Draft Minutes submitted by Rick Moulton, April 1, 2002
Meeting was called to order at 5:17
Committee members in Attendance: Rocky Bleier (Co-Chair), Fritz Branshofsky, Vivian Branshofsky, Wendy Bridgewater, DeeDee Cartinelli, Ian Forgays, Ave Haviland, Irma Heeter, Bill Heinzerling, Deri Meier, Rick Moulton, Jim Vann
Representing Management were Andrew Snow and later in the meeting, Eric Friedman
Also present were shareholders: Skip Davis, Anna Shapiro
AGENDA
Call to order
1. Review and acceptance of minutes from the meeting of 2/22/02 2. Shareholder comments 3. Review of Coop Publications and Mailings – Schedules and Budgets 4. Motion to Declare congratulations to committee member Sarah Haviland 5. Review of Suggestion Box through February 4 6. Shareholder Rights and Responsibilities – Recommendation for owner 7. Other New and old business 8. Shareholder comments
1) The minutes from the meeting of Feb 22nd were amended to include in the fourth paragraph beginning: “A discussion about the lack of out of state candidates, the fact that the request for nominations, (in state and out), were also posted on the shareholder web site and email list server.” These minutes were then accepted as amended.
2) Shareholders Comments:
Vivian acted as committee moderator
A new attendee, Skip Davis offered his perceptions from the mailings that he had received of the various points of view concerning our coop politics.
3) Review of publications:
The Chute was original Shareholder’s only publication and is not currently published.
The Echo is original Ski Area newspaper, it now functions as share holder newsletter.
Post Cards are a new information tool.
Vacation Guide is new general Ski Area publication, serving the old Echo function
A Shareholder publication Mailing is about $700
Fritz offered a prospective of his memory of the board allocating some $6,000.00 for the publication of 8 copies of the Chute and what we now have is 6 copies of the Echo. Skip indicated he thought the copy in the Echo was very generic and lacked substance.
Andrew explained that this year the transcripts of the candidates forum would be posted on the web sites and available through the office.
A discussion evolve about the elections timing with no conclusion to various observations. Fritz noted that at least ballots should go out after the information crunch of letters and maybe someday articles in a regenerated Chute. This would mean share holders would already be informed when they got their ballots.
A discussion arose focusing upon lengthening the actual duration of the election process, perhaps beginning it over New Years.
The discussion moved to getting the word out about the timeline of an upcoming election and the issues that voters might want to consider when voting. It was noted that any shareholder can today request the board minutes from the office and they will be sent to them although there is a nominal ($10?) charge to cover postage
It was asked if our Committees minutes were also available from the office. It was mentioned they could be made available after the full board reviewed them, but that under current procedure, our minutes are not available until after the Coop Board reviews them. Skip wanted to know why the full board had to review committee minutes before they were available to the general shareholders.
Deri said that from his memory there was never any censoring but sometimes rudimentary changes were made for clarification of some point, but that substantive changes had not been made to his knowledge. A discussion about the nature of minutes concluded that minutes were transcription of the meetings and by that nature should not be amended even for the best of motives except by those who had been at the meeting.
Andrew explained that this year he posts committee minutes on the Internet, (web site), and to his knowledge these minutes had never been altered.
Rocky asked why there were no letters to the editor published in the Echo? A discussion followed about how to improve participation not just on the Echo or Chute should that start up again, but on the list server as well. Currently only 15% of shareholders are on the email list.
The Echo was noted as 4 to 6 pages long. Some thought this was not enough others thought it was more costly in format then it needed to be. Deri felt it was small in part because no one ever wrote in. Irma suggested a Statement from the Management, “State of the Mountain”, would be a good column in each issue. This seemed appropriate but no one wanted a shareholder publication to have inappropriate letters making personal allegations. Skip explained that publishing letters can be subject to a code or simple rules. Eric said if he had “stuff” he would publish it. He wants copy, he just never receives any.
Anna suggested for the other 85% of the coop that the list server e mails be printed out a placed on the Bulletin board. A motion from Rocky was made voicing this idea and further that it also be the practice to post the board minutes there. In discussion, Eric said he thought people seeing that kind of divisiveness among shareholders would turn off anyone who might be considering buying a share to not want anything to do with such a quelling bunch. Rick countered that many people, regulars care passionately about the place, and hold views they might want to express through being able to vote. He cited people coming up in this election process saying they were going to buy a share just so they could vote. Irma added that she thought people who wanted to buy shares would regardless of whether the list server was posted.
The MOTION was made that:
“We, the Shareholders Relations Committee, would like to suggest to the board that management print out the list server daily and make it available on a ring binder format near the bulletin board.” This Motion passed unanimously.
A second MOTION was made by ?? and passed unanimously:
“We, the Shareholders Relations Committee, would like to suggest to the board that management print out the minutes of the Board meetings and committees and also make them available in a ring binder format near the bulletin board.”
Fritz suggested that the Committee come up with their ideal plan for the publication of both the Chute and the Echo. Eric said he would welcome this kind of plan or input. The committee agreed to create such a plan before the budgets for the next year are committed.
Skip again mentioned that he really wanted to be able to get Board minutes mailed to him. It was noted that he could do this just by requesting the same from the office. Eric offered that the Feb. Post card had been late due to the demand upon local printers from the Town Reports being printed for the Town meetings. Eric suggested we move to item #4
4) The Committee did and passed the following resolution unanimously:
“The Shareholders relations Committee would like to extend congratulations to Sarah and Chris Haviland on the birth of their daughter Samantha Jane Haviland.”
5) Suggestion Box:
Eric presented the committee with the forms that ask a person making a suggestion if they would like a response. Explained that any person requesting a response gets one. Then the suggestions are reviewed at eh management Staff Dept. head meetings. So all in this management group sees the suggestion and it is delegated to the appropriate department. He said that the master list of all suggestions received in this season, to date, was then provided by management. A discussion begun by Skip evolved about how to update this list and have it reflect, show what, if anything happened as a result of a suggestion. Fritz said that it could take some time to have something happen and that he did not think we need to know the immediate outcome of these suggestions.
6) Shareholders Rights and Responsibilities:
It was discussed if this was ready for general shareholder review or should go out on the list server. Fritz suggested that he thought it should stay in Committee. Rocky suggested that we try to have this ready for general review by green and gold. Fritz countered that he thought it was in good shape as it was and would not need much. He suggested the committee deal with it at the next meeting. This was the generally agree sentiment and it was tabled until the next meeting.
