Board Minutes May 2013

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

EBC Board Meeting Minutes for May 2013

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

• Location: BikeWorks South, 2nd floor lounge
• 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: Lee
• Minute-taker: Adam
• Food by: Chris Corrigan
• Board attendance: Lee, Adam, Sarah, Chris Co., Leila, Justin
• Staff attendance: Chris Ch., Coreen
• Regrets: Bernadette, Paul, Anna
• Absent: Neil
• Guests:

Call to Order

• Meeting called to order by Lee at 6:43 pm.

Approval of Agenda

• Motion: To approve agenda. Motioned by Sarah. Seconded by Justin. Motion Carried.

Approval of Last Month's Minutes

• Motion: To approve (April)(2013) minutes. Motioned by Leila. Seconded by Sarah. Motion Carried.

Logistics for Next Meeting

• Date: Wednesday June 19
• Location: BikeWorks North, 2nd floor office
• Chair: Sarah
• Minute-taker: Adam
• Food by: Lee

ALSO:

• Saturday July 7 @ 10am-3pm Board Retreat
• Wednesday July 24 regular board meeting at BikeWorks South

Reports

President's Report (5 min)

• President's Report
• Discussion notes:
  • Has been working on HR committee, spending time at shop working with bike-powered apple-crusher. No connection to the other bike-powered apple-crusher.
  • No further discussion.
• Motion: . Motioned by . Seconded by . Motion Failed/Carried.
• Action Items: Name will... by (deadline)

Motion: To return/approve the May 2013 President's report as presented. Motioned by Justin. Seconded by Sarah. Motion Carried.

Treasurer's Report (15 min)

• Revised April 2013 Report with follow up comments
• Treasurer's May 2013 Report
• Discussion notes:
  • Paul is not here. We don't recall seeing a report.
  • Sarah recalls seeing some big differences between expected and actual income in some places, but doesn't recall where. She recalls that we were close to a break-even as budgetted, does this mean we're doing quite well? Chris, yes, we're better than expected for April, but you can't really look at it at the monthly level. Grants are hard to look at unless you know how they reflect additional program costs, etc. Shop revenue should be fairly steady and predictable, and we are $4k up from projected for April, but we're also over by $8k on shop expenses (but that also reflects a lot of one-time orders).
  • Leila: might be worth looking into Chris having access to an EBC account so as not to spend $10k of personal money and then be reimbursed. Chris: being reimbursed in a timely fashion is an issue, but it's getting better. To address the problem more directly, we did alter our bylaws to allow for an EBC credit card.
  • So, we should ask Paul about timely reimbursements and getting a credit card.
  • More support for Paul? Chris: find a volunteer or get a book-keeper.
  • Justin -- offers to talk to APIRG's book-keeper. We should talk to Paul about this.
• Action Items: Leila will contact Paul by (next meeting)

Motion: To return/approve the May 2013 Treasurer's report as presented. Motioned by . Seconded by . Motion Failed/Carried.

• • Coreen -- volunteer food budget has been being spent, I've submitted some receipts.
  • Leila -- are paycheques on time? Chris - yes, it's direct deposit, Paul just has to click to approve.
• Motion: approve the revised April report as presented . Motioned by Anna. Seconded by Leila. Motion Carried.

Executive Director's Report (10 min)

