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Executive Board Minutes
EXECUTIVE BOARD MINUTES (Executive Council)
DECEMBER 12, 2020
by Amanda Ryan-Fear, Secretary
ATTENDING (ZOOM): Joe Eberhardt, President; Aimee Filimoehala, Vice President; Rick Amodeo, Treasurer; Amanda Ryan-Fear, Secretary; Jesse Applegate, Reena Clements, Lori Coyner, Judith Baker, Bob Breivogel, Sarah Bradham, Acting Executive Director; Mathew Brock, Library and Historical Collections Manager; Lynny Brown, Guest.
WELCOME & CALL TO ORDER
■ The meeting was called to order at 4:02 p.m. by President Joe Eberhardt. Joe noted a quorum was present.
REVIEW & APPROVAL OF THE MINUTES
Joe Eberhardt asked for approval of October meeting minutes. Minutes were approved by consensus of the board.
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR REPORT
■ Sarah opened her report with a review of the budget. She echoed Rick’s assessment that both revenue and expenses are down overall. Sarah noted that membership is currently the top concern. Renewals for October and
November were on par with previous years, but once the $10 late fee went into effect, the number of renewals dropped off. She let the board know that in an effort to get people to renew, the $10 fee would be dropped for five days. Fifteen people had thus far taken advantage of the amnesty window. ■ Another cause of low revenue has been low activity numbers. The two-week pause put in place by the State of Oregon in early November effectively froze the few hikes and activities on the schedule. ■ On the upside, individual donations are up over previous years. Overall the
Mazamas needs to raise $102,000 in individual donations for the fiscal year.
Sarah and Laura Burger, Development
Coordinator, are working on several donation campaigns. Noting the success of the Yeti tumbler donor gifts, they are looking for additional gifts. ■ Sales of the Rab jackets have been good.
Sarah noted that the jackets are a better
revenue generator for the organization than lower priced items, such as t-shirts. ■ The Equity Statement has been published and thus far, while some members have taken issue with the use of the term white supremacy, the majority of feedback has been positive. ■ An issue with a climb leader and the spring BCEP program has been worked out. Sarah asked the board that if a member or committee comes to the board with an issue, they need to make sure to let her know so that she is aware of the issue and can take proactive steps to resolve the issue. ■ Sarah remarked that there is an issue with BCEP every year. It is a large program, with lots of volunteers and moving parts. In the past aggressive behavior on the part of climb leaders and some volunteers has resulted in some members and volunteers walking away. ■ Sarah shared her belief that most of the issues surrounding BCEP involve communication. She stated that the organization needs to lead with positive reinforcement instead of negative reinforcement.
EDUCATION PRICING ■ Sarah presented on Education Programs
Pricing. ■ The Mazamas must evaluate tuition for our educational programs. ■ To the best of our knowledge, there has never been a comprehensive pricing plan or structure, and past increases have not been tied to actual costs or inflation. ■ The Mazamas consistently undervalues its programming and tends to focus more on the amenity of the class rather than the outcomes. ■ Sarah remarked that raising prices has been an ongoing item of discussion for a number of years, but no structure has been implemented for evaluating tuition of current programs and new programs. She stressed that we have an opportunity to rethink all aspects of our educational programs and need the board to be actively involved in that discussion and process. ■ Discussion: ■ Aimee noted that ICS is a barrier to growth. It’s a high involvement, low return program. ■ Sarah noted that the three community surveys over the past twenty years have consistently shown that the
Mazamas are not meeting the needs or desires of the members or community. ■ Jesse asked if we’ve ever done a post-class survey to understand why members don’t take classes. ■ Judith remarked that there are segments of the community (women, single parents, workers who have unpredictable schedules) who simply can’t take a class like ICS because they cannot commit to the ninemonth time frame. She advocated for breaking up ICS into smaller components. ■ Bob recommended that the Mazamas consider an approach more like college classes, where we offer individual classes and members mix and match the classes to earn “degree” with similar outcomes to ICS, AR, etc.
MELANATED MAZAMAS Melanated Mazamas Update, Lynny Brown ■ Overall the group is off to a good start, with 51 members in their Facebook group. They have written one article for the Bulletin. Roughly twenty people have attended their three Zoom meetings.
They have created four goals for the group going forward: ■ Build community through events ■ Increase the number of BIPOC members, leader, and mentors. ■ Create opportunities for BIPOC to join the Mazamas and stay. ■ Influence the culture of the Mazamas to be more open, equitable, and diverse. ■ Discussion ■ Joe noted that the board needs their input to help drive cultural change within the organization.
