Draft Minutes of the March 23rd, 2006 BoD Meeting

Present: Randal, Joe, Stephen, Jason, Mike and Margaret

Guest Agathe Bernard

Minutes by: Jason

1. check in : 7:40 PM

2. Adoption of Agenda: Motion by Joe, Margaret seconded. Carried. 7:53 PM

3. Motion to adopt Feb 16 minutes:

- Margaret noted that each member should have a target of 2-3 new members to sign up.

- Randal moved to adopt the amended minutes and Steve seconded. Carried

4. Business arising from the Minutes

a) Recruitment Challenge - PVN article and msg has gone out to all the volunteers and members. Mike noted that so far we have been getting a mixed response and many people still have to come forward and respond to the email. New PVN article would be out tomorrow to give members an update on how the recruitment drive is going so far. It would say the $2500 has been raised and $2000 has been committed by members to the matching fund. Members have been sent two emails and Mike will call members who have not responded although he noted that this in itself is a huge task.

Margaret wanted to know if we could see a list of people who are already members so that we could avoid asking them a second time. Mike said that he would not publish this information as it is considered confidential and many members would be upset if it were published. Joe suggested that it should not be necessary. The members names should not be posted. Jason noted that we should be talking about the membership situation with everyone whether they were a member or not so that they can tell their friends about it etc.

b) Project Funding

Margaret suggested looking at doing another project for TD Friends of the Environment (TDFOE). Mike said that the PERCShops project that TDFOE funded ended being too much work (it called for 20 workshops to be held in a year) and burned out the PERCShop team. Mike could not think of any project that would generate a meaningful amount of funds that we could carry out to resolve our financial situation. We end up receiving only a maximum of 35% of the funding from projects. We need somebody to fund our ongoing activities, eg the library.

Energy invested into projects has historically detracted from regular PERC activities such as maintaining membership which has resulted in a negative impact on the organisation. Margaret felt that it should not be up to the members to get get more members. Mike noted that we don't have any alternatives. Steve said that we don't have any other options but to rely on the volunteers and the members as we are a volunteer organization.

Jason noted that he had written an article for the Glebe report which he would like approval from the board to submit. ( everyone read the article ) Randal said it was well written and Joe suggested that it be also be added to the PEN as the article provides more details what goes on at PERC, describes membership activites, etc.

- Margaret asked about the numbers for our projected budget. Joe felt that the way he calculated the original total for 05 - 06 $24,293.00 was based on averaging out the last 3 years. When recalculated based on the trend of the membership numbers (going down) we would be looking at a number closer to $20000.00. Based on the shortfall last year and the extrapolated data for this year we should have a budget shortfall of $10,000.00.

5. Confidential - staff (hardcopy only)

6. Reports

i ) Financial Report

- We need to pay the printers

- We need to pay taxes to Receiver General of Canada based on staff wages. ($292/mo)

- Margaret- Did money from FOE come in?

-Joe - Yes, money came in February it was $3,240. We have $500 in the bank right now but we will delay other payments except Mikes. - Joe - We need to raise more money to stay operational.

ii) PEN report- Margaret Jensen

Deadline for next issue is 21 April 2006

Peacefund Canada is not accepting requests until June due to a merger with another NGO.

- Randal asked if the Community Foundation would fund any issues of the PEN. Marget responded that they would fund projects not the PEN.

iii) Committees - Mike Kaulbars

PVN has a new editor, Denise MacDonald has a lot of energy and is doing a great job.

Special Events - holding a music fest at Babylon, and starting the "Give a Gnome a Home" campaign. Hearts and Minds is bumped to the Fall.

7. New Business There was no new business to report.

8. Next Meeting

The next meeting will be held on April 13th, to prepare for the PERC AGM on April 20th, 2006

9. Checkout

The meeting ended at 10:05 pm