July 29, 2010 AGM and Board Meeting Minutes

Peace and Environment Resource Centre

Board of Directors Meeting

July 29, 2010

The meeting was called to order at 6:02 pm. Kristin Miller chaired the meeting and Valerie Doucette took minutes.

Present: Diana Brushey, Kristin Miller, Kristina Inrig, Robert Smith, Margaret Jensen, and Valerie Doucette.

1. Check In.

2. Select Time keeper:  Kristina.

3. Approval of agenda. Moved by Kristina, seconded by Kristin. Carried.

4. Approval of minutes from last meeting. Approve them as notes, not minutes. Kristin moves to accept notes from non-quorum meeting, Kristin seconded. Carried.

5. PEN. Hello volunteer column needs to have a subject. Could use one of the possible new board members or Margaret could have her profile done as an editor since this has not been done for a while. Volunteers for the organization are still needed. Subject of September PEN is on food policy or food matters, asking for contributions due mid-August.

6. Library cleaning. We need to finish it; we need another Saturday or a weeknight. Need to know about working with Rhonda - limitation of what we can get rid of or not. Rhonda is in here Wed-Friday afternoons. Did anyone respond to her email? Microwave not actually working right now. ACTION: Kristin will come by Friday at 3:30 to speak with Rhonda. Margaret noted that if she can't microwave she will not come in. Cleaning in September? Work with Rhonda beforehand to focus on what to get rid of. Try to have cleaning up throughout the summer when people are available.

Break (was skipped)

7. Board Orientation/Development, sub-committee names, change to minimum four meetings per year. We cannot change the by-laws for this meeting. We can hold a members meetings at any time, we need to give them 21 days notice. Website launch event in October, and at that members meeting we can propose this. Draft up something to put in the PEN. Kristin's only concern is that before all of the new committees are running we should still have more frequent board meetings before then. Board meeting in September - chance to get people together. Guidelines for committees: Kristin notes that with the current set-up what she likes is that things are done by consensus. Kristina notes that somebody has to do it, is the problem - somebody has to take responsibility for a committee orientation or guidelines practice. ACTION: Kristin to make guideline before next meeting - will send to Kristina in August for review at some point. Committee names - board committees, perc committees.

Admin and Management (IT committee) Program (Website) PEN (PEN editorial committee)

Can be more sub-committees as volunteers see needed. Kristina is the Chair of the program committee. Kristin is going to be the liaison for HR purposes. Every board member must sit on a PERC committee. As for Lothar, it might be too soon to make him head of IT - IT can be a sub-committee of Admin and Management, reports back to Admin and Management. He can be a person on the committee that coordinates IT. Volunteer management - Kristin offers to take care of it under Admin and Management. Each committee manages their own volunteers. Solicit volunteers for each committee. ACTION: Kristin will try to be here on Fridays for an hour and a half to set up some sort of email to let people know what's happening and if and when we get new volunteers, Kristin will sit down with volunteers and orient them. Once they get placed in a committee the chair of the committee should work with them.

Diana responsible for hiring volunteers for the website, connection between PEN and the website. Volunteer management thing is not clear. Being a chair of a committee means that you need to chair it - Joe and Rob do not want to do this. Find somebody else to be on their committee. Volunteers need to understand the delineations of each committee. Need to go through coordinator's job description to separate out these distinctions. We need to be clear in terms of job descriptions and responsibilities for people. Need to talk to Joe before we make a decision on that. We need to agree that chairs are responsible for coordinating volunteers. Concerned with hierarchy? Kristina says people don't know who they are reporting to; people don't know where they fit into the organizations.

Need to speak about PEN committee - editorial committee would stay as its own as a sub-committee. PEN committee includes distribution, advertising, and other things. Is there a chair of that committee? Mike has been doing distribution, but not anymore. We need somebody to head that and be here and learn stuff from Mike. PEN committee could be co-chaired by Margaret and somebody else. Kristina and Kristin can work with each committee to make sure there's a functionality in place between now and September. They need to take on a life of their own.