ELEARNING UPDATE ■ Claire Nelson gave an overview of the current efforts to use eLearning tools within the Mazamas.
■ Overall committees are ready and willing to change, brought on by the impacts of
COVID. ■ Zoom continues to be the primary teaching tool, but some committees are experimenting with Google Classroom. ■ All education programs are interested in asynchronous programs with at least some in-person field sessions, no programs are completely 100 percent online at this time. ■ ICS has been filming and offering short training videos featuring tips and tricks in both English and Spanish. ■ Discussion ■ Joe asked about resource allocation, especially the MMC climbing walls.
Claire noted that once the building opens back up, she will make sure the committees are aware of the space and the process to schedule its use. ■ Bob remarked that the Mazamas need audio/visual tech support to help with filming. He further remarked that this seems like something that Education
Committee members should be driving.
BYLAWS CHANGE UPDATE ■ Vice President Aimee Filimoehala gave a brief update on the proposed bylaws changes ■ An introduction article will appear in the combined January/February Bulletin outlining the proposed changes. ■ A second article will run in the March/
April Bulletin and feature a voter’s guide and FAQs. ■ Overall the project is moving forward and she will have further information at the next meeting.
DICK PUGH MEMORIAL FUND ■ Sarah Bradham noted that an anonymous donor wishes to create an endowment in Dick Pugh’s name. The endowment will fund a high-profile speaker at the yearly PAF event. They will give $25,000 in 2020 and an additional $25,000 in 2021. ■ Discussion ■ Judith noted that endowments have both pros and cons, and are not always practical. ■ Sarah worked with the donor to develop a workable solution that delivers on the donor’s intent and is benefical to the
Mazamas needs. ■ Sarah asked for a motion to approve the endowment as presented. ■ Board voted unanimously to accept the endowment as presented.
RESERVE FUND ■ President Joe Eberhardt floated the idea of the board creating a Reserve Fund to cover maintenance expenses at both the
MMC and the Lodge. He recommended that the fund equal 10 percent of the property value of the two properties. He directed the finance committee to come up with a proposal for the next meeting.
ANNUAL APPEAL ■ Joe noted that an end of year appeal just went out to the membership. This is a different approach than previous years and the first time a sitting president has directly asked the membership for donation. Joe Eberhardt adjourned the public meeting at 6:06 p.m. The Executive Council then moved into executive session.
JANUARY 19, 2021
by Amanda Ryan-Fear, Secretary
ATTENDING (ZOOM): Joe Eberhardt, President; Aimee Filimoehala, Vice President; Rick Amodeo, Treasurer; Amanda Ryan-Fear, Secretary; Jesse Applegate, Reena Clements, Lori Coyner, Judith Baker, Bob Breivogel, Sarah Bradham, Acting Executive Director; Laura Burger, Development Coordinator.
WELCOME & CALL TO ORDER
■ The meeting was called to order at 4:02 p.m. by President Joe Eberhardt.
Joe noted a quorum was present.
REVIEW & APPROVAL OF THE MINUTES
Joe Eberhardt asked for approval of October meeting minutes. Minutes were approved by consensus of the board.
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR REPORT ■ Sarah shared her Acting ED report.
Membership revenue is still down, and
if BCEP does not run this will also affect people who join to receive a membership discount on BCEP. ■ Sarah also noted that if the bylaws change and we do a campaign to bring in members around that, those memberships would be toward the next fiscal year and membership year. ■ Sarah and Mathew Brock found contracts for the naming rights to areas of the building. She recommended that we have more detailed contracts for these areas moving forward. This is part of a larger project to identify restricted funds and estate gifts and track them. ■ Backcountry Ski changed their class to virtual lectures only, with no in person component. The info night is tonight and can gauge interest from there. ■ If BCEP runs as expected then we should be okay on cash projections. Sarah is keeping a close eye on their plans for spring with regards to COVID protocols.
Joe suggested we could run vaccine-only groups on activities this summer. We
would have to look into the legality and privacy concerns of this option. ■ Sarah requested the board’s support and partnership on making COVID programming decisions. She is also talking with groups through MEA to see what their plans are. ■ Insurance renewal has been started. We may not get a foreign travel policy this year.
BYLAWS CHANGE UPDATE ■ Aimee Filimoehala gave an update on proposed bylaws changes. Proposed changes were published in an article in the Jan/Feb Bulletin. Aimee received one positive response via email. ■ Aimee needs an individual endorsement for each of four categories of changes from members of EC. Joe requested she ask the committee to create drafts of these statements.
