Board of Trustees Meeting Minutes February 5, 2011

 

Mad River Glen Cooperative

Board of Trustees Meeting

Minutes – Saturday, February 5, 2011

 

After due notice, a meeting of the Board of Trustees of the Mad River Glen Cooperative was convened at 5:00 p.m. on Saturday, February 5, 2011 on the third floor of the Basebox at Mad River Glen Ski Area (“MRG”) in Fayston, Vermont.

 

Trustee	Attendance	Trustee	Attendance
Bruns (Chair)	Present	Lange	Phone-in
Elkind (Vice-Chair)	Present	Liu (Treasurer)	Present
Godwin (Secretary)	Present	Lesure	Present
Hall	Present	Stetson	Present
Jondro	Present

 

Also present were President Jamey Wimble and three SH’s.

 

5:06Call to Order

 

Trustee Bruns (Chair) called the meeting to order at 5:06 p.m.

 

5:04 Shareholder Comments (SHC’s)

 

SHC: Shawn Kalkstein suggested that he may have found a correlation between music and the amount of snowfall .

 

5:07Approval of Minutes

 

Motion	Made by	2nd by	Aye	Nay
To adopt the minutes of January 8, 2011	Trustee Hall	Trustee Lesure	9	0

 

5:09 PMManagement Report

 

Trustee Lesure asked why the Mad Bus was not coming up here anymore; President Wimble replied that there were budget cuts and the service was not being utilized very much.

 

Operations:

 

 

 

January had a rough start, losing nearly the first two weeks of the month.MLK weekend was good, but with a frigid forecast for the next weekend, business fell off again. Going into February the skiing is good and forecast looks great.

 

We have received a $50,000 check from PTV for 2010 Single Chair Campaign pledges. There is still about $30,000 owed on pledges that we must receive by December 30, 2011. Some of these people have told us they will honor their pledges

 

The new web site has been a big hit. Many people have commented on it. The Coop page still has the old format and will be changed in the spring as phase two. Social media has been doing well too.

 

Trustee Godwin asked if there were any metrics being used to determine how effective social media have been.President Wimble replied that staff are tracking the number of people who “follow” on Twitter or “like” on FB.

 

Trustee Hall prompted a discussion ensued about how to attract people to the online forum; Trustee Elkind emphasized that in an election year it’s important to get the SH’s discussing things among themselves.Trustee Bruns noted that one of the feedback items from Fritz and Vivian was that we should utilize more of the email distribution lists to reach more of the skiing public.There’s the volunteer patrollers, the employees, SH’s, passholders, skiing public who get the snow report, etc. – it’s a wide swath of our community.They need to be subscribed to forums to see when something’s posted.

 

SHC (Kalkstein):“The forum is completely opaque to me” – he doesn’t understand what the forum gives that the listserv doesn’t.He doesn’t know how to subscribe.

 

President Wimble explained that the listserv had to go anyway as it was not functioning well, so the forum was created to provide the same benefits of the listserv with the added benefits of threaded discussions and optional email feeds, among others.Trustee Hall pointed out that there is a user guide on the Forum.Both he and Trustee Godwin offered help via email to Mr. Kalkstein or others who were having difficulty.

 

The Eastern Ski Writers Association will be represented at Mad River on Monday and having a cocktail reception that night in the Basebox. Eric has been working with the Chamber and Sugarbush to put this together. They are doing a large promo on the Valley’s skiing so the timing is perfect.

 

Share Sales:

 

We sold three shares against a target of four for the month of January. We have sold seventeen shares YTD.

 

Financials:

 

January’s slow start hurt the numbers. However, by being completely closed we saved some money as well. Cash position is still good although we are running behind budget on NOI.

 

Trustee Bruns emphasized that it would be best for the Co-op if cash were used vs. credit cards.

 

5:24 pm Slate of Candidates

 

The February 1, 2011 deadline for candidates to declare is now behind us. The Board Development/Election Committee proposes the following slate of candidates to the Board for consideration at the February 5, 2011 meeting:

 

Out-of-State

 

Liz Godwin

Peter Ludlow [edit:has since withdrawn]

Bill Quinn

 

In-State

Bob Ackland

John Anderson

Robin Bleier [edit:has since withdrawn]

Betsy Jondro

 

Management has confirmed that all candidates are shareholders in good standing. The Board Development/Election Committee knows of no overriding conflict of interest for any of the candidates. The Committee recommends to the Board that they approve this slate of candidates.

 

 Candidates’ bios are due by February 12, 2011.Videos will be due the 19^th.Bios will be posted on the forum.

