Board of Trustees Meeting: January 10, 2015

Mad River Glen Cooperative

Board of Trustees Meeting

Minutes – Saturday, January 10, 2015

 

After due notice, a meeting of the Board of Trustees of the Mad River Glen Cooperative was convened at 5:00 pm on Saturday, January 10, 2015 on the third floor of the Basebox at Mad River Glen Ski Area (“MRG”) in Fayston, Vermont.

 

 

Trustee	Attendance	Trustee	Attendance
Elkind (Chair)	Present	Holtan	Present
Tobin (Vice-Chair)	Phone-in	Lesure	Present
Anderson (Secretary)	Present	Hourihan	Present
Stetson  (Treasurer)	Present	Palola	Phone-in
Bowen	Present

 

Also present were President Wimble and approximately seventeen shareholders.

 

5:03 PM   Call to Order

 

Chair Elkind welcomed the assembled and asked for shareholder comments. 

 

Shareholder Penny Parson complemented Jamey and the operations crew on the excellent job grooming and with snow farming. All present seemed to agree with her statement.

 

5:04 PM     Fund Raising Committee

 

Trustees Holtan and Elkind jointly announced with great excitement that the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Stark Mountain Foundation (SMF) on the “Preserving our Paradise”

Fund raising campaign had been executed. They thanked all involved for the hard work and time spent on the project. Penny Parson from SMF also announced they had opened an endowment fund with the Vermont Community Foundation (VCF). Trustee Holtan stated that year-end donations to the campaign had been made in December. In addition, two large (six-figure) pledges to the campaign have already been made. She also reported the entire Board of Trustees has already contributed.

 

The assembled then took a short break and Chair Elkind led the group in a champagne toast to the campaign and the milestone occasion.

 

Following the toast there was discussion regarding administrative work on the campaign, the make-up of the campaign Cabinet, responsibility for donation acknowledgements and pledges, and accounting practices.

 

Shareholder John Ayers thanked all involved with this momentous milestone. Bob Demont expressed he was pleased with the progress and noted there are plenty of prospective donors. Trustee Holtan stated that the public phase of the campaign is scheduled to start in December 2015.

 

5:17 PM      Review & Approve Minutes of December 13, 2014 — Action

 

Motion	Made by	2nd by	Aye	Nay	Abstain
To approve the minutes of   December 13th, 2014	Trustee Stetson	Trustee Bowen	9	0	0

5:18 PM      Management Report (Jamey)

 

Operations:

 

We managed to be skiing Christmas week but it was not the week we had hoped for financially.

 

We had a maintenance shut down on the double chair for about one hour. Tower 11 had come out of alignment for some reason. It was realigned and reopened to the public.

 

Looks like the Junior Unconventional will be postponed this weekend due to lack of snow

 

Day tickets were down significantly but the departments did well.

.

Share Sales:

 

We sold 6 shares against a budget of 4 for the month of December. We have sold 14 shares YTD for this fiscal year. We granted one hardship request the first week in December.

 

Financials:

Day tickets were only 38% of budget but the departments ran close to budget. NOI for the month was off.  Cash as of January 1st was running behind last year.

 

Chair Elkind reiterated shareholder Parson’s comment and praised both management and the operations crew for the hard work involved to provide our current ski conditions.

 

5:22 PM      Board Development

 

Trustee Palola reported two in-state and one out-of-state candidates have committed to run in the upcoming election. The board continues to recruit potential candidates and the deadline to declare is February 1st 2015.  

 

5:24 PM    Finance Committee

 

Trustee Stetson reported the F/C had met via teleconference on January 8th. Prior to that meeting there had been numerous e-mails amongst the committee regarding share redemption. Based on the current cash position of the co-op the committee is recommending the board wait until April before deciding to redeem shares. This is consistent with prior actions taken by the Board when cash was tight.

Chair Elkind made a motion that the board wait until at least the February meeting to make a decision regarding redemptions. Considerable discussion ensued amongst the board and the attending shareholders. The following are a portion of the various  comments and ideas.

 

That the MRG staff feel it’s the duty of the co-op to move forward with the redemptions.

The amount in question is not significant.

The co-op shouldn’t use shares to subsidize operating losses. *

(* historical note that shareholders Meier and Bleier agreed on this)

Do a “partial redemption” to show good faith.

That during the Single Chair campaign redemption had been suspended.

 

The discussion led to the following motion.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Motion	Made by	2nd by	Aye	Nay	Abstain
That the board defers a decision on share redemptions until at least the February meeting in light of the recommendation of the finance committee.	Trustee Elkind	Trustee Stetson	9	0	0

 

 

 

 

 

6:00 PM      Action Item review

 

 

 

Explore options on communicating with shareholders and potential shareholders.	Meg Hourihan	Ongoing
Review the list of shareholders to identify potential board candidates	All trustees	Ongoing
Approach shareholders to determine interest in serving as a trustee	All Trustees	Ongoing

 

 

5:51 PM      Adjourn

 

Motion	Made by	2nd by	Aye	Nay	Abstain
To adjourn	Trustee Anderson	Trustee Elkind	9	0	0

 

 

Respectfully submitted,

 

Jon Anderson