBC shrinking. Might as well get it done sooner than later.
• Nancy: I see charitable status as a revenue source; we are not changing our objectives, vision, mission, values. Would allow us to go deeper into the community that we serve; do more of what we're doing.
• Nancy: Concerned about email to membership. We have spent much more time on this. We need to make a decision as elected board members. Alex: Would like opportunity to give "statement of intent" to membership about charitable status but recruit their feedback for our consideration. It behooves us to include people as much as possible. Chris: We can get this out to this week or early next week to members and have 2-3 weeks for responses to consider before July meeting. Nancy: Worried that we have not given the membership the benefit of the information that we ourselves have received. They will not have robust info to make comments or decisions from.

...sooo much more discussion! not captured!

• Jon: We will need to make decision in July meeting for this topic.

New Business

Urban Planning Intern (10 min)

• Michael working on Urban Planning master from McGill. Needs to do course work so is an EBC intern for the summer. Areas of interest: advocacy, want to be Transportation Planner so design work or that type of experience.
• Used data from 2014 Municipal Census.
• Discussion:
  • Jon: This is a unique opportunity due to the 95 Ave Bike Lane possible motion by Council coming up. I would like to identify members around this area to garner info and interest.

Spoke (10 min) - Nathan

• Nathan has been volunteering with the Spoke for past 3 years.
• Planning for the Spoke to run again in Sept out of BWN and same volunteer base.
• Marianne and Nathan over past month have been meeting to discuss changes.
  • Need paid coordinator for program! Could possibly be part of Marianne's position
  • Board position for the spoke program. Serve a specific community and have a niche audience. We feel well represented but would be good to have a closer relationship with board. Formal representation.
• Looking for support from Board to keep the Spoke inertia going by having this paid position.
• Spoke organizes program in a fun way! Operate as a group with egalitarian structure. This is not the organizational structure that seems to be how EBC overall is structured, so may be challenge to designate a rep.
  • Nancy: When we started as a board this year, we wanted to put "more hands on deck" and created Marianne and Les' current positions to provide support for Spoke, YCR2, etc. There is definitely support for spoke on the board but now the staff have more specific responsibility.
  • Nathan: Glad to hear. I am here to push support for "the bottom up."
  • Jon: The Spoke organization, from my personal experience, is the best way to organize. Informal discussions were valuable for me to see during the program delivery to help me understand what was going on.
  • Nathan: We are looking for more than someone who is there regularly, get a feel for where we are at, coming back to speak with us after decision has been made, etc.
  • Jon: This is really what Marianne's position was for. She could be involved, relay information, have decision-making power, etc.
  • Anna: What was the reason for not being able to run this past Feb to now? Nathan: Lacked volunteers. This was the longest stint of the Spoke running yet. Have an ebb and flow of mechanics. Tara (previous coordinator) was not able to continue so we also lacked a coordinator. We know that programs during the summer dont work so we could have run July-Aug program but decided not to for variety of reasons. We are focusing on a strong start for Sept.
  • Nancy: Clarifying - what type of board capacity are you recommending? Nathan: board member who has spoke as portfolio. Marianne: Having a name assigned shows board commitment for the program.
  • Alexey: Could spoke have rep at board meetings? Nathan: Here I am :)
  • Nathan: Spoke is unique because it was established through Neighbourhood Empowerment Team (NET). What does it mean to go from NET seed project to a self-sustained project? Anna: Would be an opportunity for the board to go back to NET to share how the program is going, maybe ask for specific support if there are areas of challenge that we have. They are a great resource and continue to be proud of the Spoke.

• Action Items: Anna will add board assignments to July agenda.

Board Recruitment (5 min) - Anna

• Recruit new Board Members update
• Opportunity to recruit? InterVivios event June 24
• Les may be attending. Anna

• Action Items: Anna will check if Les is able to attend. Anna share candidate application with board.

Bank Authorizations (5 min) - Jon TABLED

• Change to Banking Authorizations;
• YCR2 Separate Account with YCR2 signing authority

In Camera Session

• Nancy has 1 topic for HR - tabled to July.
• no in camera session

Adjournment

• Motion: To adjourn the meeting at 9:20pm. Moved by Alex, seconded by Anna. Motion Carried.