Draft Minutes of the October 18th Board Meeting

'''PERC Board Meeting Minutes Thursday, Oct. 18th, 2007'''

The meeting was called to order at 19:40. Kristin Miller chaired the meeting and Kristina Inrig took minutes.

Present: Steve Gurman, Kristina Inrig, Mike Kaulbaurs, Randal Marlin, Kristin Miller, and Margaret Jensen.

1. Check-in: Everyone checked-in.

2. Assign Time-Keeper: Steve

3. Adoption of Agenda: Steve suggested a few agenda re-arrangements. Motion to adopt agenda as amended. Moved by Kristina, seconded by Steve. Carried.

4. Approval of Sep 20th Minutes: Motion to approve minutes as amended. Moved by Steve, seconded by Margaret. Carried.

5. Membership campaign: discussion of what next steps are.

-Mike suggests we use the same formula as last time (where volunteers and members are asked to recruit new members). This time we will track how each group is doing and post updates on website. Board members should mention project when they go to discuss other matters such as Business Plan. Front page of next PVN and sent to committee chairs. Other tools (pamphlet, etc) can be used. Need a committed fundraising volunteer to help, but Mike is working on this for now. Next PEN is out in a couple of weeks. Should send details of campaign out in PEN. Launch of campaign is November. Enthusiastic participation is needed from Board members (ie. Be supportive and try to recruit new members).

-ACTION: Mike to update contact list. Board member needed to write something about campaign in PVN for December. Steve and Kristin to write something together. Mike suggests talking about how easy it is from personal experience. Mike noted this won't be a two-tier challenge (to approach major donors as well).

-Motion to accept the membership campaign plan as proposed by Mike. Moved by Kristina, seconded by Randal. Carried.

6. Harassment Policy: Still needs to be updated on Wiki.

-ACTION: Kristin to update Harassment Policy to Wiki.

7. Next members' meeting: This will be needed in 60 days after the last one. Suggested date is Tuesday, Dec. 18th. Margaret will put notice in PEN. Mike wondered if Sue had been contacted as per his suggestion to clarify the situation with the Board.

-ACTION: Kristin will contact Sue to follow-up. Board Dev't committee will meet to discuss recruitment strategies. Steve will write a notice in Board Corner of the PEN.

8. PEN Editor Contract: Contract expires in January. Margaret to review current contract and bring forward concerns to Steve. If meeting is needed, Margaret can come in at noon on Oct.29th to meet with Steve, Kristina and Kristin about meeting with Margaret to discuss and bring reccomendations to next Board Meeting.

9. Financial Report: Steve provided the Cash Flow document. TD FEF grant of $6588 came in. Membership income was higher than anticipated for September (but likely this is shifted from October). GST cheque also came in. Next month we will catch up on overdue payments. If things stay on track, we should run a surplus by the end of the year. Membership needs to be monitored to ensure we reach our goals.

10. PEN Report: First issue of Climate Change series is being worked on. Should come out Nov. 6th. Deadline for articles in next Wednesday. Mike and Margaret have been recruiting writers. The following issue will likely come out in early January (earlier than usual). We currently print 5000 copies, but still don't know how effective the pick-up is in which areas. Eventually we need an organized distribution coordinator to track this. We used to mail copies to all politicians, but need someone to update the list after each election (prefer home address). Randal will begin researching two environment Ministers.

11. Committees/Coordinator Currently we are at the lowest volunteer numbers of the year. Highest number of volunteers is coming up in November. Current priorities:

-IT Admin getting organized. This has been difficult.

-Finance - a new volunteer might be joining soon.

-Communications: Creativity folks are involved in photo gallery. This is a resource that all groups can access. Currently debugging software. Not open to public yet. Kristin wondererd if there will be a link from website to support PERC.

-Fundraising: Membership campaign has already been discussed.

-Special Events: Not much activity in this area. Trying to work on committee in order to go ahead with Square Dance (mid November) and Climate Change dinner (new Year). Now have a small group forming.

-Library: Still don't have OpenSource catalogue up. Book review and book acquisitions are getting back on track - have some great new books in collection. Very reliable volunteer involved in this.

-Participation: PVN is hopefully being revived. Other aspects of participation have not really been progressing.

-Web: Athena has been on hold for the time being. Excited about PEN project.

-3 Canning sessions have been held. There are five core volunteers involved. Community Kitchens are normally participation events, but these canning activities have taken off. Margaret wondered if there could be any liability issues associated with these projects. Mike stated that the types of activities that are going on are low risk. We do have liability insurance that covers volunteers, including off-site activities.

-Kristina requested to be added to e-mail. Mailman program (python list manager) doesn't allow e-mail. Perhaps a second list is needed for those who have gmail.

12. Other Business

-Just Food: Moe requested a meeting with the Board. She will hopefully come to the next meeting. This may be about a proposed partnership.

-Randal mentioned a new fundraising idea: carbon contribution to PERC for air travel (such as 1% of cost); this is similar to carbon offset). Could be a letter to PERC members.   Mike suggested that we should consider this carefully as it may compete with Carbon off-setting and also legitimizes carbon off-sets.  PERC does have indirect offset (by encouraging individuals). Mike will consider who would be best to review this idea (which committee).

12. Next Meeting: November 8th at 7:30. Members meeting will be December 18th at 7:00pm.

13. Check-out: Everyone checked out.