Board Minutes December 2012

Approved at the January 2013 board meeting.

Attendance

• Meeting Chair: Duncan
• Minute-taker: Micah
• Board attendance: Justin, Anna, Leila, Lee, Sarah, Adam, Duncan, Micah, Chris
• Staff attendance: Chris Chan
• Regrets: Neil, Bern, Paul
• Absent: n/a
• Guests: Alex Hindle, Brett Rosenberger

Call to Order

• Time: 6:48pm
• Location: ED S 327
• Food by: potluck :)

Approval of Agenda

• Motion: Adam: I move to approve; Sarah: Seconded; carried.

Approval of Last Month's Minutes

• Anna has edited Wiki Minutes Template to include time allocations for each topic (please submit when adding your agenda item) and action items at end of each topic to highlight who needs to do what by when. The latter can then easily be copied into next meeting minutes under Updates on Action Items From Previous Meeting.
• Please be more specific about who says what.
• Motion: Micah: I move to approve last month's minutes; Anna seconds; carried.

Date, Location & Food for Next Meeting

• Board Retreat: Sunday January 6, 2013 @ 8:30am-4:30pm. Education North rm 2-103 (Kiva Room). Potluck lunch (allergies? restrictions?). Please BYO dish, cutlery, mug.
• January Board Meeting: Wednesday 23 January
• Sarah will take notes since Micah will be absent.
• Micah will try to book this room (Ed S 327) again as people seem to like it better.
• Food: Duncan

Reports

President's Report (5 min)

President's Report

• Leila will be temporary chair.
• From emailed report Dec 9: "Very little to report. Not much time has passed since our last meeting. Reviewed the board member job descriptions done by Anna. Provided comments. Going to meet with Anna on Tuesday to go over board member job descriptions."

Treasurer's Report (5 min)

• Paul, Neil absent.
• From emailed report Dec 11: "I do not have much of a report as I am still trying to figure out how to make use of Simply Accounting over the Google Docs VPN client. I have paid staff members, so that is good. I am going to spend a few hours on it tongiht, and come tomorrow with questions for Chris. I then hope to set up a meeting to attend both banks this weekend. I will call them tomorrow to schedule this, so we will need a letter from the past signing authorities (I believe two people) in order to switch that over. Then the Exec can head over and get it set up. I understand that we dont all have to go at the same time, but I will confirm this tomorrow."

Executive Director's Report (5 min)

Executive Director's Report

• Discussion notes:
  • Duncan: board does not use google group anymore; Adam: are we going to maintain an archive? Chris: still exists; just not for continued use. Leila: Is this the same thing we have access to? Duncan: yes. Leila: I was looking through; google quite new to me; is there an archive? All posts seemed extremely recent; couldn't find emails I sent to group in past. Chris: I haven't touched anything; there is an ebc-board email account that has been archiving emails since 2008; anyone can have access; passwords in passwords document. Adam: list of all emails; had to actually click through back arrows. Chirs demonstrates.
  • Duncan: board backup emails: Chris Ch, should not have access, correct? Chris: Yes. I could gain access if I wanted to [technically, since has admin privilege].
  • Leila: Duncan has access to all the passwords- do we all? Chris: No, just exec at this point. Need new one to share with rest of board.
  • Anna: new website looks lovely; where do we access reports, eg. Complete Streets- why not publicly available through our website? Chris: Complete Streets is there now. Anna: I think that things in the public interest would be sought by the public on our website. Chris: I will post it to the website.
  • Leila: still link to wiki on website? Chris: Yes.

• Action Items:
  • Duncan will change password for backup board email address
  • Duncan will make passwords available
  • Anna will ask Carbon about monitors for the shop

BikeWorks Report (5 min)

