GEARS Greater Eugene Area Riders
December Board and General Meeting Minutes
December 14, 2009
Keystone Café, 5th and Lawrence
Board members present: Paul Adkins, Price Armstrong, Gary Cook, Richard Hughes, Shane Rhodes, Sarah Thorpe
Absent: Sue Wolling
Others present: Ian Fuller, Marina Hajek, Marcus Hinz, Susan Stumpf, Robert Zumwalt
Board Meeting
-Meeting started at 7:00 pm.
-November minutes approved by board.
Treasurer’s Report:
The treasurer’s report was handed out to board members with a total of all accounts. Account balances were shown and compared to the previous month for reference. Money put aside for legal fees had been moved out of a CD to be used again for the recent legal work done for the group. The re-order for the Bramble t-shirts will not cost the group anything.
Membership Directors Report:
Membership numbers were discussed. Current numbers are 167 individual members, 62 household members. Total 322 total members. Membership has been expiring slightly. Total of new and renewing 23. Quick discussion of possible interest in growing membership followed. It was noted that club has doubled membership each year for the last two years. Paul Adkins and Richard Hughes met with a design firm to discuss a possible membership campaign. Paul will seek interest from board and possibly gears list for future meetings with the design firm regarding the membership campaign. No date for meeting is planned, open to scheduling soon. As of now, the design firm is donating their time on this project. Questions about money for the campaign arose, and it was noted that beyond the bike rewards program, no money has been spent on growing membership.
Other business:
2010 Bike Rewards helmet sticker order- Stickers have been ordered, should arrive within a couple of weeks. Sticker is a new color (blue) and dateless. A discussion followed surrounding the dateless sticker and how shops will know who current members area, and the distribution of the sticker. An email will be sent to shops regarding the current blue sticker. Add this issue to a future agenda.
Review of grant proposals-7 grant proposals were received and reviewed. Grants were reviewed as they were presented, however the board voted to revise grants during the voting process. The BRING Recycling will receive $200 and Project Homeless Connect will receive $750. The remaining $50 in grant money was selected to go to Rick Bronson’s proposal. President was selected to contact all who sent in proposals, and treasurer will send out checks to recipients.
Funding Requests:
a) Request that GEARs pay registration fee($375 or $455?) for Price to attend National Bike Summit. Livemove will match gears contribution. Gears will give funds pending matching from Livemove. If Price may not register as a member, will cover cost of LAB membership.
b) Request from Tripsite.com to buy ad space in newsletter or insert flyer (Business membership $50 and Web ad is $100) Talk about ad space in newsletter, policies at a future meeting. Newsletter comes out in February. We will have policy by then. Richard will contact tripsite.
c) Reimburse Richard Hughes:$50 room rental plus $100 security deposit for Xmas party at the library. Reimbursement approved.
d) Education Courses Funding Paul Adkins requested funding for bicycle education courses. Issue about where funding will come from. Funding approved, budgeting will be discussed at future meeting.
e) Waver of club fees to Keystone Cafe in consideration of use for monthly meetings –Determine possible other meeting place. If we decided to stay at keystone we will waive fee. Will discuss next meeting. We will meet at keystone the first Wednesday of next month. E-news will be sent out. Richard will let Keystone know about new date.
6)Discuss and consider all memberships to begin July 1 with concurrent budget (85 memberships expired) Brief discussion due to time constraints, will continue this discussion with sticker topic at next meeting.
7)Discuss Blackberry Jamboree and bRamble as separate events. There was a suggestion of finding coordinators for each event. Discussion followed with no decision made.
8)Search for coordinator to manage both events and delegation of any tasks that need to be done immediately (i.e., before we have a coordinator). Sarah Thorpe will coordinate bramble.
General Meeting
Action items cut short due to time constraints.
-Request from Oregon Country Fair to sponsor “Parade” to Veneta opening Fair-Representatives of OCF spoke about a bike parade to Veneta for the fair. GEARs agreed to continue the conversation about this project and coordinate a ride.
-Discussion of GEARs top campaigns-Board members will compile a list of possible top projects and narrow down list at future dates. Possible check in on strategic plan action items. Send possible issues to Paul. Finalize list at next meeting.
-City of Eugene’s Master Plan Process and GEARs part -Jan 23 Walking and Biking Summit kick off event for year long project there will be 3 other large community projects.