■ If the bylaws amendments are approved,
Sarah suggested they go into effect immediately. ■ Judith Baker had a lawyer look over the proposed changes and he revised the language around the makeup of the board. Judith suggested the bylaws group discuss the proposed changes. ■ Judith also requested we have the policies and procedures document accessible.
Sarah suggested we take a look to see what information from the document should be made public, including the employee manual.
CLIMATE STATEMENT ■ Barry Buchanan and John Rettig from the
Conservation Committee presented the
Climate Statement. The committee would like Mazamas to do more towards climate change, starting with adopting a climate statement. ■ John shared the criteria used to develop the statement and the proposed statement. He then shared the next steps of approving the statement and a communication plan for sharing it.
He also outlined some questions going forward of how Conservation Committee could best work with EC and staff on their goals. ■ Aimee moved and Amanda seconded a motion to approve the statement. The motion was approved.
EDUCATION PRICING ■ Sarah gave a brief update on pricing discussion from last month. She hopes to get on the agenda for the next Education
Committee meeting. Sarah is planning to present at the education meeting and discuss pricing based on class quality and value. ■ Sarah pointed out that some classes don’t use financial data to make pricing decisions and go by historical Mazama prices. ■ Kelsey Shaw and Claire Nelson are working on a project to see what volunteer training costs and policies are across different classes to make a more equitable organization-wide policy and build that cost into program pricing. ■ Joe requested a discussion about where authority for class pricing lives. ■ Sarah talked about bringing the committees along for the discussion and working together to create policies. ■ Aimee pointed out that volunteers are a cost that isn’t taken into consideration. ■ Bob Breivogel wanted to make sure that programs aren’t running at a loss, and
Sarah stated that our education programs are not losing money this fiscal year.
MEMBER COMMENT PERIOD ■ Kerry Loehr attended the member comment period. He would like to propose an opportunity to increase revenue without substantially increasing costs by taking our intellectual property, digitizing and selling it. AR, ICS, and
BCEP are producing videos already. He would like to create a subcommittee of the Education Committee to create the program. ■ Bob asked what we could charge for it.
Kerry suggested it would vary by what type of content is being produced. ■ Kerry stated that the opportunity could be great with COVID still affecting our programs. ■ Aimee agreed that virtual learning is growing and that it could also be increased demand for those with busy schedules. ■ There are competitors in this space and there is a demand for these types of products and services. ■ Joe pointed out that one benefit would be we could reach people globally. ■ Sarah noted that we have to exercise caution if we put out content that is teaching technical skills. We would need to look into it from an insurance perspective. ■ Joe also pointed out we may encounter copyright issues. ■ Lori would like to see a business plan before moving ahead with any plans. She also worries about teaching an entire course with no hands on portion. ■ Sarah noted the Backcountry Ski class will be a great test run for the idea and to see how much demand we have. ■ Tim Scott from EdComm would have to set up a subcommittee to move forward with any potential plans.
RETREAT AGENDA PLANNING ■ Reena Clements talked about the agenda for the EC retreat. ■ The agenda will have an overview of the 2020 strategic plan and the organizational structure. The EC will also discuss their own mission and goals. ■ Jesse Applegate noted there won’t be much room for discussion since it’s only a few hours instead of a full weekend. Joe wanted the timeframe to be limited based meeting virtually. ■ Jesse would also like to see relationships included in the discussion. ■ EC agreed Feb. 26 would be the date that works best for everyone. ■ Jesse asked if staff would be present as well. Sarah said that the agenda seems more geared towards EC discussion and not staff at this time. Lori asked if there could be a separate retreat that could include staff or if the agenda could be changed so that staff could participate. ■ Lori said that it would be helpful to figure out what the goal of the retreat is. Reena clarified that the goals were focused on
EC communications and being high level versus more hands on. Sarah pointed out that it sounded more like an executive session instead of a retreat. ■ Bob suggested that some of this planning is triggered by our financial situation with limited staff. Joe agreed and that some of this will tie in with a greater staffing discussion and organizational structure. Lori pushed back on the idea that structure does not necessarily follow function and that we need to have a culture discussion instead of an organizational discussion. ■ Joe proposed that Jesse and Lori revise the agenda to better reflect the goals of the session. Sarah suggested they start with the goals and work back from that point. ■ The session will be on Feb. 26 from 2–5:30 p.m.
STAFFING DISCUSSION ■ Joe asked Sarah if there was anything that needed to be decided this evening, and
Sarah proposed we move the discussion to the next EC meeting.
Joe Eberhardt adjourned the meeting at 6:21 p.m.
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