BikeWorks Report, Dec 2012

• Discussion notes:
  • Leila: Once again, her report is really great, awesome.
  • Anna: WCB coverage: volunteer coverage through WCB; board of director coverage: through what? Chris: we don't have it. Anna: co-operators insurance? Chris: that's for Directors & Officers (D&O)- directors' liability, not injury. We pay for our volunteers as workers.
  • Alex: when I left there was no clear training on safety; Adam: there are things we could do: have work gloves; we could come up with some other things. Anna: good thread on Think Tank listserv: what is your shop doing for OH&S? Might be worthwhile to look into this. eg, WHMIS on everything. Coreen is going over the volunteer training; maybe we could ask her to go over safety. Sarah: Health and safety is def board. Duncan: really? - workplace. Chris: staff responsible for volunteers, therefore Coreen. Problem is she's only 20 hours. Leila: if we do download this responsibility to her, we should send her to training and pay for it so that she's qualified. We've never had MSDS forms. Maybe write it into manual. Adam: or help her form a committee. Sarah: yeah, collaborative effort.
  • Coreen's big-picture questions. Adam: Spoke with Coreen and she realises that answers might take a while to develop. Anna/Duncan: this would be ongoing.
  • Coreen's hurdles: Leila: re: anti-oppression training- would we pay for this? Duncan/Chris: we should see what she wants first; she might already have connections. Micah: like one of the workshops APIRG puts on? Leila: not sure. Justin: seems to me that she's looking and if we know of anything, we could volunteer the information, but not particularly soliciting. Anna: The Good Life has held anti-oppression workshops, and now they have volunteers who run them. Could liaise with them. Even just ask them to come up and deliver a workshop. Duncan: I'm in Calgary frequently, maybe in new year, could meet up with them. Knows Ethan? Anna: Jackie and Johnny are good people to connect with. Anyway, Leila will talk to her (non-action item).
• Motion: Anna: I move that we sign her up for WHMIS training. Adam: should we research whether this would be effective? Alex: I've taken it and it's not that rigorous, it's mainly common sense. Leila: something more institutional; talk to her and see what course she would find most appropriate. Anna: I withdraw my motion. Alex: I think it would be a good idea for BW manager to have current first aid.
• Action Items:
  • Duncan will send Coreen another note of thanks and praise for another excellent report.
  • Leila will liaise with Coreen to see what she would like to see in terms of OH&S; bring recommendations to the board for next meeting. (Duncan: remember budget for board & staff dev'pt!)

Retreat/Orientation Committee Report (30 min)

Retreat Committee Report

• What are the 3 things you personally hope to gain at the Retreat?
  • we are to write them down on blue paper
• Extend to 2 days i.e. Saturday Jan 5 and Sunday Jan 6?
  • Some of us might not be available; Adam: could change time range of Sunday's agenda?; Duncan: prefer 3,5 h Saturday and 10-4 on Sunday. BUt that still might restrict people. Anna will send out a poll.
• Review proposed agenda.
  • Sarah: if we can't fit whole agenda onto one day, could maybe do another day altogether. Adam: longer period of time all at once might be more effective. Micah: still involves booking off more work.... Duncan: mission/values not as clear as I'd like it to be; stuff for a strategic planning weekend and not necessarily a board retreat. Perhaps separate event later in the year. Anna: so remove it altogether from retreat agenda? Duncan: yes; plan a strategic planning day would be useful; could find a facilitator maybe. Adam: we have this stuff floating around; if those things are truly unclear, I feel like we need to truly nail them down; time that we spend visioning, identifying skills, falling over like logs into each others' arms etc; might need to allot some quality time to these activities. i.e. at the retreat. Sarah: so could we do it before the retreat? A few people: no. Duncan: we need a lot of time to do this. If we want to do strategic planning, it's really important but hard to fit into like 90 minutes. Adam: we need to see the board proceeding together on shared goals that we've hashed out, not necessarily rewriting values etc. Alex: will we be reviewing what was hashed out at last board retreat? Duncan: I seem to recall we lost a lot of the information from the last one. Anna: which one? Alex: I was at both and both generated useful information. Way to inform current board on what the thinking was last year. Adam: yeah we should uncover those documents and go over them before the retreat. Anna: of course viewing historical things is important: look to timeline: group togetherness for the first 2 hours. Then presentations from groups on policies (see agenda).
  • Anna: re: presentation topics: covered at past board retreats, found in manuals for orienting new members, etc. That we are to prepare between now and the retreat.
  • Alex: could there be recommendations as to topics of discussion? Anna: we are open to anything.
• Potluck: dietary restrictions?
  • Micah: eggplant
• Staff and guests will be invited to join potluck and afternoon visioning. This will be paid staff time 1pm-4:30pm (they have option to attend morning, unpaid).
  • Actually Chris not paid by the hour
• Board Inventory Kickass Evaluation (BIKE) (aka homework):
  • Lee: survey: to get anon. responses from each board member on board issues; almost done, will send link. Please complete by 28 December. (see action item below)
• Group presentation topics – vote on and assign topics
  • Sarah explain and 3 SMARTER goals (15 min)
  • *Flashy handout!
  • Lee explain personal skills inventory & process/group work evaluation survey (10 min)
• 90-minute visioning
  • Duncan: please clarify before we devote 90 minutes to it.
  • refer to email for info on who's doing what
• re: 150$ budget
  • Anna: can we give honoraria to presenters? Adam: our budget is already not awesome; can we approve it with the caveat that it doesn't all HAVE to get spent? Discussion re: this budget vs. overall budget. Anna: goal is really zero; it's just that if we have a facilitator it would be nice to have something for them. Duncan: if it comes up, run it by us and we can have an email vote. Anna: should get approval from board in advance; point of subcommittee. We are really hoping to spend no money but someone really awesome might come up.
• Motion: Anna moves to approve the $150 budget for the retreat, to come out of Board & Staff Development. Seconded: Leila. Opposed: Adam. Carried.
• Action Items:
  • All Board members will complete the 3 parts (survey, 3 personal goals, group presentation) of the Board Inventory Kickass Evaluation (homework) by Friday Dec 28 and submit to Retreat Committee (Sarah, Lee, Anna).
  • Anna will send email to find out dietary restrictions
  • Lee will send email to all about who's doing what topics.
  • Anna will send doodle poll to determine time of second retreat day on 5th.

