Board of Directors

Regular Meeting -- July 17, 2016

The Board of Directors held its regular monthly meeting at 2007 Bert Avenue, Austin, TX 78704, starting at 2:30 pm. The following directors (constituting a quorum of the full board) were present at the meeting: Secretary John McGarey (by phone), Treasurer Penny Chambers (by phone), Lia Nelson and Kim Pillsbury. The following director was absent: President Kathy Lee. Robert McGarey (Executive Director) and Sunny Keathly were also present at the meeting.

Reading of Mission Statement and Approval of Minutes

The Mission Statement was read aloud at the beginning of the meeting. Minutes from the previous June meeting were read aloud. (There were no meetings in April or May.) The minutes were then approved as read. The board did the Appreciations portion of the Temperature Reading exercise suggested by Virginia Satir, which we decided to keep doing while letting the other portions of the exercise go.

Executive Director's Report

Updates. The Members and Friends of the Center Photos board is up and looks beautiful. The board all said they think Lia has done a great job. The lawn mower has had its annual maintenance done and will return tomorrow. The conference is coming along well, and Neely Ashmun has helped a lot!

Plumbing. It cost $1,100 to get the leak under the house fixed, because there was a large split in the cast iron pipe. Then we found out we could get the middle bathtub connected for just $350 instead of having to install a shower for many thousands of dollars, so we did that.

Meetup. For the first few years there was essentially no activity on Meetup. Since Marilyn Stone started working on it, though, we have had a strong and continuing increase in members. Last month there were 477 members, as of today there are 513. That has resulted in increased attendance at events. Last night there were 14 people at the Videos, several of them from Meetup.

GoodwheelChairs. The board thinks this part of the center is an important thing to turn around. Sunny lives in a complex where a number of people might appreciate knowing about the wheelchairs. Consider sending someone over there to do a presentation about the wheelchairs. Perhaps we could do a short targeted workshop in order to give them some value as well as marketing to them. There is an icecream/cake presentation that we may have to compete with, so perhaps we could schedule our presentation for the same day.

Projecs for us to Prioritize.

1) Leaks under the Center. Fixed!

2) Shower installed. Estimate $5-7 k. When we convert the tub into a shower, ideally we should make it a walk in shower so it would be safer with handrails.

3) Get GoodwheelChairs really selling chairs.

4) Art Barn used as a studio. Needs to get uncluttered. Some progress is being made on this. There was lots of buzz around this, since it's something that has held us back for a long time.

5) The bulletin board on the back porch doesn't look attractive and needs some work so it will represent the Center better..

6) Center brochure. Bob has asked Lesley Harvey to help but hasn't heard back from her. Neely Ashmun is doing a great job on the conference layout; maybe she could help.

7) Rain damage inside near the back door. Sunny volunteered to chair a new Center Paneling and Acoustic Tile Committee to analyze exactly what is needed and find and purchase the materials. Bob authorizes $200 to find out what is required and purchase the materials. Chris Griggessy is a member and knows a lot about maintenance. Perhaps he can acquire a whole new set of matching used tile from some really old office building?

Since there was no further business, the meeting adjourned at around 4:30 pm.