Board Minutes March 2024

These minutes are not yet approved. They are scheduled for review and approval at the upcoming board meeting.

Bike Edmonton Board Meeting Minutes for March 2024

Board meetings are open to Bike Edmonton members and the public.

• Google Meet
• Start Time: 7:00 pm

Please RSVP to board@bikeedmonton.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: Stephen
• Minute-taker: Adam
• Board attendance: Keith, Marcel, Matthew, Derek, Colin, Sarah, Daniel
• Staff attendance: Coreen, Alex, Vaughan
• Regrets:
• Absent:
• Guests:

Call to Order

• Meeting called to order by at 7:13 pm.

Logistics for Next Meeting

• Date: April 8, 2024
• Location: Google Meet
• Chair:
• Minute-taker:

President's Report

• Verbal report: MacEwan lease was expanded. Signing authority was changed over. Will soon have lease on storage space (Sarah working to draft it, which Marcel will need for the casino people). President attended one event at Winter Cycling Congress.

Treasurer's Report

$21,700 surplus in January, thanks to donations, which are now at $48k on the year (already $15k over target for the year). Salary/wages now down $3k per 2 weeks with Greg gone, now at ~$7300 (will go up slightly). Operating acct balance $30k (pending an upcoming payroll, and that includes $ from the winter bike tire program). We owe $6k to Bergeron and $7k to CRA-- repayment is planned. Casino acct is at $50k. Will soon be paying $8300/mo out of casino acct (with the expanded spaces on north side). He will make sure AGLC is ok with board member Matt receiving our sublease payments on the storage space. He's also going to try to start making utility payments out of the casino acct. Loan repayment ~$550/month to board member Adam will start in May. He's letting the Mastercard run some balance for the time being. We are still waiting for matching $5k from the AB govt crowd-funding platform.

Marcel went over the comparative statement prepared by book-keeper Robin.

Finance Committee Report

None today.

Bargaining Committee Update

They've met with Denise, and have more meetings scheduled. They are asking CUPE to restart negotiations.

Approval of Agenda, Minutes, Reports (5 min)

MOTION

To approve this March agenda, the February 2024 [1], and reports as presented
Moved:	Keith
Seconded:	Sarah

Aye	No	Abstain
	none	none
pass

Current & Completed Business

Documentation of email/Whatsapp votes

MOTION

(Feb 25th, 2024) That Bike Edmonton enter into an updated lease with MacEwan to expand our shop. The new lease rate will be based on the same $ per sq ft as the existing lease. We want the lease to start March 1, 2024 and extend for 3 years, with two 3year extensions.
Moved:	Marcel
Seconded:	Matt

Aye	No	Abstain
Keith, Adam, Heather, Nazz, Stephen, Daniel	none	none
pass

MOTION

(Feb 25th, 2024) That Bike Edmonton enter into a lease for basement storage space for $400 per month for about 900 sq ft, located north of Jasper Avenue on 105 Street. The lease should to start March 1, 2024 and run to at least February 28 2025 (one year)
Moved:	Marcel
Seconded:	Adam

Aye	No	Abstain
Heather, Nazz, Stephen, Daniel Keith	none	Matt
pass

Updates on Action Items From Previous Meeting, Reminders (5 min)

• Everyone log your volunteer hours for the past month.
• Committee Chairpersons to post all committee meetings to Bike Edmonton Events calendar (unless the event must explicitly be private: then use "Bike Edmonton Internal" calendar)
• Committee Chairpersons to ensure wiki is up-to-date with committee TOR.
• Reminder of our Code of Conduct
• Reminder of conflict of interest policy

South Shop

• February 15 conditions cleared, still conditions for March 15. Looks like it will go forward, meaning the South shop will close in about 6 weeks. They will message this news to members once the landlord formally gives us notice. Coreen says shop managers are working on moving plans and will make their asks of Board, volunteers, and members when the time comes. There will not be a blowout sale, high-value items will be moved North, some items donated to Bike Library on campus, some culling.

Downtown Shop Annex and Storage

• Entered into new lease with Macewan with extra space, access as of March 7th, hopefully the rent increases formally April 1st.
• Agreement expected this week for storage space.

Finance Audit

• Email invitation nearly ready, offering members a chance to be part of the audit. Marcel will ask Chris how to do that.
• Audit plan prepared, does timeline need to be revised? Naz's projected timeline was to be done end of March. So ... yes.

CIOG Grant

• Marcel is working on it. Background: it's an ideal grant to get, as it's for operating $, with less strings attached. Should be for helping marginalized communities. One challenge is that we did not file a report for the last time we got it in 2022 (which was justified because at that time you didn't file that report until you applied the next year), but Marcel sent that in last week, and received acknowledgement from a City employee Lise at it seems to meet the requirements. Marcel got help from previous employee Molly in making sure his information was accurate. He's now working on the new application, which is due next Wednesday. Molly was not optimistic we would get funding this year, but feels it's important to submit, at least to "put our foot in the door for next year." (Alex mentions that Chris feels we have a decent change of getting the grant).

