August 1, 2006 Minutes

Minutes - Board Working Meeting, August 1, 2006
10:00 am

Present: Mike, Margaret, Joe and Steve

Minutes by: Steve

'''Note: Since the Board did not have quorum, no official business was conducted during this meeting. It was considered a Board "Working Meeting"'''

1. Check-in

2. Adoption of Agenda

3. Review of Draft Minutes of July 20 Board Meeting

No changes were made to these Minutes

4. Business Arising from Previous Minutes

Joe and Randal were present at the cancelled July 27th Members' Meeting.

Only 1 member turned up (Gerard) who was understanding of the need to reschedule the Meeting

PEN Review Process

The major part of this meeting was spent discussing the PEN.

PEN Background

Mike reiterated a comment by Margaret that the PEN was not launched to be the primary vehicle for promoting the PERC's mandate. This objective was first met by the PERC Resource Centre.

The PEN was started to provide a calendar of events and gradually grew to include articles, etc.

The PEN had its ups and downs and was even closed at one point early in its history and then restarted.

Moving Forward:

Mike asked: In light of the PEN's history and original purpose, Should the PERC be relying on the PEN as its major activity and as its major source of revenue generation? It is assumed that many of the PERC's members renew their memberships at least partly because they receive and support the PEN. They believe that it is a valuable community service provided by the PERC.

On the other hand, most volunteers don't read the PEN.

Mike posed the following question: Is there some other use of PERC's financial resources that would help PERC fulfill its mandate better than the PEN? If so, we should, as a matter of course, choose to support this other activity (regardless of its apparent financial viability).

The group thought about this for a while and could not think of anything else that would serve the PERC better than the PEN in terms of helping to meet the PERC's mandate.

There does not seem to be any obvious unfilled "niche" in the community (within the PERC's mandate) that the PERC could fill - except for a lack of other publications like the PEN.

Various ideas were discussed (e.g. expanded PERCshops, Leadership training courses for staff of local NGOs, etc.).

Getting involved in anything else, in a major way, would require PERC to look for project funding and hire staff - which would mean the end of much of our current volunteer-based activities. (Note that much of this was discussed at the May 2005 AGM).

Mike also noted the slow decline in the number of PERC members, reflecting a changing demographic as the older members (from the 1970s and 80s) die off and are not replaced.


 * Is there a market (need) for what the PERC produces and can it be supported by our membership base?


 * Do people read the PEN?


 * If not - why not and how can we change this?

5. Next Board Meeting

The next Board meeting will take place on September 7th

The next Members' Meeting/Board Meeting will take place on October 12th

6. Checkout

The meeting ended at this point (12:45 pm)

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