 

Motion	Made by	2nd by	Aye	Nay	Abstain
To accept the slate of candidates for the 20011 election	Trustee Stetson	Trustee Liu	7	0	Trustees Godwin, Jondro

 

Trustee Bruns extended congratulations and best wishes to all candidates.

 

5:29 PMCommittee Reports

Finance Committee (FIC) (Trustee Liu)

 

Nothing new to report.The FIC met once; minutes are on the Forum.

 

NHR Update (Trustee Bruns)

     â?ªGrant application submitted on due date to State of VT Division of Historic Preservation via Mad River Planning District/Commission. 

–          â?ªSpecial thanks to Shareholder Ellen Strauss, Joshua Schwartz, and President Wimble for helping Trustee Bruns with the grant application.

–          â?ªGrant decision is likely during a late February/March timeframe.

–          â?ªGrant would cover costs associated with continued application work (research, surveys, photography) including 3^rd party review by certified historic planning consultant.  

–          â?ªSome review and additional information is needed for the application to be 100% complete, but it is very close.  Trail construction and history information is desired if known.

<![if !supportLists]>–          <![endif]>VT DHP has copies of the draft application for high level review with positive feedback to date from Diane McInerney there.

<![if !supportLists]>–          <![endif]>â?ª The application does not include any private property.Discussion ensued about encapsulating highlights of the application in a one-page document (what it would and would NOT do) for the homeowners.It was agreed that Lars would put this together with the plan to mail it out to Homeowners and to also present it at the October Annual Meeting of Homeowners.

 

Trustee Bruns distributed CDs of the application as it is too large for his email to transmit.  Special thanks to Prof. Bob McCullough and his students for the great effort on this.

 

The goal is to have the application reviewed and drafted by the first half of the year; detailed survey work is needed as is photography, which happens prior to full submission in the fall. President Wimble noted that the draft can always be amended, but initial draft should err on side of generality.

 

Facilities Committee (FaC) – Trustee Stetson

There are two more committee members – Link Prescott and Terry Harris.Jamey Wimble and Trustee Stetson met with Jill and Bob Burley of The Burley Partnership (TPB) to discuss the master planning effort.TPB then met with President Wimble for a tour of the existing facilities.Based on their tour and the discussions, TPB will prepare and submit a proposal to prepare the initial master plan for review by the FaC.Once approved to proceed with the master plan they will meet with department heads to learn about what the needs and wants are for various buildings.

 

Strategic Planning(Trustees Elkind and Godwin)

 

In progress.

 

Volunteerism (Trustee Lesure)

 

In progress.Trustee Elkind asked President Wimble when he might have a list of possible projects; President Wimble replied that March is when he will have data from staff on what might be possible.

 

Executive Committee (EC)

 

The EC took no action this month.

 

Board Development Committee

See above section:Slate of Candidates

 

 

5:45 PMAction Item Review (Godwin)

 

[see bottom of minutes for action items]

 

New Business

 

None.

 

6:16 PM Adjourn

 

 

Motion	Made by	2nd by	Aye	Nay
To adjourn.	Trustee Hall	Trustee Lesure	9	0

 

 

Action Item (Responsible Party)	STATUS
Once volunteer effort is a bit more organized, resurrect Volunteers page on Coop web site (President Wimble)	Will happen in May.In process. Waiting for Oct 15 rollout of new site.Update:“very do-able” as per Wes by December 1.Pending Wes.President Wimble would like to revisit this idea; Trustee Hall thinks this could be integrated into the Forum. Trustee Jondro thinks that should be on the Co-op page as well (after ski season).Done.
Recruit for Facilities Committee. (Trustee Stetson)	Done.
Develop calendar for SP review and topics for discussion.	In progress.(Trustee Elkind & Trustee Godwin will speak)
Sending an email to recruit potential new members of the Board. (Trustee Lange)	Completed.
Form a Board Committee to address non-operational sustainability ideas.	New item.
Triage and recommend disposition of Parking Lot issues from retreat. (Jim, Liz, Gary)	Completed.
Respond with input on the BoT “matrix” from the retreat.	Some responses came in; close this out.Trustee Elkind will synthesize.
All Board Members will sign up for SH forum.	In progress.
Trustees review NHR application.	New item.Due end of February.
Hold tcon (if needed) w/ Board to discuss
–Provide MRG NHR application summary / overview for the Homeowner’s association	In progress.Scheduled to be completed after feedback and a final draft has been discussed with the VT DHP.
Produce quick summary of retreat (Trustee Elkind, Trustee Lesure).	New item.
Cull policies and procedures from minutes on Co-op webpage docs.(Trustee Jondro)	In progress.