• Completed April 2013 ED Report
• Executive Director's May 2013 Report
• Discussion notes:
  • Cyclists getting killed is tough on our ED's time mgmt.
  • We have a SCiP-supported bike rack rental coordinator.
  • Will we track whether drivers are charged in cyclist deaths? Chris-- I'll find out how much work that would be. Anna -- would any supports in the U of A Public Health program be interested? Chris - probably not in the police angle. Chris - maybe we can convince police PR people to focus on traffic safety instead of styrofoam hats when there are collisions. Chris is preparing a bike helmet info page for the website.
  • Is anyone interested in helping with membership mailouts? Chris Co. says yes.
  • Sarah: it says you don't have as much time as you'd like for grant-writing. Chris - yes. I am pursuing not-grant-based revenue streams, which are good, but grants are like $10k falling out of the sky. Is Sarah volunteering to help? Sarah - well, I've already promised some help to bike month ... maybe a little. Chris - step 1 is identifying grants that seem like easy candidates, and figuring out what kind of new project could fit with them.
  • Leila - I guess one thing is there's a balance between revenue and expanding beyond what we can handle. There should be a lot of priority on doing what we do well, not spreading ourselves too thin over new projects that Chris would be primarily responsible for. Chris - yeah, a priority right now is getting Tara some compensation for running the Spoke. You might notice that the programs I've been taking on are all happy/feel-good, because then there are benefits beyond helping those people directly, it gives us more credibility as an organization with a broad appeal. Adam - maybe we should just appeal for an angel investor?
  • Sarah -- is a third staff member in the long-term planning? There seems to be a lot of pressure on Chris and Coreen. Anna - a lot of cities go down the route of having separate advocacy/bike shop services. That's a huge discussion that might be warranted.
  • Coreen has been thinking about: if we had someone who was just fixing up bikes for sale, maybe working on the rental program, could that program pay for itself? That might be an opportunity to serve more people. Chris Ch-- I know lots of pro bike mechanics that we could hire quickly. How long into the season could that pay for itself? Leila -- in terms of building community/capacity, would support using EBC-connected people. Chris Ch -- could become a question of financial sustainability, a crack mechanic could build something faster than a caring, loving EBC volunteer. There's conflict there. Justin -- we should give this some longterm thought. Lee -- let's table it for the retreat. (Consensus on that.)
• Motion: . Motioned by . Seconded by . Motion Failed/Carried.
• Action Items: Name will... by (deadline)

Motion: To return/approve the May 2013 ED report as presented. Motioned by Anna. Seconded by Justin. Motion Carried.

BikeWorks Report (10 min)

• BikeWorks May 2013 Report
• Discussion notes:
  • It's been busy. Coreen's been working a lot, but now her other job is finally over.
  • Clarification on the everything-is-for-sale policy: Does Coreen have the authority to make exceptions? She's been allowing volunteers to set aside (not for personal use) bikes that seem valuable. She made an exception for an adult trike because she's had many special requests. Leila: to me this is a legitimate, thoughtful approach. People come here because bikes are underpriced, and we want to mitigate that. Chris Ch - that sign got my back up too because there's no name, date, or reason given. With respect to stashing bikes of high value, we should at least price it at something near finished price and let it go for that price. Leila - for me, there's a problem if someone knows that that bike is overpriced for as-is and tries to bargain. We should price it as-is and up the price every time. Chris Ch -- sometimes we look at a bike and it doesn't matter what the labour value is, it has a collector value... Anna -- it sounds like there's no disagreement in this case, so we can leave it with Coreen to operationalise this. Adam -- would Coreen like to send a directive to volunteers about legitimate reasons to put a bike on hold. Leila -- Coreen should always be able to finally put a bike on hold. Chris Ch -- let's talk about because we should be empowering volunteers to make decisions.
  • Intro classes have been very popular. More dates filled up. Chris Ch -- any other teachers? Coreen -- I'd like to put that out to the volunteers, I'd be happy to have someone shadow me. There's also demand for more comprehensive mechanics training, and that's valuable for developing volunteers.
  • Party was good. Volunteer burnout a concern (some ppl do a lot).
  • Rental program has been very popular, but things need to be tweaked. Hourly rate will be eliminate, daily increased to $20. Also, rental customers are different, and they're expected full-time hours and better service. We could improve that just by improving our marketing material, because it's not doing us any favours, especially when ppl are from out of town and we're basically subsidizing them. Adam -- what if we only rented bikes, say, Saturdays between 10 and noon. Coreen -- maybe, that's how it is at Sustain SU. Anna -- I see that this is a good service, but with all our burnout, since this doesn't add any education/empowerment, does this serve our goals, when we've got so much burnout? It sounds like the labour cost for rental is excessive, and we don't account for that. I feel like we should maybe axe this, maybe we can get a store to take it over. (Other board members are very much open to this, to be assessed at the end of this summer. Coreen will need to decide if it's worth going forward.) Anna -- we need to value our volunteers. Chris Ch - I think there are ways to address this issue, but we'll talk about that.
• Motion: . Motioned by . Seconded by . Motion Failed/Carried.
• Action Items: Name will... by (deadline)

Motion: To return/approve the May 2013 BW report as presented. Motioned by . Seconded by . Motion Failed/Carried.

Advocacy Committee Report (5 min)

• Advocacy Committee Report
• Discussion notes:
• Motion: . Motioned by . Seconded by . Motion Failed/Carried.
• Action Items: Name will... by (deadline)

Motion: To return/approve the May 2013 Advocacy Committee report as presented. Motioned by . Seconded by . Motion Failed/Carried.

