Regular Meeting -- July 19, 2009
The Board of Directors held its regular monthly meeting at 2007 Bert Avenue, Austin, TX 78704, starting at 1:30 pm. The following directors (constituting a quorum of the full board) were present at the meeting: President Kathy Lee, Vice President Robert Gardner, Treasurer Pam Chambers, and Secretary Leslie Harvey. Robert McGarey (Executive Director) and Hannah Walton were also present at the meeting.
The Mission Statement was read aloud at the beginning of the meeting. Minutes for the last meeting were not yet available for review.
Volunteers. Still lots of activity from volunteers. The have been a lot of help with Shabby Chic. We are considering getting volunteers to assist with marketing and fund-raising efforts.
Garden. Robert is interested in increasing (perhaps doubling) the size of the garden in order to create a community garden. We might have to check with the city to see if we need to get approval. There will be a lot of labor involved (including tree removal). Robert will put a proposal together for the next board meeting.
Car Donation Program. Found an organization where someone can donate a car to the Center, the org picks up the car and sells it (or parts) and takes 30% of the proceeds, and 70% of the proceeds go to the Center. Bob will check to see if there is any rule in Community Shares that will preclude our being able to spend more than 20+%(?) on fund-raising efforts. The board approved moving forward with this pending resolution of the question.
Massage Space. Hannah is interested in getting the Imaginary Room started with practitioners in the massage space. She's looking into working with the local schools to get interested folks. This will generally be a rental space, though there could be some who are Associates approved and promoted by the Center. Space rental & scheduling needs to be determined in advance. Perhaps use Google calendar to give everyone access to the same calendar, but Hannah has volunteered to coordinate this. Hannah will do the research needed to determine pricing and other logistics. We'll plan to see this proposal at the next meeting, but she may have it done early. If so she will email the board with her proposal.
Bathrooms. We need to look into repairing one of the other bathrooms so there will not be a conflict with the massage space. One other option could be to create an outdoor shower. This could be an inexpensive alternative. Robert will look into what it would take to do this.
Shabby Chic. The transformation of the Living Room and the Garden Room is currently in progress. The walls are painted yet there is detail work to do. The furniture will soon be put back into place. BIG thanks to Robert Gardner for all his help the two weeks prior to this weekend event. He and 2 other volunteers did a LOT of the painting including trim and furniture. We couldn't have made it this far without their help.
Job Descriptions & Duties. Kathy proposed that we should have a list of the job duties of employees, interns, and other key workers/volunteers at the center. This will help others to know what everyone does and who is responsible for what. Kathy has volunteered to get the information from those individuals, organize the information, and Bob will help her create a database of the information. This will help anyone who needs to know who handles what and where to go with questions or needs.
Extra income. Kathy mentioned she learned that Amazon.com has a program that is similar to Randalls where we would get a percentage of a sale, and she will check into the details.
Bingo. Franchise tax problem was resolved in our favor. We've been saving some funds in case we needed to use that for the taxes, but we're not sure yet if we're going to keep saving it or get it back to spend it as we see fit. Unfortunately Littlefield, the corporation from whom we rent the space, wants to charge the charities (in addition to the rent which is at the limit of what the charities can be charged) for insurance, property taxes and maintenance. They are also planning to add another charity to the group, so that will split the proceeds by 7 charities instead of 6, however the number of temp sessions allowed has been doubled, and Tommie thinks we might be able to use that to our advantage. Bob is open to any of the board joining him at the next meeting.
GoodwheelChairs. New sign posted at corner, as well as one of the chairs. The ad on CraigsList so far has only generated spam in return so far. We have a possible volunteer who may be interested in running the program. More advertising needs to be done to get inventory moving.
Our Neighbor. The company at the corner is a natural foods distributor and they have offered to provide some healthy snacks, such as Sweet Leaf Tea, for our fund-raisers.
Financials. Bob outlined the current Financial Statements for June '09 and year to date. They still need to be finished, but Bob and Annapurni are almost there.
Intern/Garage Apartment. Bob has agreed to take Robert's suggestion to bring in a new intern who will pay a full $600/month + 3hrs per week, and if the intern actually works more at the Center then we can consider reducing the rent once the trust has been established that the work will be done. We have a few people interested in the position. Leslie offered to create an application to compile all the information needed for new employees/interns/renters Leslie also suggested that any renters bringing pets provide an additional pet deposit/rent.
Since there was no further business, the meeting adjourned at around 4:21 pm.
Minutes submitted by Leslie Harvey, Secretary, July 19, 2009.