Hiawatha Bicycling Club meeting minutes
Board of
Directors Meeting 7:00 pm March 6, 2018
Location: Have Fun Biking
1321 E 66th
Street Suite 102
Richfield, MN 55423
Board members
present (5): Dan Robinson, Barry Cole, John Johnston III, Mark Kleczewski, and
Marty Rosenstein
Board members
absent (2): Jack Soltis, Theresa Ditter
Meeting was
called to order at 7:04 pm
The Feburary meeting minutes were approved. It was noted that the $950 in
advertising expense was not itemized.
Feb 20 Special Board Meeting Update
Since there were
no meeting minutes from the special TDA pricing meeting of Feb 20, it is
included here. On Feb 20 the board approved TDA pricing: $30 for all until July
18 when the price is $45 for all.
Riders under 18 are free.
Treasurer’s
Report - Mark
Mark commented on
the difficulty of distinguishing club and TDA revenue sources. Mark suggested that one approach is for
TDA to have a separate treasurer. Mark will contact Greg S to discuss this
possibility. The amount of $5k was
moved from the reserve fund to TCF checking account. The major expense for the month was ~$1k for LAB insurance.
Jersey Decision -
All
The members discussed the results of the
ride leader breakfast. The board confirmed the vote at the ride leader breakfast
that the Etoile du Nord award for the 2016 and 2017 will be a gift certificate
in the amount of $50 in lieu of the Palamasino jerseys that were never
delivered. After that the members
discussed the future of jersey options for the club being aware that there is a
TDA jersey, a potential club jersey, and possibly an Etoile du Nord
jersey. Fully aware that 3 jersey
awards are excessive and that this is a complex subject, the board agreed to
revisit this in April. Dan will contact Leon in his capacity as head ride
leader to get his view.
Marketing Report –
Marty
John Z, Leon, and Marty continue working to
improve the content of the website.
Club Jersey
Marty shared with the club the email from
the club jersey team members (Betty, Carmen, Bev) which asked for 1) permission
to move forward with the full process including picking a vendor, working with
graphic artist, sending a member survey, ordering jerseys and 2) approval to
spend $400-$600 if necessary for a graphic artist. Because there was a wide range of views, each board member
in turn presented their view of the process and their opinion on the degree of jersey
committee autonomy that was appropriate.
The board voted 4-1 to go ahead with the effort described in the memo
but required biweekly reporting by the jersey committee. Dan will
inform Betty of this decision.
Ease into Social Riding
Marty described his effort to initiate a
program in conjunction with 110 Cycle to provide a class and 3 training rides
before TDA that would bring new riders into TDA who were unfamiliar with
social/group riding. The board members were generally supportive but had
questions including whether 110 Cycle or HBC owned this activity. The consensus was for Marty to do more
in developing this program while Dan investigated
the #1 issue, insurance.
Membership Report – John J III
John noted that the club added 4 new
members raising the total HBC membership to 208. The board unanimously approved making Harold Harum as a life
member. He was a club founder but
was no longer riding and so was dropped from the membership role.
Led by John J, the board also discussed
other options such as making all founding members life members and making all
riders over some age life members.
Since the demographics and definition of these categories was not well defined,
any other decision was tabled for the April meeting. John J will try to identify the members
included in these categories.
TDA
Dan showed the new TDA jersey design to the
board. It was the result of Dan
working with Amy and designers at D’Amico’s. Dan and Greg S sought the boards
opinion before Russ has it made by Palamasino. Three of many observations were 1) that “Hiawatha Bicycling
Club” should replace the web address 2) Tour D’Amico and HBC were in a small
dark font and hard to see, 3) it might be nice to have July 4 independence day captured
on the jersey.
Other business
Dan received a request from the YWCA for
volunteers for a triathalon. It
was agreed that it was appropriate to put that on the facebook site and club
email.
There was a discussion of the $550
marketing expense. It was not
clear to any of the board the exact details of how it was spent but it was felt
that these were for ads for TDA and the club in the Bike/Hike Guides, possibly
for both Minnesota and Iowa. A
number noted that they have never seen this guide in stores and wonder if it
was the best marketing method for the club. Mark will contact Russ and get details on this expense,
how the guide is marketed, and what is the readership. Also expresssed was the
need for greater board involvement in the use of the marketing budget. This will be revisited in the April
meeting.
Marty raised the issue of additional errors
and omissions insurance for the board. Dan commented that it is offered by the LAB but it is very
expensive. John commented that his
personal insurance covered him to the same level as LAB. There was no
conclusion and this may be revisited in April.
Next Meetings:
The next board
meeting is April 17, 2018 at HFB at 7:00 pm. This will be shortly after the ride leader meeting on April
14 and the volunteer banquet on April 15.
The meeting was
adjourned at 9:06 pm.
Submitted by Barry Cole for Jack Soltis