H.R. Policy Committee Report (10 min)

• HR Policy Committee Report
• Discussion notes:
• Motion: . Motioned by . Seconded by . Motion Failed/Carried.
• Action Items: Name will... by (deadline)

Motion: To return/approve the May 2013 HR Policy Committee report as presented. Motioned by . Seconded by . Motion Failed/Carried.

Volunteer Appreciation Event Committee Report (5 min)

• Hosted at Chansion. Ride led by Coreen and Chris. BBQ bike present but unused. Vegan glory meal by Kevin S. Awards presented by Lee. Budget was $200; we spent $204.79 on food/supplies and $87.91 on beverages (got $21 back in donations for alcoholic bevs). Oops.
• Discussion notes:
• Motion: . Motioned by . Seconded by . Motion Failed/Carried.
• Action Items: Name will... by (deadline)

Motion: To return/approve the May 2013 Vol App Event report as presented. Motioned by . Seconded by . Motion Failed/Carried.

Committee 2 Report (__ min)

• Committee 2 Report
• Discussion notes:
• Motion: . Motioned by . Seconded by . Motion Failed/Carried.
• Action Items: Name will... by (deadline)

Motion: To return/approve the (month)(year) reports as presented. Motioned by . Seconded by . Motion Failed/Carried.

Current & Completed Business

Updates on Action Items From Previous Meeting (5 min)

• Everyone log your board volunteer hours for the past month.
• Anna will send Coreen listing of community calendars that courses could be posted on for free. DONE.
• Leila will email Coreen to ask if she needs any more board support in regards to participation for Bike Building nights.
• ?? will email Cam W to arrange a day to receive the cement blocks he would like to donate for BWS yard.
• Chris Co will send Cam W the google group invitation for Complete Streets lists and info for upcoming Advocacy Meetings.
• Chris Ch will contact Kornelsen family to discuss Memorial Ride in August.
• Paul (voluntold?) will review Bylaws and draft edits re: board election of members in good standing by July 30. NOT COMPLETED.
• Anna will incorporate the action item that Micah had re: links/resources on how to use wiki and Google Drive into the next board retreat (prob Oct).
  • One session could be in a computer lab so that each person can actually set up their accounts and figure everything out early on. Thoughts?

Business Item 1 (__ min)

• Discussion notes:
• Motion: . Motioned by . Seconded by . Motion Failed/Carried.
• Action Items: Name will... by (deadline)

Business Item 2 (__ min)

• Discussion notes:
• Motion: . Motioned by . Seconded by . Motion Failed/Carried.
• Action Items: Name will... by (deadline)

New Business

Board changes and appointments (15 min)

• Micah has resigned leaving the Secretary position vacant. Need interim Secretary.
• Adam update- resigning or participating remotely from Calgary during school?
• Need to update website with changes.
• Should we recruit interim board members? Do they get appointed until the AGM? By election?
• It may help to set the AGM date so we can begin to plan for board recruitment.
  • Sunday Sept 22 (the day before is Community League Day which is a busy event for many community volunteers)?
  • Sunday Sept 29 (W+T day)? = Final day of Alberta Culture Days (no events currently scheduled in Edm that day). Also during EIFF (sept 27-oct 5).
  • Sunday Oct 6 (W+T day)?
• Discussion notes:
• Motion: . Motioned by . Seconded by . Motion Failed/Carried.
• Action Items: Name will... by (deadline)

Retreat Committee for July to form (5 min)

• An ad hoc committee for planning and organizing the Board mid-year retreat is needed. At least 3 people are needed.
• Discussion notes:
• Motion: . Motioned by . Seconded by . Motion Failed/Carried.
• Action Items: Name will... by (deadline)

New Business Item 2 (__ min)

• Discussion notes:
• Motion: . Motioned by . Seconded by . Motion Failed/Carried.
• Action Items: Name will... by (deadline)

In Camera Session (__ min)

• Motion: To go in camera. Motioned by . Seconded by . Motion Failed/Carried.
• In Camera minutes will be distributed internally to Board members for records of discussions and decisions. This is important esp in regards to any formal verbal feedback given as a result of in camera talks.

Adjournment

• Motion: . Motioned by . Seconded by . Motion Failed/Carried.