Annual Board and Membership Meeting -- March 20, 2016
The Board held its Annual Meeting at 2007 Bert Avenue, Austin, TX 78704, starting at 2:42 pm. The following directors (constituting a quorum of the full board) were present at the meeting: President Kathy Lee, Secretary John McGarey (by phone), and Treasurer Penny Chambers (by phone) and Kim Pillsbury. Robert McGarey (Executive Director), Lia Nelson (Voting Member), Bonnie Thomas (Voting Member), Jerry Diller (Guest), Dolores Botkin (Guest), Gary Krane (Guest), and Marilyn Stone (Guest) were also present.
Of the 20 current voting members, six were present, constituting more than a 10% quorum. The members unanimously re-elected John McGarey to Place 6 of the Board of Directors. Since there was no further business, the annual membership meeting was adjourned and the Annual Board Meeting commenced.
The Mission Statement was read aloud. Minutes from the previous meeting were read aloud and approved as read.
New Board Members
The Board unanimously appointed Kim Pillsbury to Place 1, which had been vacated by Tamara Vogt's resignation. The board also unanimously appointed Lia Nelson to Place 4, which had been vacated by Lesleigh Ellinger's resignation.
The Board unanimously elected Kathy as President, Kim as Vice President, John as Secretary and Penny as Treasurer.
Conflict of Interest Policy
The Conflict of Interest Policy was read aloud. All board members were given an opportunity to disclose any conflicts and none were mentioned.
Bingo Chairperson. Robert McGarey was re-elected to the position.
Info Board. Bonnie Thomas presented a report on the information board, which is ready for use. Lia will take charge of what to put on the board and will collaborate with Bonnie. There is some warping of the board, and discussions were had about possible solutions with screws. Suggestion by John to consider using dry erase crayons for different effect and durability.
Meetup.com. Bob presented his analysis of the sources of the new names on the mail list as of the beginning of the year. We have put most of our energy into Facebook, but there were no new attendees from Facebook. This was shocking to the board. We put little effort into Meetup and got a 29 new attendees. The board may want to consider putting a lot of attention into Meetup.
Marilyn spoke to the board about Meetup. She said there is not much to engage people on our meetup. She ran some google analytics on it to see where they were coming from. Most were male, most were 20-40, most were from her cross-posting. She cross posts the events from HPC Meetup to her singles group, and she saw that those cross posts were a large source of our new Meetup members.
There was a discussion of what types of Meetups we could cross post to: Yoga, Energy Healing, Reiki, Massage, EFT. Marilyn suggested interaction between the Meetups. You can have sponsors on Meetup. Perhaps the Center could "sponsor" her organization, perhaps by providing their members a 10% discount? Marilyn will bring a proposal for sponsorship to the next board meeting.
There was a discussions of other Meetup owners that the board knows in Austin. It was suggested that we consider adding polls, discussions on the forums, pictures and videos. Bob suggested that some of us sign up for the events to make the events more attractive. Marilyn received an ovation for the information she shared with the board.
Auto-posting GoodwheelChairs. There has been a problem with auto-posting the chairs, and John found a solution to the problem! Bob implemented the solution and finished the job, and now the automatic posting is working again. Since then several small sales had been made.
Fund-raising Presentation. Gary Krane presented some excellent fund raising information to the board, including why fund raising is a high spiritual path. He dubunked some common myths about fund raising. He said that actually it is easier to raise bigger amounts than small amounts, as long as you have a big vision
Since there was no further business, the meeting adjourned at 4:45 pm.