Advocacy Committee Report (2 min)

• From emailed report Dec 9: "Only one person came to the last advocacy committee. Anthony D. Mostly went over what Complete Streets Strathcona. Met with Karen Parker, the secretary of the Garneau Community League, in regard to Complete Streets Strathcona. Generally on board with the idea and will bring it up at next board meeting in January. Very much on board with an improved street crossing at 109th Street and 83rd Ave. Had a novel idea for bike boulevards on the west side of 109th street. There's a Complete Streets Strathcona meeting the day before the next board meeting. I'll have more to report after that. There's a meeting with the general manager of transportation in regards to Complete Streets Strathcona on Dec. 19. I'll have more to report after that."
• Discussion notes:
  • identified deliverables
  • Chris Corrigan: what kind of progress has been made in terms of awareness amongst other groups in city, business assoc'n etc. Duncan: haven't had a chance to really connect with larger group. A few business owners on board at this point.

Current & Completed Business

Updates on Action Items From Previous Meeting (5 min)

• Duncan will write note to Coreen to let her know she wrote a great report for Nov and ask if the level of detail she provided was sustainable for her. DONE.
• Chris Chan to let board know info that he cannot put in his reports (i.e. post publicly to wiki). Report content will be posted on wiki without restriction.
• Unassigned to review Bylaws and draft edits re: board election of members in good standing by (deadline).
• Micah to book a room for Board Retreat ASAP. DONE.
• Board Members to review EBC Organization Contacts doc re: updating your personal contact info.

Election of Board Executive - Update on VP (2 min)

• Update from Lee and Leila regarding VP position. LEILA WINS (by mutual agreement, following discussion between them).

Board Job Descriptions(10 min)

• Anna and Duncan submitted final drafts for board job description, Prez + VP + Tresurer + Secretary, code of conduct and chairperson job description.
• Discussion notes:
  • We will approve at next meeting since it is 8.45pm already.
  • re: chair description unclear so we should go over it. Should we vote on a new chair each meeting or president de facto chair each time? Perhaps resolve at next meeting; so this & pres job descript very imp as pres job descript currently says is chair. Justin: at APIRG: a lot of sharing; if we were to do that it would be valuable to have some sort of workshop. Leila: that's a skill I'd like to develop. Duncan: also imp for committees. Leila: would really value formal facilitation training. Also difference b/w how we operate and what is in our descriptions. Robert's Rules clear that pres is chair. What we choose to do could be different. Micah: Rusty's Rules. Duncan: anyway, go read 7 comment on all of these, esp chair & pres. Sarah: something discussed for board retreat was process. Collective responsibility, not nec chair.
• Action Items: Anna will finalize job descriptions and it will be on agenda at January meeting.

Board Chair (10 min)

• Discussion from Nov meeting on having an outside Chair + 12 board members (vs. 11 + 1 chair). Hindle has offered his time and services to Chair.
• Action Items: for next meeting

New Business

Ethical Funding Policy (5 min)

• Ethical Funding Policy is needed. Nov meeting had a lengthy discussion on what corporate sponsorships or partnerships we were comfortable with, what funding bodies were would or would not get monies from, implications of becoming a charity, etc.
• Board Committee (possibly Finance or Fundraising Committee) could be created to draft this policy. Who is interested?
• Discussion notes:
  • Chris Chan: call it Funding Policy Committee.
• Motion:: Lee: I move to start an Ethical Funding Committee; seconded: Sarah. Carried.
• Action Items: Board Member to take this committee on. Must be assigned asap.

Conflict Style Inventory (30 min)

• Sarah will lead an activity on conflict style assessments.
• Discussion notes:
  • Sarah: I put this here when the agenda was empty. Let's push it to the retreat.
• Action Items: Sarah will complete this presentation at the board retreat.

Signing of Greater Victoria Cycling Commission letter to the Federal Transportation Minister

• Letter for review
• Discussion notes: Duncan sent the email around this morning; Micah and Adam noticed some mistakes.
• Motion:: Leila: I move to put our name on the letter. Adam: seconded. Carried.
• Action Items:
  • Micah will send corrections by tomorrow.
  • Duncan will send signed copy to GVCC.

In Camera Session

Motion: Adam: I move we go in camera; Micah seconds; Carried.

Adjournment

• Motion: Micah: I move to adjourn; Sarah seconds. Carried.