Agenda and Minutes of June 16th Meeting

Draft Minutes Management Committee Meeting - June 16, 2004 Present: Mike (Coordinator), Kristen (Fundraising), Connie (Membership), Lakshmi (IT Admin and Web), James (Participation), Margaret (Pen Editorial)and Steve (Board) Check in Agenda: 

Mayor's Walk Reports Management Retreat Feedback (Lakshmi)  Mayor's Walk - Saturday, September 11, 2004 (the walk date, on the anniversary of attacks of 3 years ago, is purely coincidental) Mike discussed this fundraising event: It is held primarily to support Volunteer Ottawa but participating volunteer groups (that must be associated with Volunteer Ottawa) share in the proceeds. PERC would receive 50% of what it raises towards this event.

PERC will try to get its volunteers and members involved in sponsoring walkers and/or taking part in the walk, which is only 3.5 km long. There was a discussion on whether PERC should participate and the following points were made: Kristen noted that there is a lot of competition in the fundraising walk sector. Connie noted that there could be some competition for time with this year's YKOP campaign which will take place in September and that this might put too much pressure on the PERC volunteers. The month of August, when much of the organizing work would have to be carried out, is the lowest point of the year in terms of volunteer actvity. Going round the table, the consensus was that "this is a good idea BUT we don't want to put a double load on the volunteers". AGREED that: The PERC will put a notice of the walk in the next issue of the PEN as well as ensuring that an insert with the notification goes to the PERC members and that registration forms go to all volunteers. The Fundraising Committee will solve the YKOP timing issue. Kristen suggested that it would be fun to have the PERC committees challenge each other to find sponsors.

Mike has a "tip sheet" developed for previous walks that can be used to provide some assistance on how to approach potential donors. Management Retreat Mike noted that, historically, the Management Committee had 2 retreats per year (each totalling about 6-7 hours on a Sunday). The first one each year was used to examine the organization, as a whole and set priorities. The second one was used to evaluate the activities, as implemented, and to fine tune them. Management Committee has not had a retreat in several years and Mike suggested that it would be useful to hold these again. The group agreed with Mike and the consensus was to have a retreat on: Sunday, July 18th from about 10:00 am to 5:00 pm (place to be determined).

Feedback - Lakshmi The group filled in the questionnaires. Reports Administration   Financial: Bob and Joe are managing well, but there is no real Finance Committee   General Admin: committee is proceeding but "nascent". It would like to try to implement an on-line, Wiki-based PERC User's Guide that would be more of an encyclopaedia than a "how to" manual. It would be well indexed and would act as a central repository of PERC information.   IT Admin: has discussed open sourcing of software, but PERC's current hardware does not support this. They are thinking of advertising for the used hardware that they need. Talked about encouraging volunteers to make more use of the Wikipedia, but it is not user friendly enough for our needs.

</li>  Web Committee: Is planning to update Dot Project Saturday, June 19th to fix various bugs and add a greater range of categories. The new version is more user friendly. </li> </ul> The committee is down one person as Tony is ill.  Board: Board is working to identify ways in which it can better assist PERC committees - especially the fundraising committee. Board members went through an exercise to identify how each Director could raise $500.</li> </ul> There is an ongoing search to find new Board members since it is at the minimum number (5) and one member is not available for meetings due to being out of the country. Board is also working on the issue of Board Development and Mike has found a volunteer, Diana Graham, who would like to assist in this process. Board have to meet with her to see how we can best work together. As part of the development process the Board will look at the activities it wishes to undertake and their related responsibilities, the skills that it will need to accomplish its defined tasks and ways to evaluate its progress. The Board has decided to reschedule the PERC AGM so that it more closely aligns with the fiscal year end which is March 31st. This will make financial reporting at the AGM more comprehensible. In order to make this happen, the Board has scheduled the next AGM for Thursday, November 18th followed by one in May 2005.   Communications: The new video continues to move ahead. Two new people have joined the committee, but it is losing one member. The committee has prepared an ad for the Mayor's Walk and is in process of revising the YKOP brochure.

</li>  Editorial: Is losing 2 key volunteers: Jackie Johnson is leaving shortly and Brian will be leaving in August. They have one new volunteer who does not have much experience. </li> </ul> The committee has been doing interviews with CKCU for several years to promote PEN issues, but the interview time will be changing to 9:00 am. on Saturdays (?) There will be a July/August issue of the PEN a September/October issue and one for November/December. Announcements for October will have to be in by mid-August. Margaret raised the issue of new volunteers arriving for work at the PEN without their information forms - and Mike noted that the record keepers are behind in their work and the broken photocopier does not help. However he also noted that the binder containing the required forms is kept near the computer located behind the printer.   Fundraising/Membership: The YKOP campaign will be held again this year. "Missed you" letters went out and some replies were received. (About 10% of letters returned with "address unknown" stamps and this amount is probably low.) Summer will be spent working on YKOP. The video problem that plagued last year's campaign has been solved. </li>

 Special Events: Planned fall/winter events include Mayor's Walk, Hearts and Minds Dinner, Square Dance and Carolling. </li> </ul> The Garage Sale was huge success - thanks to everyone. Special thanks to Elizabeth who had to fill in for Kristen just before the sale started. Elizabeth called all the volunteers before the sale asking for their help. This resulted in a huge turn-out of volunteers during the sale. The moral is: if you call someone personally, you are more likely to get his/her assistance. The committee is losing a long-time volunteer. Yuki may or may not leave. The committee is also dealing proactively with some thorny volunteer issues which will result in the loss of another volunteer.   Library: Continues to not exist. No one who has wanted to volunteer for this committee has adequate skills or can make the required time commitment. </li>  Outreach: Athena Project - two volunteers are leaving and only 1 is left. They will meet with Mike to discuss what to do. </li>  Participation:

</li>  Kommunity Kitchen will be held on July 10th. </li>  Next PERCshop will be on June 17th. </li>  Corn Roast at the end of August. </li> </ul> Committee wants to update the volunteer section of the web site. Feedback process is going quit well. Committee plans to distribute exit questionnaires at various meetings and would like to start this at the AGM. Mike gave 2 examples of volunteers who had improved their skills through participation in PERCshops, so they ARE useful. <ul> <li> Web: Everything of importance noted above in IT. Committee is making progress on its learning curriculum. Regarding the need to log in more than once for different sections of the PERC web site, the committee would like to implement "Post Nuke" software which would resolve this issue.

</li> <li> Coordinator: Is somewhat behind and now attacking backlog. New volunteers are still arriving, but these are not summer students. </li> </ul> Mike noted that the priority issues that need to be looked at over the summer are: management, leadership support, charity status and funding. Next Meeting The next Management Committee Meeting will be held on July 18th as part of the Retreat. Checkout