Draft Minutes of the March 6th, 2007 BoD Meeting

Draft Minutes

March 6, 2007 BoD Meeting
Present: Joe, Jason, Randal, Kristin, Steve, Mike, Margaret

Regrets: Kristina

Minutes: By Steve

1. Check-in

Jason announced that he would be leaving the Board due to his upcoming transfer in April to Sault Ste Marie for a project that would last until August. After this time, he was planning to move back to Sault Ste Marie.

He expressed a desire to continue his involvement with the PERC in some capacity - perhaps as a "Virtual Volunteer".

2. Assign a Time Keeper: Kristin volunteered to be time keeper

Steve expressed a formal "Thank-you" to Jason, on behalf of the Board for all his efforts in support of the PERC and wished him "good luck" in his future endeavours.

3. Adoption of Agenda

Margaret noted that item 5. iii under Business Arising should be dropped due to a misunderstanding in the Minutes (see Approval of Minutes below).

The agenda was adopted as amended.

Moved: Steve. Seconded: Randal. Carried

4. Approval of Minutes of February 15, 2007 BoD meeting

Margaret noted a correction under item 5. iii (Business arising)

Replace: "Margaret undertook to look at PERC's mandate...." with

"Margaret suggested that it would be useful to look at PERC's mandate..."

The Minutes were approved as corrected.

Moved: Randal. Seconded: Kristin. Carried.

5. Business arising from the minutes

i. Proposed PERC anti-Harassment Policy update. Kristin and Jason reported that they had not been able to make any progress since the last meeting. They now hope to present a draft policy for discussion at the April Board meeting.

ii. PEN Editor's Contract renewal

Steve described the small additional changes that had been made in the one outstanding paragraph after further discussions with Margaret. There was agreement from the Board that the new paragraph was acceptable.

Steve moved that the Board approve the complete 2007 PEN Editor's contract.

Randal seconded the motion. Carried.

6. Search for new Board Members

The Board now needs to find a new Secretary as well as a new Treasurer.

The suggestion was made to refer the search to the Board development Committee.

7. Reports

i. Finance: Having just returned from vacation, Joe did not have time to prepare a detailed Financial Report. He presented a brief overview instead. PERC will have an estimated revenue shortfall of approximately $2806 at the end our fiscal year (March 31st). Our fundamental problem is that funds raised through Membership are not enough to cover our costs.

Steve asked whether Joe could predict our financial position over the next 3 months. Joe noted that in 2006, PERC's income over April, May and June was close to $10,000 and we almost broke even, so this is somewhat hopeful.

The Board accepted the Financial Report. Moved: Steve/ Seconded: Randal. Carried.

ii. PEN Editor

There was not much news to report. Articles for the April issue of the PEN will be accepted until mid-March. The theme of the May-June PEN will be "Children as Peacemakers".

Break

iii. Committees


 * Admin - Finance: The committee did not meet on Saturday as planned, so will try again soon. Mike asked Joe to stay on as a member of the Finance Committee (after he steps down as Treasurer) and Joe agreed  - but not as Chair.


 * Admin - IT: Still not functioning as a real "committee"


 * Communications: Also not functioning as a "committee". Hanna has been doing great work on graphics redesigns for the PVN, Library site and PERC logo.


 * Fundraising: Not a lot happening with regard to special events. The committee is putting all its efforts into the Garage Sale. PERC will also sell veggie food out of the church food stand.


 * Membership: Unfortunately, Connie is no longer involved with PERC at all.


 * Library: Coming along.


 * Management: RFD workshops (Revolution for Dummies)are back. The first workshop will be held this Friday.  This is an important aspect of leadership support.


 * Participation: Virtual volunteering concept and process is being developed for volunteers not living in Ottawa. Francis will be coordinating these efforts from Montreal as a virtual volunteer herself.  PERC has already attracted the interest of 2 people who would like to volunteer without even doing much advertising.


 * PEN Support: Still no chair of this committee.


 * Outreach: Not much happening.


 * Web: Athena project has 2 more people. May be able to get new wiki going soon.


 * Coordinator: Continuing problems:


 * Finances obviously are not in great shape.


 * Lack of committee chairs.


 * But lots of good energy in areas such as Virtual Volunteering, the PVN and the Athena Project, so all in all, Mike is feeling positive.

Margaret asked whether the benefits of Virtual Volunteering (VV) are worth the cost to set it up?

Mike replied that all volunteer systems cost money and the benefit of VV is that it offers the possibility retaining volunteers with experience and skills.

8. New Business/Announcements

There was no new business.

Randal announced that there would be an Enviro Fair at the Glebe Community Centre on March 24th.

9. Next Board Meeting

The next Board meeting will take place on April 3.

10. Check-out The meeting was adjourned at 9:15 pm