Board 2008 01
When: 6:30 pm, 9 Jan 2008
Place: Meeting Room
Facilitator: Jon
Scribe: Seamus/Laurel
Minutes Checker:
Attendance: Jon, Marie, Oso, Curt, Tim, Richard, Seamus, Laurel (late)
COMMITMENTS
- Seamus bylaws amendment - KILLED
- Seamus and Richard First Tech meeting - SAVED by Tim (Oso notes: new gold processing will be handled in Belgium, and we may have the opportunity to be paid in Euros or even gold certificates: worth considering)
- New board member suggestions by all - CARRY OVER
BUSINESS
10-hour suggestion
Seamus proposal: to engage Board members, each member should commits to regularly finding 10 hours of board-related work, when possible. Board consents to modify New Director Agreement.
Forklift
Oso reports on his numbers from his email. We will continue to investigate changing suppliers.
Insurance
Tim reports. Jeff (on staff) is working on getting info on insurance that will go beyond just building-related liability and cover things like data security. The adopted budget increases the monthly budget for liability insurance from $150 to $250.
- Q- does this have to do with board insurance?
- A- no, board insurance is a separate issue. we approved it in the budget back when, and it was ready to go, but something has happened and status is unknown.
Conflict of Interest
The board reviewed, modified and approved the Sample Conflict of Interest Policy. See also the Bylaws, section 1.3.12 Board members (and staff) will be asked to sign this.
New Lease
Seamus reports. The current lease runs out at the end of the month. Under the proposed new lease, our rent goes up & we are converted to triple net. It is a 3-year lease. The landlord has agreed to do some maintenance on electrical and the roof. We'd like to extend it for a year on the same terms; if that won't work, first right of refusal at the end of that time. Parking still needs more research; we want to make sure that the number of places is equal to or greater than the number we are currently using.
Assuming we can get these terms, the board consents to signing this lease. If we cannot get these terms, Seamus says they would probably give us a month-to-month until we could work it out.
New Building
Marie reports. At the last council meeting, a working group was formed (Board: Marie and Laurel; Staff: Luis and Jeff). That group will have a preliminary meeting on Saturday & plans to meet with the PDC to see if they can help us at all in our quest for building control!
Finance Group
Seamus reports. Committee: RFS, Tim, Seamus. Have been working on budget; plan to meet also to work on issues other than the budget. Current goal is to make sure FG is in a position to be audited painlessly before the end of 2008. An audit is something that we should be prepared for if we're going to do things like look for large capital grants. Want to implement necessary procedural changes by March.
Bookkeeping is taking up increasing amounts of time. Some discussion about whether we should have a staff or outside bookkeeper.
Budget
Seamus reports. We did well each month this quarter, and especially well in December, in which we got over $20,000 in donations. Seamus says we could stand to develop donations more, because most of the year they are flat.
Trivia: Oso says our net income for this year ($82,000+) is larger than our entire expenses for year 2.
- Monitor fees have been unpredictable, but in the future, they are more predictable: when the ewaste bill kicks in, we won't be able to collect them at all.
- Bulk sales have been lower, but that's because Dave has been pushing things into recycling and store sales - it is probably a wash.
- Recycling income has been up, and we expect a sudden and sustained jump from our vendor change and high gold prices. €€€€€!
Budget going forward: not a lot of changes; a little increase on payroll. There are some cost under-runs because the staff are not always spending the money they are allotted. Income predictions are harder because the categories that out perform expectations (we usually bring in more than we budget) are generally different each month.
We have a 2.5 month operating reserve.
One time expenses: The electrical work, city/county license fees, and forklift expenses discussed on the board list are on the budget as one time expenses. We are putting an expiration date on these.
Marie proposal: We need to start a building fund. rfs: The easiest thing is to open a new bank account, as we have for the Operating reserve.
The board consents to the budget as presented.
NEW/REMAINING COMMITMENTS
- Tim will followup on various insurance policies (with Jeff and Shawn)
- Seamus will finalize lease negotiations
- everyone will think about their 10 hour commitments
- Seamus will add the 10 hour commitment to the New Director Agreement
- Oso will get forklift info to the staff
- Marie will make sure the bulding committee meets
- Tim will go to First Tech
- Oso will ask Julie Daniel and Shane Endicott about fundraising for buildings.
Announcement: Feb 23 is FG's first quilting bee for beautification. Marie and Deb are coordinating it.
Next Meeting
- Reporter to Council: Marie
- Facilitator: Oso
- Scribe: Seamus
- Date and time: 9 April 2008, 6:00 pm note time change!
- Place: FG Meeting Room