OSBA Window Repair Grant

• Staff has provided necessary info, Stephen to coordinate the last of the forms.

Property Tax Exemption

• Completed for South Shop. Marcel will tell them when we have a firm move-out date.
• Status for Downtown? We're probably waiting to send them the new lease.

Pop-up store options

• Marcel & Keith talked to Old Strathcona farmer's market about a pop-up, they made a counter-proposal for us to run bike valet parking. They also offered us a free booth once a month to promote Bike Edmonton in the market. He also reached out to Earth's General Store, with some positive response. When he gets some more-concrete leads, he'll take it back to the shop managers to talk about what could work-- Coreen welcomed him to CC them as he goes, and he will send them his notes so far.

COMPLETED

Transfer of signing authority

• Stephen and Keith now have signing authority, in addition to Marcel
• Need updated list of info from all of Board, email to follow

Winter Cycling Congress

• Some board members attended. Keith heard positive feedback on our shops, and on our shop managers who presented. Coreen shared a moment near the end of the event where some old-time EBC people were assembled and had a moment of 'wow, look how far we've come.' It was a moment to savour. And our shop managers' fees were waived!

Crowdfunding Campaign

• Donor thank-you email sent. And 6 people took advantage of our discount code for Winter Cycling Congress.

War on Cars and About Here/Shifter/Oh The Urbanity Events

• No comments.

WCB Annual Report

• Robin complete it.

New Business

Filling Secretary Position

• Adam volunteers.

MOTION

Adam Burgess is named Secretary.
Moved:	Keith
Seconded:	Matt

Aye	No	Abstain
Keith, Stephen, Adam, Matt, Sarah, Heather, Marcel, Daniel, Derek	none	none
pass

HR Committee

• Should not be controversial that we need this. Keith, Colin, Matt, Derek volunteer to constitute this committee.

MOTION

That Keith, Colin, Matt, and Derek form an HR committee.
Moved:	Keith
Seconded:	Colin

Aye	No	Abstain
all	none	none
pass

Bike Month Movie & Outreach generally

• Ken Amsbury emailled the board wanting to start such a thing, Marcel referred him to counsellor Janz, hasn't heard anything since, will follow up. He is also excited to do T-shirts, all kind of stuff (says Keith).

• We might want a committee for community events and outreach work, a Community Engagement Committee. This will be sort of an operations/volunteer committee (that perhaps staff should organize) rather than a board/governance committee. Requests for bike racks and volunteer mechanics for events are already coming in, and this could give us capacity to respond to these requests, schedule, manage materials and volunteers. Coreen mentions that the City is giving grants to schools to upgrade bike parking, and that could be something we could partner on (our bike rack sales is on the back burner currently, this could revive that). Heather wonders if in addition to selling bike racks we could sell our expertise on selection and placement, i.e. a consultation fee-- just put it on the website and see what happens. Coreen thinks that's an interesting idea, we have also offered installation in the past (which a volunteer George did for an honorarium). Coreen says staff would have to talk amongst themselves about it, but they would need more hours in order to take on any of this program work in addition to running the shops this summer. Adam is skeptical that we have the capacity to offer all this outreach and programming without an ED this year. Alex would love to see Bike Edmonton offer all these things and is sad that our capacity is diminished and always wants to say yes, but the reality is we used to have Molly and others writing grants and doing a lot of work, and there will be some extra staff time to support that at some point if there are multiple managers and one shop, but perhaps not this summer while everything is in transition. Sarah feels that we're entering peak monetization season, and if we don't do so we'll be short funds come the winter; with the revenue projections provided by Coreen, Sarah doesn't think we make it through next winter. Alex feels members need more benefits. In conclusion, it was decided that we need to reflect on this.

Ghost Bikes

• We will contact City Transport team next time we put one up to make sure it's in a safe location that can be kept up longer and won't distract people.

Waste Reduction and Reuse Grant

• Will be submitted soon. Heather has talked with staff. We have a good chance of getting funding. Could not be done as a Spring program, as originally designed by Molly, Heather has some ideas for stretching it out more over a year. The proposal is to train volunteers at up to 5 community leagues to basic maintenance and repair and then become advocates for bike re-use in that neighborhood. It would not rely on staff time, but rather on recruiting a volunteer, and should be revenue-neutral. Adam pointed out that there are also revenue-positive programs as above that rely on volunteer resources and are in question, as above. Coreen feels she's discussed the program with Heather and feels the needs are realistic. Adam acknowledges that writing grants is a good in and of itself; if it can't be delivered then we give the money back.

CIP Grant Reporting

• Stephen will reply to their inquiry. Marcel will connect him to Molly to gather accurate details on what was done.

In Camera Session

MOTION

To move in camera.
Moved:	Matt
Seconded:	Marcel

Aye	No	Abstain
	none	none
passed

MOTION

To move out of camera] discussion.
Moved:	Adam
Seconded:	Stephen

Aye	No	Abstain
	none	none
passed

Adjourned at pm