Board Retreat Minutes October 2011

Saturday Attendance

• Meeting Chair: Anna
• Minute-taker: Elicia
• Board attendance: Neil, Bernadette, Elicia (departed at 2pm), James, Alex C (departed at 1pm), Adam, Duncan, Micah (arrived at 2:30)
• Staff attendance: Anna
• Regrets: Chris, Steph, Micah
• Absent: Kevin, Brett, Derek, Paul
• Guests: n/a

1. People In The Room

• 5 min biographies

2. Good Meetings

2.1 retreat baselines

• purpose of retreat/meetings
• group expectations, ground rules
  • Attend meetings. RSVP to the Chair if you will be absent.
  • Honour the time of your fellow board members. Be punctual so meetings may start and end on time.
  • Be prepared for meetings. Ensure your report/task is submitted 1 week before the meeting to allow members to review it. Read the reports, agenda, etc. beforehand. Come with questions or comments about these items.
  • Be attentive. Do not engage in side projects or use your phone (messaging, browsing, etc.) during meetings.
  • Keep discussion on task during meeting. Respect the goals of the meeting by making succinct comments that pertain directly to objectives addressed in the agenda. Evaluate your comments as to whether they assist or divert the direction of the meeting.
  • Assign Chair responsibilities. Empower Chair-person to make the meeting run effectively and ensure bylaws are being followed. This does not mean pointing out minor mistakes, but rather allowing the Chair to exercise organizational control to better the outcome of the meeting.
  • Practice active listening (do not simply wait for your turn to talk; listen, without judgement, to the current speaker). Notice how much you raise your hand and/or speak. Be aware of others who have not spoken and the environment in which they would feel comfortable to do so. If you aren't speaking but have something to add, assert yourself with the understanding that your comment will be heard and respected.
  • Be respectful and grateful of each person's participation, ideas and work. Be aware of how your attitude influences others as well as the effectiveness of the meeting. Make thoughtful comments that maintain a positive and constructive meeting. These meetings would not happen if the people in them weren't committed to similar ideas and held similar values. Keep in mind that this is a joint effort that requires a healthy, positive, give-and-take atmosphere. Our meetings must be productive in order to leave with specific plans and that great feeling of achievement!
  • Practice impartiality. Try not to get personally attached to any discussion, decision or project.
  • Be accountable. Fulfill your responsibilities.
  • Recuse yourself if there is a conflict of interest with a topic being discussed. Ensure transparency by having your name in the minutes noting that you 'stand aside' for the vote on the topic.

2.2 honouring time and energy

• effective communication and listening (covered in 2.1)
• time commitment (covered in 2.1 with these additions)
  • Be honest with yourself and the group. What are you able to take on? Is the project/task beyond your current capacity?
  • Board must establish manageable number of goals (Strategic Plan) for the year, not bite off more than we can chew

3. Board Basics

3.1 type, structure

• EBC is a

7. Board Members Ambassador Tools & Techniques

• moved from Sunday's agenda items

7.1 documenting time commitment

• office hours

7.2 print, online, communications

• engaging your networks to grow our membership
• recruiting committee volunteers

Sunday Attendance

• Meeting Chair: Anna
• Minute-taker: Duncan
• Board attendance: Neil, Bernadette, Paul, Alex C (departed at 2pm), Adam, Duncan, Brett (arrived at 12), Chris (arrived at 2)
• Staff attendance: Anna, Alex (11:30-3pm)
• Regrets: Steph, Micah, James, Derek, Kevin, Elicia
• Absent: n/a
• Guests: n/a

6. EBC Past & Present

• beginnings, milestones, changes in capacity/structure

6.1 strategic plan 2003, 2011

• current topics

7. Board Members Ambassador Tools & Techniques

• continued from yesterday

7.2 print, online, communications

• formal and informal communication
• wiki, website, shop, social media, community events

8. Portfolios & Policies

8.1 creating content

• types of policies
• existing policies, gaps
• board member portfolios
• identify
• Chairing, Terms of Reference, reporting back

9. Executive Committee Voting

• job descriptions
• voting
• transition plan

10. Meeting Basics

10.1 agendas, facilitation, decision-making

• what makes a good agenda?
• facilitation, group ground rules
• Robert’s Rules, consensus
• minutes
• communication outside of meetings

10.2 how to read a financial statement

• legal liability

Duncan's notes from Sunday

• EBC Past and Present
  • Listened to the MP3 from past president
• Review of Stategic plans from 2003 and 2011
  • reviewed accomplishments and challenges
• EBC has a 3 year lease signed with the Nigerian Association in 2010

The 2011 Strategic Plan has to be honed down to something more manageable. We did get this done. Neil color coded the various directives.

• The Point of Sale system issue needs to be addressed. Apparently the Good Life in Calgary has an open source solution that could be a great fit for us. Needs to be investigated further as Chris's plan to build a custom one has fallen through.
• BikeWorks issue - have clipboards on every stand to track time, parts etc for billing
• The issue of ethical funding came up
  • Should we or shouldn't we seek money from companies like Shell?
  • Need to develop a policy manual on this issue for clearer directives for Anna
• We need to develop a policy manual
  • ie. how do we develop policy and for advocacy priorities
  • we need 3-6 definitive asks
• We should book and organize a CanBike course for the board in the Spring

• Bernadette to talk to Steph, Micah about nominations for Secretary position.
  • Appoint incoming exec today. Some board members not in attendance today. We will all vote online re: incoming exec positions.
  • Send votes to Bernadette. From the results of that vote, outgoing and incoming exec will meet throughout November to discuss transition.
  • Official vote for new executive will occur at the December board meeting.