February 18, 2010 Board Meeting

Peace and Environment Resource Centre

Thursday, February 18, 2010

Agenda

1. Check-in (5 mins)

2. Select Time Keeper (1 mins)

3. Approval of Agenda (2 mins)

4. Approval of minutes from last meeting (2 mins)

5. Financial Report (15 mins)

Break (10 mins)

6. PEN (15 mins) * Report * Editor's Contract

7. Partnership Requests (10 mins)

8. PERC Policy

9. Update of Tasks (20 mins) *Complete draft version of business plan for next meeting *Board Orientation **screening 10. Other Business (5 mins)

11. Check-out (5 min)

Board of Directors Meeting Minutes

The meeting was called to order at 5:45pm. Kristin Miller chaired the meeting and Valerie Doucette took minutes.

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

1. Check-in:  Everyone checked in.

2.  Select Time-Keeper:  Rob.

3. Approval of Agenda:   Kristina moved to approve agenda. Kristin seconded. Carried.

4. Approval of minutes from last meeting (January 14, 2010). Rob motions to approve the minutes. Val seconded. Motion Carried.

5. Financial Report

Kristina asks where we were in relation to the budget. Rob notes that we are up $3900 if all goes as planned, with two months left in the current year. Donate-a-day and general membership is slightly below, projected to have all debts paid by the end of the year. Margaret's donation of her editor's fee assures this. ACTION: Verify $500 received from Solar, change wording on budget from Solar to PEN sponsorship. Expenses are paid up to date for everything. Rob has asked the bank to waive their fee and will call tomorrow to verify (ACTION). For the insurance, there was a letter in the mail requesting that we renew annually, ACTION: send cheque to insurance company. For the Editor's contract of 2009/2010, Margaret needs to look at the changes and sign off on the contract - ACTION. New bookkeeping volunteer, Aida, started on January 30th and comes in once per month to meet with Joe.

BREAK

6. PEN

Volunteer column - will wait for Aida to get settled in but then contact her for an interview for an upcoming issue potentially. It was suggested that Kristin do an interview since she has been a long time volunteer and could do a renewed discussion. One editorial committee member resigned. Would be great to do more from an advertising perspective with PEN: themed issues with added funds through advertising, a volunteer could be directed to take on these initiatives. The time commitment mostly involves phone calls or emails. Margaret could write a draft of an email that could be sent out. ACTION: Margaret to send draft email to Rob, Kristen and Kristina. Next issue involving NCEN is coming along. Deadline is April 15th for ads and articles.

7. Partnership Requests

Kristina notes that funding from Trillium will be determined in March if we've been accepted. Funding could start April 1st so if we assume that we will receive it we could do a job posting for a new coordinator position. Kristina has offered to be on the interview/review team, will finalize job description and send it out. Pre-interviews will be conducted by phone. For Ecology Ottawa we need to find out more about what they are doing. They have an events calendar online. We would apply for funding through a CFO joint application, if it goes through it just means that they will be more active with us. Biosphere Ecocity has a website with a database of local projects, we could link with them a bit more. Green Pages, Ottawa Business Journal, Green Business Network, ways that they could connect to PERC. Possible to have Green Pages online? Perhaps a button called "Search Greenpages" on PERC site? ACTION: Kristina to conduct interviews with candidates, finalize contract with finance committee and arrange this with new employee, and continue to follow-up on partnerships.

8. PERC Policy

PEN policy of print and online article needed, a kind of program policy. Also could develop an Employee Policy that could be constructed from the Coordinator policy previously developed. Human Resources policy should be developed first, could use examples of other human resources policies online. Should we revisit the harassment policy? This could include a discrimination policy and code of conduct. ACTION: Kristin to produce a draft of an HR policy by the next meeting.

9. Update of Tasks

Business plan and board orientation - no progress, a meeting was set but was not achieved and was not yet rescheduled. Mike will be proceeding on his own with the board orientation. Office cleaning is progressing well. A computer with good internet access is required for new employee taking care of PERC website, perhaps we should look into investing in a new computer with next year's budget. ACTION: Rob to check in with Mike about web access and web hosting. We should complete the cleaning of the office by April 1st. Perhaps we should check in with Krishna about donation of in kind computers. Draft of budget would be great to have by next meeting. ACTION: Kristina to work with Margaret on advertising for next PEN issue.

10. Other Business

NCEN meeting is next Wednesday. The new employee should go to these meetings as part of their work on the web initiative. It is more appropriate for Staff to go. In terms of yearly donations, perhaps we should be sending a letter to people in April as a reminder. Next meeting: May/June AGM, preferably in May. Thirty days notice must be given in PEN. Must set date now and put it in the March/April issue and May/June issue. Will have to book the room for Thursday. Potential date May 13th at 5:30 pm? Board meeting to be held before AGM, then AGM at 7pm. Potluck? Next meeting April 8th at 5:30pm.

11. Check-out. Everyone checks out.

Meeting adjourned at 7:00 pm.