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Board of Trustees Meeting Minutes December 14, 2013

MEETING MINUTES HISTORIC ARCHIVE

Type

Year

 





Mad River Glen Cooperative

Board of Trustees Meeting

Minutes – Saturday, December 14th, 2013

 

After due notice, a meeting of the Board of Trustees of the Mad River Glen Cooperative was convened at 8:00 am on Saturday, December 14th, 2013 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

Stetson (Vice-Chair)

Present

Jondro

Present

Anderson (Secretary)

Present

Lesure

Present

Liu (Treasurer)

Phone-in

Palola

Present

Godwin

Present

 

 

 

Also present were President Wimble and 4 shareholders.

 

8:06 AM Call to Order

 

Chair Elkind called the meeting to order. He welcomed the assembled and asked for shareholder comments. There were none.

 

8:08 AM Review & Approve Minutes of November 9th, 2013

 

Motion

Made by

2nd by

Aye

Nay

Abstain

To approve the minutes of November 9th, 2013.

Trustee Stetson

Palola

9

0

0

 

 

*** Calendar reminders:

 

Board Meetings on Jan 11, Feb 8, Mar 15

 

8:10 AM Finance Committee (Roy)

 

Review FY2013 Audit – Action

 

After a brief review of the finance committee meeting Treasurer Liu made the following motion.

 

Motion

Made by

2nd by

Aye

Nay

Abstain

Recommendation to board to accept draft audit with management directed to address the four issues raised in the audit letter

Trustee Liu

Stetson

9

0

0

 

Review FY2013 Shareholder Redemption Requests – Action

 

The board discussed the volume of shareholder redemption requests. The increase in tendered shares comes primarily from shareholders who are in arrears on the APR.

 

This led to a motion.

 

 

Motion

Made by

2nd by

Aye

Nay

Abstain

Recommend that the board approve redemption request for fiscal year ending September 30, 2013.

Trustee Liu

Jondro

9

0

0

 

 

 

Treasurer Liu stated his concern about the gradual decline in the co-ops fiscal “cash cushion” that has occurred since 2008. No action was taken.

 

 

8:22 AM Review Marketing Plan Eric Friedman

 

Eric presented to the assembled an impressive power point presentation. He went into great detail on

 

The 5 Marketing Goals

 

1.     Maximize the retention of customer base.

2.     Maximize overall skier visits.

3.     Maximize departmental revenues.

4.     Foster the Mad River Glen community.

5.     Properly position Mad River Glen’s image.

 

There were thoughtful questions throughout the presentation and the board as well as shareholders voiced their approval of the plan at the conclusion.

 

9:15 AM

 

Review FY 2015 Financial Planning Calender, Process and Key Assumptions

 

Trustee Liu will work on a timeline for that process.

 

9:20 AM Management Report (Jamey)

 

Operations:

 

Lifts are inspected and ready for the season with the exception of Birdland. We have sent the motor out for new bearings and checked as the guys heard a sound starting it up they didn’t like. It is scheduled to be back in place on December 18th, but is not scheduled to run until the 26th of December.

 

New snow gun is working well and we have been able to run all 4 guns at one time. Part of the reason we have been able to do that is we put smaller nozzles in the 3 Hedco’s so they put out less water allowing room for another gun. This allows us to spread the snow around better. We are well ahead of where we normally are on snowmaking but it is mostly due to good temperatures not just an added gun.

 

Motor is back in the Sunnyside Double and the lift is running great.

 

We didn’t win the Ski Town Throwdown but we did well. Mount Bohemia took us down and they did it using the snowboarding card. In the 23rd hour they sent it to snowboarding blogs and upped their vote count by around 400 to beat us in the final hours. Eric subscribed to their FB page and was able to see what they were doing.

 

Had a second leadership team workshop with Patricia Floyd Dec 2nd and once again well received by the staff.

The website has had a “Back of the House” rebuild. It makes the site much easier to work with. However, with a change over like this some things can get lost so may be finding some things as they pop up but overall is a great improvement.

 

Share Sales:

 

No shares were sold in November against a budget of 1. 39 shares were sold in FY 2013. There are 36 on the list to be tendered. We granted 4 hardship requests in FY 2013. (The hardship requests are in addition to those on the list to be tendered.) Management recommends granting the tender request.

 

 

Financials:

 

Financials are ok. November is 9% behind budget NOI (Most of this is unbudgeted motor expense) YTD we are running on budget NOI.

 

9:32 AM Break

 

 

9:42 AM Review of Snow Making ‘white paper’ (Jamey)

 

President Wimble presented an updated report on snowmaking. The board will continue to explore options as new ideas and technologies will emerge and priorities may change. Jamey will publish the report after confirming a few details.

 

9:57 AM Fund Raising Committee Report (Annika)

 

Trustee Holtan reported that Demont & Associates has completed the interviews and is finalizing their report. They will present the report to the board on December 29th in executive session and to shareholders at the January 11th board meeting.

There was discussion about how and when to ask for shareholder approval to start a capitol campaign as well as how best to promote a campaign.

 

10:11 AM Board Development and Election Preparedness (Eric)

 

Trustee Palola stated after severe arm twisting and bribery that trustee Anderson has agreed to run for a second term. He is actively seeking at least two more candidates to run, one each from in/out of state.

 

10:15 AM Review and discuss board composition (Liz) — Action

 

Trustee Godwin reported on the findings of her research into the in-state / out-of-state composition of the board. After multiple e-mails from current and past board members as well as an opinion from Paul Finnerty it was decided to leave the by-laws as they are.

 

The board determined no further action needs to occur at this time.

 

 

10:18 AM Action Item Review (Jon)

 

Action Item

Responsible Party

When

STATUS

Provide the board with a summary of prior snowmaking research including estimated costs involved.

 

 

President Wimble

December

Done

Create timeline for FundCom and FacCom for the BAMP / Paradise Challenge.

Trustees Stetson and Holtan

December

First draft 12/29

Ongoing

Ask Jeff? To review the snow making white paper

Jamey

January 11, 2014

 

Investigate the composition of in-state vs out-of state board members. Propose changes.

Trustee Godwin

December

Done

Create a campaign structure Sub-committee.

Board

Evolving

ongoing

 

 

 

10:20 AM Executive Committee

 

No actions were taken

 

 

11:03 AM Adjourn

 

Motion

Made by

2nd by

Aye

Nay

Abstain

Motion to Adjourn

Chair Elkind

Trustee

Lesure

7*

 

0

0

*Trustees Liu and Jondro had departed prior to adjourning.

 

Respectfully submitted,

 

Jon Anderson