EOC Volunteer Meeting Notes - November 14, 2011 Attended: Susan Dack, Larry Leitch, Rhonda Scheurer, Ian Murdoch, Narmin Hassam-Clark, Donna McKenzie, Michel Lamontagne, Keith Barnes (via Skype) Karl Waskiewicz, Glen Cedar Secretary for tonight's meeting: Rhonda Scheurer Review of May 2011 Notes: Notes reviewed and a couple of errors noted Susan Dack to update and distribute. OLD BUSINESS ============ Annual Events for 2012: - New Year's "re-gifting" party: Date chosen - January 20th. Planning committee confirmed: Narmin, Donna, Ian M. Donna will send out a "save the date" e-mail to volunteer team. Venue suggestion from Ian - Brewster's in Oliver Square. The planning committee will meet offline to finalize the venue. - AGM-Anniversary Party: Date chosen - April 13. Planning committee tentative: Susan, Colleen (?). Team felt strongly that the meeting portion of the AGM should be free to attend. Rhonda suggested following Elbow Valley Cycle Club's example of having an optional paid dinner followed by a free meeting. - Summer BBQ: No date chosen. No committee selected. Sandie was not in attendance to confirm that she is interested. Directors' Insurance: - Susan phoned AON (Edmonton broker). They will not provide insurance unless we're a registered society. - Susan to find out more about where the Grand MacEwen outdoor club gets its insurance. - Susan to find out about insurance options with the Alberta Hiking Association ($50/year membership). - Susan to continue general research. Registering as Non-Profit Society: - Susan completed some research. - Rhonda advised speaking with COC executive. COC incorporated a year ago but doesn't seem to have realized any or many benefits from it. Perhaps more problems than benefits, for example, still can't find affordable insurance, having trouble raising funds for required web site upgrades (related to incorporation), membership donations slowed down. - Susan to continue with research, particularly around finding ways to make it cost effective in order to obtain directors' insurance. - Volunteers are urged to continue using best judgment in coordinating events and be aware that they are personally liable for any costs associated with negligence litigation. Rhonda to update coordinator manual and inform volunteer team. Club Policies: - Susan and Rhonda reviewed the coordinator manual for policies. Rhonda created a separate Policies page in the coordinator manual. - Susan, Ian and Larry C reviewed the FAQs and updated. Susan to send updates to Karl for implementation on web site. - Web site currently states that a person must have completed at least 10 events in order to be eligible to coordinate. The team agreed this is excessive and should be lowered to 5 events. Rhonda will update the coordinator info page on the web site. Officer Job Descriptions: - Hours per month seem excessive. Team reviewed the hours per month. Susan to send updates to Karl to have the job descriptions on the web site updated. - Some officer positions are open: Vice President, Secretary, Safety and Equipment Officer - Communications Manager - Jeff is responding to inquiries but not doing newsletters. Susan to follow up to find out if Jeff still wants this position. - Should the open positions remain open until AGM time or should we try to recruit for them now? Team agreed that we should try to recruit for them now. This will be done via a call-out in a newsletter - Susan to follow up with Jeff with regards to getting a newsletter out. This call-out should include the job descriptions and time commitments. The team is also urged to verbally encourage people who they think would make good volunteers (without pressuring anyone). Rhonda will inform the volunteer team. REPORTS ======= Treasurer - Donna - - Club currently has $2290 available funds. - Upcoming annual expenses: o Headway Systems (web site hosting): $300/year o Fotki (photo service): $35/year o Dotster (web site address registration): $20/year - New Year's/Regifting Party: o Susan suggested a budget of $300. o Moved by Narmin o Seconded by Ian o Team voted for $300 budget - Signing Authority: o We need a minimum of two signatures on cheques. Currently we only have two people on the team with signing authority: Donna and Mae. We have been unable to reach Mae, and therefore unable to get the required two signatures on a cheque. o Donna wants to get at least three people set up with signing authority and suggested herself, Susan and Rhonda. o Larry L also volunteered to take on signing authority. o Rhonda suggested and Donna agreed that it would be good to have four people with signing authority, with two of four signatures required on cheques. o Karl moved and Ian seconded the motion to have Donna McKenzie (club Treasurer), Susan