Regular Meeting -- August 4, 2007
The Board of Directors held its regular monthly meeting at 2007 Bert Avenue, Austin, TX 78704, starting at 1:15 pm. The following directors (constituting a quorum of the full board) were present at the meeting: President Pam Latham (Oceanna), Vice President and Treasurer Pam Chambers, Leslie Harvey and Robert Gardner. Secretary Kathy Lee was absent, so Leslie Harvey served as acting Secretary for the meeting. Robert McGarey (Executive Director) was also present at the meeting.
The Mission Statement was read aloud at the beginning of the meeting. Minutes from the previous meeting were read aloud and approved as read.
Grants. Pam reported that she was excited about the letter that Bob wrote to the Fentress-Brown Foundation requesting a $2,850 grant for redoing the back porch area. It was due by August 1st, and she took photos of the problems with the back porch so Bob could include in the letter visible evidence of the importance of the grant.
Intern. Bob arranged with Morgan Anderson to serve as our new Nonprofit Management Intern, starting July 15th. She will be living in the upstairs garage apartment and paying a reduced rent of $400 per month, to help make it possible for her to spend time as our intern. Although it is too soon to tell how she will perform as an intern, Bob says he is very happy to have the help!
Bingo. Bingo continues to do well this year. In July the unit brought in a profit of $15K, which means that all four members of the unit could receive $2,500 this month and we would still increase the unit's bank account by $5K. Bob said that Littlefield wants to increase the number of charities at the hall from 5 to 7, which would reduce our income by about one-third, but that nothing has happened yet.
Chrysler. We still have not received the registration or title from the person we purchased the car from. Bob suggests that we probably need to figure out what is required to get a copy of those documents directly from the state.
990's. Bob reported that we need to begin preparations for submitting the 990's, which are due on August 15th.
Membership. Bob reported that he is more convinced that we need to alter the membership structure. We are a wellness-oriented organization, so we can't easily use a membership structure that's designed for an illness-oriented or religious or physical-fitness-focused business, The membership model that we've been using for the past several years doesn't seem to have accomplished what we wanted it to do -- encourage members to join and feel strongly committed to building emotionally-healthy community. This may be due to a number of factors, but the bottom line is that our membership level is really low.
He repeated his previous proposal of charging $75 per year for membership, adding that it could be paid in 3 monthly installments of $25 each. Pam expressed concern that that type of membership structure could dilute the effectiveness of membership by attracting more people who don't yet fully comprehend what emotionally-healthy community means. Robert said that he thinks $75 is too little, and several people suggested that a range of $200 to $240 might be a better figure.
Oceanna suggested that we need to get more information about what other organizations charge for their membership annually, and asked the board members to bring information about membership dues from any organizations that they belong to, to our next board meeting.
Since there was no further business, the meeting adjourned at around 3 pm.