Orienting new people coming today, how do we make the decisions as to who become board members? Maximum of 15 people on the board. What is our orientation plan for them? Meet with Kristin. Show them the video, have outlined more what the three committees are and what the expectations are. Orientation Kit + Video. The three most important things a new board member would need: information about policies and by-laws and information about PERC history. Also the mandate of PERC. Kristin comfortable doing it one-on-one.

8. Volunteer Coordination/Communication. We'll be in touch with them, orientation in September.

9. Other business. None.

10. Check Out.

PERC Annual General Meeting

The meeting was called to order at 7:38pm. Kristin Miller chaired the meeting and Valerie Doucette took minutes.

1.	Welcome by Chair and introduction of the board Board members present include: Kristina Inrig, Kristin Miller, Valerie Doucette, Robert Smith Ex-Officio Board Members: Margaret Jensen

2.	Roll call of PERC Members. Present members include: Brenda Ball, Judi Varga-Toth, Sabrina Bowman, Lothar Stiegerwald, Diana Brushey, Brittan Florczyk, Joe Parchelo, Heather Hamilton, Keith Shackleton, Francesco Patozzi, Krishna, Gerard Daeschel, and Pamela Shreiner.

3.	Adoption of the Agenda. Motion to adopt the agenda. Moved by Kristina, seconded by Rob. Carried.

4.	Approval of Minutes of June 9, 2009 AGM Motion to approve the AGM minutes of June 9, 2009. Moved by Kristin, seconded by Valerie. Carried.

5.	PERC Board Chair�s Report It's been a stressful year for PERC for the board; we've really been changing direction but also in a way coming back to what perc originally was. Moving towards more community oriented work. Funding has changed direction - Kristina can speak to this. Extremely good volunteers that have kept things going. Not always given direction but carried on; if it wasn't for them we may not have been here. Never able to re-hire Mike as a coordinator, his involvement has been petering off.

Kristina - Vice-chair to look at partnerships and funding. At one point we had a deteriorating lack of funds and were in a deficit position. The last year has been a great year to renew: we moved out of deficit and have acquired three years of stable funding. Different partnerships with community organizations; looked at ways to spread work of the PEN. Recognize Margaret's contribution of keeping PEN running all these years; PEN a necessity in the community. Recognition of Diana as well: coming on at the end of the fiscal year to bring us into the new website. Has been a challenging but exciting year - opportunities for collaboration and funding. More to talk about that as we develop plans and ideas for the future.

6.	Treasurer�s Report. Mike was an unpaid coordinator for a long time but stepped down last fiscal period. As Kristin mentioned we've really changed directions with volunteer donations with more of a grant format. We monitored our expenses, found some improvements on that side. Last year was tough and this year has been improving and we're looking forward to a new direction.

7.  Nomination and Election of Directors

7.1 Description of a Director's Job Description Board member expected to attend a minimum of 10 meetings per year. And to serve on one of the three committees - admin and management, program and pen committees. Main function of the board is changing - moving to provide direction, a more hands-on approach. Board member must adhere to PERC rules and by-laws - one of them being must be a member in good standing. Kristina notes that we decided to switch meetings to quarterly. In our next meeting in September we will be giving notice and will be changing meetings to be a minimum of four. The intention is that the hands-on component is in committees - board meetings would occur less often.

7.2. Nominations to the Board and Nominees' presentations: Lothar Steigerwald, Sabrina Bowman, Judi Varga-Toth, Brenda Ball, Pamela Shreiner, Keith Shackleton, and Heather Hamilton all made presentations.

7.3. Election of Directors by secret ballot. Kristin declares they are all now members of the board by acclimation.

8. Other business. None proposed.

9. AGM Adjournment Kristin moves to adjourn meeting at 8:35 pm. Lothar seconds this. Carried.