MINUTES

Board of Trustees Meeting

Mad River Glen Cooperative

Saturday, March 17, 2018

Annika Holtan

Meg Hourihan (by phone)

Matt Kenny

Eric Palola

Barclay Rappeport

Meg Schultz (absent)

Ron Shems

Deb Steines

John Tobin

Matt Lillard, General Manager

Newly appointed Trustee Barclay Rappeport was welcomed to her first Board meeting.

The skiing is amazing.  The Board gives a shout out to the MRG team, staff and patrol for doing an outstanding job to keep operations going smoothly and delivering an exceptional skier experience.

The candidates for the Board of Trustees were recognized.  They are: Charlie Hauck, Matt Milan, Erin Brenner (out-of-state), and Leigh Michl, Ron Shems (in-state).

All candidates were in attendance.

There were no shareholder comments.

Matt K moved and Annika seconded to approve minutes with Meg Hourihan’s edits.

Barclay abstained because she was not yet on the Board in February, and Deb abstained because she was not at the February meeting.

All others approved.

See attached.

January and February were difficult for Vermont ski areas and MRG.  We did the best we could given the weather and made our best efforts, including consistent grooming, to stay open whenever possible.

At the end of February, revenue was $182,000 behind budget. There were $267,000 in unused Mad Cards at the end of February.

March is off to a great start and revenue was above budget for last week and this by good amounts.  Numbers to come next week.  The past 10 days in March saw approximately $100,000 of Mad Card usage.

An informal survey in the Single lift line today conducted by marketing director Eric Friedman showed that skiers were using:

·       Passes: 40%

·       Day tickets: 24%

·       Mad Cards: 32%

This was the last weekend of the kids’ program.  A 2-week extension of the kids’ program will be offered.

There was 556 hours of snowmaking this year, much of it on the Practice Slope.  Snowmaking is done for the season.

Operations has received great praise for their grooming.  Grooming Canyon has been popular.

Upcoming

MRG will run the Single and Double during the coming week and then all lifts will run next weekend.

Hope to run lifts and bar/food for the Annual Meeting weekend (April 7 -8).

Hours of operation on Corn Days may be 10:00 to 5:00 to take advantage of the light and temperatures.

Matt hopes to add more snowmaking up to 2,300’ elevation under the Double.  This would be accomplished with a better pump. Note: 1 acre of snow needs 172 hours of snowmaking in Birdland.

Birdcage construction of a deck and Arctic entry is ready to go with permits and plans approved, getting bids now.

The Finance Committee did not meet in March.  A $400,000 draw on our LOC in this fiscal year is projected, but we are hopeful that the final draw will be less because of the recent snow.

Recent snow will, we hope, result in an uptick in donations/pledges.

The Campaign has raised $3,360,000 in donations and pledges as of 2/28.

The Committee is talking to prospective donors about creating a fundraising match opportunity that can be announced at the Annual Meeting.

Of special note, Mad River Valley Real Estate (MRVRE) has offered to donate $1,000 from their commission to the Preserve our Paradise campaign for any transaction (purchase or sale) completed by a MRG shareholder. The three partners at MRVRE are all shareholders.

An anonymous donor is bringing the Grift to MRG on April 8, the scheduled closing date.

The next meeting of Campaign Cabinet is on 4/19

GM Performance Appraisal Policy (Action):  Eric and Matt K moved to approve the process policy. All approve.

Confirm election readiness: Deb is finalizing counters.  Election is ready to go. Matt L. asked that people look for hard copies of candidate bios in the office if there are problems with getting them on line.  On-line bios for candidates saved $1,800 over sending out paper bios to all shareholders.  The Board thanked Deb for getting a highly qualified slate of candidates for the upcoming election.

No report.  Committee hopes to reconvene with appointment of a new Chair following Annual Meeting.

Need to add Shareholder Comments section to agenda. As in prior years, comments will be restricted to shareholders.

None

None

The Board came out of executive session at 6:35.  No action was taken.