Regular Meeting -- December 18, 2011
The Board of Directors held its regular monthly meeting at 2007 Bert Avenue, Austin, TX 78704, starting at 2:44 pm. The following directors (constituting a quorum of the full board) were present at the meeting: President and Treasurer Kathy Lee, Vice President Tamara Vogt, Secretary Pam Chambers, Penny Chambers (by Skype), Laine Morales and Ann Carson. 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.
Fundraising. The fundraising letter got some response and a fundraising email will go out soon. Kathy agreed to sending the email out under her signature.
AHP and Web Classes. Bob has agreed to be the webmaster to the AHP site, and he is busy working on it. The web class didn't make, but he presented it anyway using the techs from UMass Boston as attendees. Bob said it was difficult for him as instructor since there is no way to have the students interrupt and it was hard for students to talk to each other.
Finances. Bob has done well in November with a significant boost in clientele for Personal Growth Sessions, and renting out the Garage Apartment to a new person brought in extra income too. So we ended the month in not too bad shape, with a loss of just about $750.
GoodwheelChairs. Have a new Wheelchair volunteer, Ethan Cha.
Mortgage Refinance. We haven't been able to get anyone to co-sign the mortgage yet, so Bob has been weighing options and figuring out how to reduce the risk of co-signing. He has been able to pay the mortgage on time and in full every time for over 100 times, so the risk is low. He suggested that we could sign a contract with co-signers guaranteeing them that before they had to pay anything, we would put the property on the market so that the co-signer would be repaid with interest as soon as the property sold.
The board suggested that we remind co-signers that there are a lot of condo developers who would snatch this property up in a heartbeat. The place across the street sold for $750K for 3/4 of an acre compared to the $350Kwe paid for 1-1/3 acres, so this is valuable property. The board said it would help to get an informal appraisal to document the value of the property.
Penny recommended that we get a life and disability insurance policy for Bob so that if anything happens and Bob isn't able to make the mortgage, it would still be covered. So the board asked Bob to check it out. It was suggested he could start with AARP.
Since there was no further business, we all wished each other a Merry Christmas and the meeting adjourned at around 4:02 pm.
Minutes submitted by Pam Chambers, Secretary, December 18, 2011.