Regular Meeting -- January 20, 2019
The Board of Directors held its regular monthly meeting at 2007 Bert Avenue, Austin, TX 78704, starting at 2:41 pm. The following directors (constituting a quorum of the full board) were present at the meeting: President Kathy Lee, Secretary John McGarey (by Zoom), Treasurer Penny Chambers (by Zoom), and Kim Pillsbury (by Zoom). The following director was absent: Lia Nelson Robert McGarey (Executive Director), Sunny Keathly, JR Ryan, Sandy Fleming and Marcos Mares were also present at the meeting.
Reading of Mission Statement
The Mission Statement was read aloud at the beginning of the meeting..
Use of Land. Bob announced that Devin Matejka and Sandy Fleming have both proposed living in an RV on the Center's campus. So Bob wants to know what the Board believes should be our optimal use of the land we have; what should it be used for? What would we like to accomplish in the next 5 years, and how would our land fit into that plan?
Sandy presented her ideas about living in her RV. She said that a basic spot in an RV park costs about $450 - $500 per month, and one with a concrete pad and a seating area costs about $700 per month. The board noted that the RV options would not need to be permanent.
We brainstormed, coming up with the following ideas:
Residential (Yurts, RV's Campers, etc., Tiny Houses, Weekenders)
Park
Golf Course
Free Range Bison
Chicken Coop
Medtation Garden
Labyrinth
Gardening
Farmer's market
Workshop Space
Dog Run
Zen Garden
Xeriscape
Native plants & animals
Bob said that the core of the center is creating an emotionally healthy community. He said that finances shouldn't be our primary goal because we don't care about finances as long as we can create our mission. Some options would bring energy to the community in their creation and others would take energy to create.
We talked about the differences between 'emotionally healthy community' and 'physical community' and where the energies that are in the emotionally healthy community are coming from. Having people live on site has been surprisingly effective at energizing the center. It enhances that community and creates an energy and a surprising synergy that he hadn't seen before.
Penny believes that it would be valuable to analyze how having people live there has changed the experience and what it would add to the experience. She felt like we should analyze this as a board before we decide to move forward. She didn't see it fitting with the vision of the HPC and would like to analyze that more.
It was unanimously
RESOLVED, that we would designate one space where it would be easy to install an RV and rent that for one year. Then it would be an additional space and we could have applicants.
Financials. We had a net loss for the year, but only because we refurbished the Art Barn. Otherwise we would have broken even.
It was also unanimously
RESOLVED, that tenants receive free use of the Art Barn as part of their rent.
Room Usage. We discussed how some groups that are in alignment with our mission want to use our space for free more than once a month. Our current policy is once a month for free. Bob and Penny and Kathy will write a formal policy to address that issue. The board also decided to not renew leasing the Art Barn to the Game of Village for next semester so that we could dedicate the space to members.
Since there was no further business, the meeting adjourned at around 4:40 pm.
Minutes submitted by John McGarey, Secretary, January 20, 2019. include($_SERVER["DOCUMENT_ROOT"] . "/Footer.html"); ?>