August 29, 2011 Board Meeting

Peace and Environment Resource Centre Board of Directors Meeting August 29, 2011

The meeting was called to order at 5:46 pm. Pamela Schreiner chaired the meeting and Valerie Doucette took minutes.

Present: Pamela Schreiner, Diana Brushey, Kristin Miller, Keith Shackleton, Margaret Jensen, Sabrina Bowman, and Valerie Doucette.

1. Check in.

2. Board meeting admin.

3. Agenda Review. Removed editor's contract as part of the program committee update. Consensus to add a break as appropriate. Valerie moved to accept the agenda as amended. Sabrina seconded. Carried.

4. Previous minutes review. Schreiner spelt wrong in previous minutes. It is advised that we take care when we publish our minutes - review them internally to make sure there's no personal information about donors. Kristin notes that we should have a record of some events in our minutes if they are relevant to the board. What are our requirements? Do we have to have public minutes or private minutes? ACTION: Kristin to look into this - if you ask PERC for the minute we'll supply them, but possibly password protect that section of the wiki? Will have to see if we are required to post the minutes publicly. Margaret notes that we've always had paper copies in the office available. Diana moves to approve the minutes as amended. Pamela seconded. Carried.

5. PERC Finances and Admin. There was an email from Ellen discussing the problems with money PERC has been having. In the future she will be emailing only Kristin and Kristina. PERC has come into a money crunch - more money will be coming in but no basic backup in the bank. Issue ot paying Ellen, Diana, Margaret, and rent. Obviously Diana and Ellen have priority. Projected memberships have not come in - but not sure whether based on the past this is normal in the summer. This seems to be true. Right now we're up to date, nothing is behind. A cheque came in that allowed us to pay Diana and Ellen. There were a few expenses higher than normal, such as PEN printing. Waiting to hear from a couple of grants, that may change our budget. Confirmed that everyone who has signing authority actually has it - 6 people in total.

We are increasing the rent we charge to Tucker House from 150 to 200 per month. $30 a month with Primus is going to make a difference in our phone and internet costs. May be reducing PEN printing cost by printing less issues. It would be cheaper to print 2000 including the insider. The insider used to be bonus for member, but just putting them in all of them now. Would printing less impact people who advertise? They don't have to agree to this decision, but looking for new advertisers we cannot guarantee the circulation.

Keith notes about the statement prepared by Ellen that it would be helpful if it were laid out in terms of the budget pro-rated (year to date). ACTION: Kristin will talk to Ellen about this. Her status as bookkeeper is up in the air because if we do not pay her next week she will no longer be working for us. For the editor's contract we do not have a 2011 or 2012 version. ACTION: Margaret will get out the 2010 version and look at it, will probably not need many changes.

6. Program committee update 1) Interns Looking at applying for interns from two different programs: Carleton University and Ottawa University. Diana is happy with this, it will mean more help for her too. Great to get involvement from the community. A couple of different positions such as helping with distribution (audit), help getting PEN back into libraries, PEN support in terms of themes, etc. Also for the resource library - putting someone to work helping with periodicals: do we keep them? should we digitize them? are they online? The E-resource library needs some work as well. Algonquin hasn't been approached. Kristin suggests that it might be good to approach them since they have an events program, advertising program. Sabrina suggests that two people should be sufficient for now since Diana will have to organize their work. We could perhaps hold an information session down the line, and some kind of recognition event within the next year and a half. Algonquin would not be an internship, but an independent student project.

2) Fundraising Sabrina applied for TDFEF for printing in PEN - mid September they are looking at that. Also applied for an unlikely grant for an energy audit for the office - to make it more energy efficient as a kind of pilot and display project where we would open up our office for other people to see it, etc. It may be a long shot but a good opportunity.  Ontario Trillium foundation has grant deadline Nov. 1st - applying for a capacity building person.  Also, Mountain Equipment Co-Op Sept. 10th used to strengthen PEN.  The  community foundation of Ottawa has an application due Oct. 1st and we were going to go for PEN outreach.  We need to fully support what we have now before we look at other options.

PEN sponsorships: In last meeting we addressed this approach - Diana and Patrice sent things to Sabrina - draft sponsorship package is in its second revision. Resources from sponsorships will allow us to stabilize and expand. Looking at sponsorship options above and beyond funding a single issue. Will need to go out into the community and talk to organizations. There are four categories, with the champion sponsor getting a certain amount of recognition. Kristin points out the issue of sponsors having editorial control. Sabrina confirms that they will not have editorial control. Sabrina also working on a list of people to approach.

Donate-a-day: Sabrina notes that she is not sure what that is and is not able to take on anything else for PERC. Kristin explains that it is a campaign that goes out for memberships and seeking donations where people are asked to donate a day worth of pay. Patrice and Diana have gone through all of the letters to see what it is and have found the best pieces, they will be developing it. Letters will be going out to invite to visioning event but will also welcome contributions. Donate-a-day is coming up in the fall for the Nov./Dec. issue of PEN.

7. PERC visioning event on September 22nd. Is it a problem if the Peace event is on at the same time? The room and space is confirmed. ACTION: Diana to contact the Peace event organizers to see if they can include our event in their conference schedule. Cheque must be drawn up in advance - for the custodial fee to Brian. Other expenses are $100 for the graphic facilitation provided by Kara Stonehouse. Should create an invoice for this. Will be asking Bridgehead for coffee or tea donations. Sabrina suggests we also ask Bread & Sons to see if they can donate anything. ACTION: Valerie to bring three or four frozen juice containers and bake something. Kristin to bring donation baskets with signs saying "donations accepted." ACTION: Diana to invite other organizations that also might like to donate. Sabrina suggests to create a Facebook event. We could also approach churches such as St. Giles, glebe St. James, Unitarians. ACTION: Kristin to provide background of PERC.

A good time to come for board members who wish to help would be between 4:30 and 5:30. ACTION: Valerie to email minutes. Diana will try to find out the size of the tables.

8. Other business. ACTION: Reminder of meetings two weeks in advance - Val will send this out. Next meeting: November 22nd at 5:30 pm is next official meeting. But also post-visioning visioning meeting on Tuesday October 18th at 5:30pm. Keith offered to take notes at the visioning meeting.

9. Checkout.