The membership and the Board of Directors held their annual meetings at 2007 Bert Avenue, Austin, TX 78704, starting at 1:30 pm. The following members (constituting a quorum of the full voting membership, currently comprised of 13 people) were present at the meeting: Pam Latham (Oceanna), Pam Chambers, Lia Nelson and Robert McGarey. There were two board positions coming up for renewal (Places 5 and 6), and it was unanimously agreed that Kathy Lee and Pam Chambers should continue to fill those positions.
Extensive discussion followed about other people who might be interested and willing to serve on the board, since we still have three places on the board that are not filled. Several ideas were suggested, and members of the nominating committee volunteered to follow up on those suggestions. Since there was no further business, the Annual Membership meeting concluded at 2 pm.
The following directors (constituting a quorum of the full board) were present at the Annual Board meeting: President Pam Latham (Oceanna) and Vice President and Treasurer Pam Chambers. Lia Nelson, Marcus Barnes and Robert McGarey (Executive Director) were also present.
The Mission Statement was read aloud at the beginning of the meeting. Minutes from the previous meeting were read aloud and approved.
With unanimous support, Oceanna was reelected as President, Pam was reelected as Vice President and Treasurer, and Kathy was reelected as Secretary.
People's Pharmacy Ads. Oceanna reported that nearly all of the $395 necessary to place an ad on 24,000 bags at People's Pharmacy has been committed or collected, even though we only found out yesterday about the opportunity to do this.
Garden. Pam reported that she had planted a lot of wildflowers, and that Robert Gardner has been helping with weeding and planting the garden. In a similar vein, she has been cleaning and organizing around the Center, and she thinks that these changes have been a step in the direction of building new momentum for progress in a lot of areas around the Center.
The Board was very pleased with Bob's performance in general, but it expressed strong concern about Bob's stress level and the possible consequences on his health that could be caused by that stress. Bob said that he appreciates their concern, and that he does in fact often feel overwhelmed by the variety of responsibilities he has taken on. An extensive discussion followed about how best to use Bob's time and abilities and reduce his feeling of overwhelm. Bob noticed that the thought of some projects makes him feel tired, while other projects invigorate him. The Board suggested that he reduce his work on the tiring projects as much as possible so he can focus on the invigorating ones. The following decisions were reached:
Randall's Good Neighbor Program. After doing extensive work to no avail this last week to try to gain approval for manning a table at some of the local Randall's stores, Bob will back off from taking the lead on this project for the time being. Hopefully, Rebekah will be able to continue working on this project, and the Board liked the idea of her canvassing her local neighborhood to get new sign-ups. Hopefully she can find someone to team up with while canvassing, maybe from our membership or from her friends, etc.
GoodWheelchairs.org. The brochure is done, with the possible exception of a few tweaks, so Bob can also let go of taking the lead on this project. It was also decided to delete our phone number from the brochure and allow people to schedule wheelchair pickups only via the web. We can have Lindsay Haisley create a web form for this purpose.
Major Conferences. We realized that we had put enormous energy into both the Tiller event and the Dr. Gladys event, and neither one of those events produced very much income. We will postpone all such events for the foreseeable future, although we might schedule some much-smaller lectures here at the Center using presenters that we already know.
Monthly Calendars. Bob spends a lot of time revising the descriptions of workshops when we schedule new ones. Pam volunteered to do the first draft of editing the descriptions, to take that burden off of Bob.
Clerical Tasks. Bob said that recently when Pam and Lia and Oceanna helped mail things out and return phone calls and answer emails about various things, it has been very helpful to him. They offered to continue to help in this way, and suggested that Colleen might be willing to help with shipping/mailing some things off too.
Cleaning Up Before Events. Bob and Pam have been working together to make the process of cleaning up before events easier and less work. They are both pleased with the progress they've made, and hope to do more of it in the future.
Workshops. Oceanna and Lia volunteered to facilitate some of the events at the Center that Bob has been doing, especially the ones that are presented at no charge. Bob said that having someone else facilitate the videos would be moderately helpful, and that having someone else facilitate events (like Tarzan or Sexuality) where he could leave the Center for the evening would be extremely helpful for him.
Information Board. Oceanna had previously volunteered to stock the board, and now she is also going to learn to do revisions on the Center's computer for the brochures so that Bob doesn't have to do it.
Finances. Doing financial data entry, completing the 990's, and providing all the documentation for obtaining a new line of credit take a lot of time, and they are very tiring for Bob. However, the board could not figure out an alternative to having Bob do it, so the board will continue to think about alternatives. In the interim, Bob will continue to do these tasks.
Oprah Project. Bob feels good about how closely aligned it is to our mission, and so even though it has taken far more of his time than he anticipated, he wants to continue actively working on it. However, he would dearly love to have some help with all the clerical tasks the project requires. Bob will check with Penny Wood, who has tentatively volunteered to help with this project, to see if she can assist.
Bingo. Bingo doesn't require much effort in general, so even though it is tiring it makes sense for Bob to continue to do it. However, there is one aspect of bingo that Larry Spector might be able to take the lead on, and Bob will check with him about that.
Computer Programming and Upgrades. The Center desperately needs a Macintosh system that runs on OS X, and Bob has been working to purchase one inexpensively. He's kind of enjoying the project, and he's also pretty much the only one who can do the computer programming that's necessary to integrate and run all the systems here, so he will continue to do this. However, we plan to ask Lindsay Haisley to create wikis and RSS feeds for the Center when we obtain the new OS X computer. (Those applications can't run on our current older computers.)
Personal Growth Sessions. Obviously, Bob will continue to need to do these, and he enjoys doing it.
Fund Raising. There are two avenues Bob has been exploring to obtain assistance in paying off our mortgage, and it makes sense for him to continue pursuing them.
Bob said he appreciated the support the Board was providing by helping him figure out how to handle all these tasks. He said he feels a lot of relief, and he thanked the board for their help
Since there was no further business, the meeting adjourned at 3:52 pm.
Minutes submitted by Pam Chambers, Acting Secretary, March 23, 2007.