Dack (club President), Rhonda Scheurer (club Volunteer Coordinator) and Larry Leitch (interim club Vice President) have signing authority. The team voted in favor. - Minimum event fee: o Donna mentioned that for internet banking, the minimum transaction amount is $10. When events are set up with a fee of less than $10, it makes it impossible for attendees to pay with internet banking, and it makes it impossible for the treasurer to reimburse with internet banking. o Rhonda to update the paid events section of the coordinator manual with this information and inform the volunteer team. President - Susan - - It has been a quiet year with regards to issues and decisions. - Focus has been on research for directors' insurance, registering as a non-profit society and policy review. Volunteer Coordinator - Rhonda - - Added two volunteers: Michel Lamontagne and Glen Cedar. - Geoff Falconar and Ian Johnston in training. - It's been a slow year for volunteer coordination as well. Still focusing on recruitment. - Donna suggested that member Simon Rolland is a good potential volunteer to recruit. Webmaster - Karl - - Still working on forming a committee to guide web site redesign. - Anyone with feedback regarding the web site can be on the committee. - Karl to send out an e-mail to the volunteer team looking for people to join the committee. NEW BUSINESS ============ Event Photo Albums: Rhonda suggested making information more readily available to coordinators on how to post their own photo albums. Some coordinators believe that all photos must be submitted to the Photo Historian. While that is an option, it is also an option for coordinators to create their own albums, although the club still wants them to submit the photos in to the Historian for our archives and photo awards. Rhonda to update coordinator manual and inform volunteer team. Future of Club: Rhonda suggested revisiting the club mission and vision, which has never been done. The existing mission and vision came from the earlier clubs (AOC, MOC, COC) and we have never reviewed or updated it. We should review our mission and vision so we can ensure that our activities as club officers are inline with what we want the club to be. Susan suggested making this a focus of the next volunteer meeting in January. She will find an outside facilitator so that she can participate in the discussion. Team discussed whether to solicit input from the membership. We agreed that we would, as follows: - Make it clear that we're not making promises about changing the club or offering more events. Our event coordinators will continue to post what they want when they want so individuals who want more of something will be encouraged to step up and coordinate those things. - Use Survey Monkey to gather information via a few specific questions (TBD). - This survey will be put out to membership after the discussion in January. A committee will craft the questions after the January meeting. In preparation for the meeting/discussion in January, Rhonda will: - Send the current mission statement out to the volunteer team - Send some information about the mission/vision review and what we're trying to accomplish. - Include some specific questions about the mission/vision for volunteers to consider in preparation for discussion. Officer Positions: - Susan asked if we should define/articulate a recommended length of term for officer positions. The team decided not to define a length of term at this time. - Susan asked if we should define/articulate when hand-over to new team occurs. The team decided to stay with status-quo, which is hand-over at AGM time. At AGM time, all positions should be made open/available. Perks for Coordinators: - Our existing policy as defined in the March 2010 minutes states that for out-of-town events, "an Event Coordinator may incorporate their cost onto the event posting to be absorbed by the member sign-ups, in an amount up to 50% of the cost or $25.00 per night whichever of the 2 is lower. If an Event Coordinator chooses this option, it is suggested that "transparency" be used in the event posting. It was suggested that it could be called a "coordination fee". There is no policy defined for in-town events and it was suggested that we should have one. The team decided that for in-town events, attendees will not absorb any coordinator costs - coordinators must pay their own way on these events. - Rhonda to update coordinator manual with both sides of this policy and inform the volunteer team. NEXT VOLUNTEER MEETING ====================== - January 11 at Susan's office in Bonnie Doon - Agenda will include brief officer reports, updates and any crucial items - Main focus will be facilitated discussion of EOC mission/vision statements