GMNC Board Meeting Minutes
Minutes, GMNC Board Meeting
July 8, 2020, 6 PM – 8 PM
Attending: Tina Wilson, Joe Ramey, Lynea Schultz-Ela, Callie West, Dan Tille
Guest: Tim Carter
Guest Comments:
Tim: wants to start a Masters ski program. Est. 15-20 people would be interested. Ivan and his brother Torbjorn would be interested in coaching. Don’t know how much it would cost.
What is a Masters program? People age 30+, get together once a week to ski. Want to refine technique. Don’t have to have competed before.
Callie: How does this fit with the Masters/Advanced clinics we already offer? We already have a budget for 10 skiers in Advanced program. Not sure there’s exponential demand for another program. Need to estimate income, have an email contact, set up registration and payment etc. It should be framed as an add-on for race-oriented skiers.
Dan: Who is running program, how are logistics handled, what’s the budget?
Tim: Won’t know til we see how many members sign up. Will assume 20 people. Committee is Joe, Tim, and Tina. Tina and Tim will put together a loose estimate for charging the participants and paying coaches and get to Callie. It would be good to post this on the website and facebook to get interested people and post a schedule.
June Minutes: Will add Tina’s comments. Will produce version to publish without executive session. Joe will send recorded version of meeting. This is Jodi’s last time for taking minutes. Approved. Motion to accept with Tina’s edits. Passed.
Social Media: have two people on social media committee. Delete requirement for reviewing posts. Only a board member can delete posts. No one should correct/delete a post they didn’t put up. Ops manager can have info posted to FB automatically about grooming. Whoever put a post up needs to respond to questions. Turnaround time for answers 24 hours during season, 48 hrs. during off season. Revise into policy format and vote on it. Ratified by vote. Post policy on Google drive.
Tina’s Membership Proposal:
Defining what members get. Special discount card with local businesses.
Callie: breakdown of costs to mail to members, $1 each. $500 mailing costs. Could offer to people who check a box saying they want it, so avoid sending to a bunch of people who don’t want it.
Dan: could have a card you can download and print. Avoid that mailing cost. Don’t have to have volunteers to deal with mailing. No one will want to wear a card on their jacket.
Callie: For fall fundraising will not have gatherings of more than 10, can’t plan on it. Cancelling Kannah Creek brewery event.
Joe: Can we address this more at the end of meeting? Need to move on.
Dan: Races:
Four races on tap. Dec. 12, pursuit race. Christie Aschwanden will run it. No COVID contingencies planned yet, could assign racers time slots. Jan. 10 10K and kids race, Feb 20 15K and kids race, March 20 20K. Also has snow dates. CMU is in charge of their own race. Probably won’t be able to serve food or have people congregate.
Callie: need timelines for decisions about COVID-19 mitigation, when we need to cancel races or make contingency plans
Trail Clearing:
Some people have gone up to County Line section and cleared a bunch of downed trees. We probably have hundreds of trees that have fallen. Got quote from company, $2200 per day to clear trees. Takes away risk of having volunteers doing dangerous logging work. They have their own insurance. They could fell trees and leave them on trails for our volunteers to move. Best bang for buck is doing that. They are booked through end of August now. By October it goes up another $200 per day for winter conditions.
Tina: We need to do an assessment before hiring this company.
Joe: A lot down on Scales Glade. Tower and Overlook in decent shape. Lots down at Skyway and County Line. Lions is clear. Hasn’t been on Vista. Summit trail is a complete mess. Eric Jansen has offered services starting in August. Organize volunteers for August. Get the trails cleared as much as we can, then bring in company to do the most dangerous work, $2200 per trailhead. Professionals need to handle snags. Volunteers can cut trees that are just leaning.
Callie: We can have volunteers clear trees that are already down. But really hard to get estimate for snag removal until we quantify it. Need expertise to identify dangerous snags. We should not use volunteers for dangerous work like cutting snags, that’s a job for professional contractors. Have to put people on payroll to offer workmens comp.
Jodi: (via Albert) suggest we contact Forest Service and see if they could supply a conservation corps crew to cut trees for us. Joe will do this.
Joe: Organize somebody to walk each trail system and quantify number of trees down and snags threatening the trail. Tim volunteers, so does Lynea, Callie, and Dan. Callie will contact Art and Joyce about Ward. Lynea can do parts of County Line. Joe will send email for signup.
Dan: Eileen Roggensack, bylaws revision, board meetings.
Bylaws will be done by beginning of next season. Dan will plan remote meetings with her and board. PhunkshunWear quotes $10 per buff, in quantities of 100. Made in Denver. Could offer as a benefit for members, allow people to buy extra.
Budget: Forecasting 28% reduction in income. Negative $14K deficit budget. Will have to do some expense reduction. Lots of notes on budget, so won’t repeat that. Anybody’s guess as to membership numbers for next year. 10% reduction in membership is pretty conservative. Also anticipate we won’t get grants from the counties again. Don’t have enough info for good guesses.
Kids programs – offer 2 fun kids events after races, wouldn’t charge members. The Nature Connection gave us a bid for $960 to put on each event, but we can’t really pay that. Let’s keep it simple, just an obstacle course and some snacks.
Left trail box income same as last year.
Kids Pasta Project – will deliver lasagnas to door, rather than having a dinner.
Assume we will cancel Kannah Creek event.
Callie will follow up on Mesa County grant for next year. Lynea will take lead on Delta County grant. Caryl will pursue Montrose County.
Callie has specific figures for County Line second entrance, that could be a good project for Delta County to fund.
Bookkeeper wages, membership director wages – candidate has been interviewed 3 times, a really good fit. Avid skier. Can do membership database. $6200 expense. But reduced budget for professional services by $2200. We need to do this for sustainability. We’re dealing with well over a quarter of million dollars, it’s a critical position.
Motion to approve hiring of bookkeeper. Seconded. Passes unanimously.
We don’t need to print trail maps this year.
$1800 for professional services, $1990 less than last year.
Lynea: We need a conversation about the cost of race participation.
Website Redesign:
$6300 is a steal for website redesign proposal from Martin. He does excellent work. Writing a grant for website redesign is an easy grant to write. Even Lions Club might fund it. People like to fund things that are concrete and investments in future.
Motion to accept Martin’s proposal. Seconded. Passes unanimously.
Joe will be liaison with Martin about it.
Tree Removal: Can’t put a number to it yet. Circle back and try to add a number by August 1.
We need to do more work to reduce expenses.
Joe: Talked to Ryan Fricke. $15000 to $20000 is quote from Forest Service for snow ranger. We cannot afford that.
Master Development Plan: “27 pages of deliciousness.” We need to discuss roles and priorities on p. 17 and 18. Need to update operating plan to submit to Forest Service by August 1st. If you have any comments on these priorities let Joe know.
Higher priority to have equipment storage over a warming hut.
Lynea: How small can we be to be a sustainable organization and provide skiing on Grand Mesa?
$150K is set aside by donor for warming hut project. Ideally his money would be seed money for capital improvements decided by board.
Tina will reorder items in plan, take out goal numbers and timeframe, and send out again.
Add power as part of infrastructure, for equipment storage building. Solar power with backup.
Fuel cube needs to be moved for the season. Dave Knutson and Joe will figure it out.
Need to make decision quickly about trail work and tree removal.
Tina, Tim and Joe will discuss master plan.
Next meeting August 12.