Special Meeting -- August 8, 2009
The Board of Directors held a special meeting at 2007 Bert Avenue, Austin, TX 78704, starting at 2:05 pm. The following directors (constituting a quorum of the full board) were present at the meeting: President Kathy Lee, Vice President and Secretary Leslie Harvey, Treasurer Pam Chambers. and Robert Gardner. Robert McGarey (Executive Director), Carol Hintz and Bill Edelbrock were also present at the meeting.
Bingo. We received a letter yesterday that our bingo lease was cancelled by Littlefield. Bob has started searching for new opportunities in bingo, and provided a proposal to the board of Near-Term sources of income. There are other long-term sources in the works, but they won't show profitability for a while. Bingo has been covering the mortgage, and we'll be getting about $15K as a cushion. If it is applied only to mortgage and a few other expenses, this will allow us to keep the bills paid for 4-5 months. This will give us enough time to either find a new bingo hall, get GoodwheelChairs off the ground and get some of the other possible sources of income going (classes, massage room, personal growth sessions, etc).
GoodwheelChairs. Bob believes that we can make it work to sell one scooter/week to raise ~$3000/month. To do this we'll need someone to manage the inventory, and we'll need to work more heavily on marketing and advertising. Bob said this needs to become a central focus of the Center to get this going. We should consider getting the interns plugged into the process to focus on it.
Steve Dodd's Storage Proposal. The Board decdided that we would not move forward with this request at this time. Unfortunately the timing to create a new building is not great with the new development (loss of Bingo), and we won't be able to see profitability from it for 2-3 years.
Community Garden. Robert tabled this proposal till later. He has been discussing the challenges with the trees and will keep working with them to fnd a solution. At the moment there are too many other things to focus on.
The meeting was adjourned at 3:45pm. Minutes submitted by Leslie Harvey, Secretary, August 8, 2009.