Executive Committee Meeting February 17, 2021

Executive Committee Meeting Wednesday February 17, 2021

Members present: Dana Lawrence, president; Ken Hertz, vice president; Steve Bailey, treasurer; Heather Bailey, membership coordinator; Kevin Ryan, publicity coordinator; George Longenecker, director; Andrew Nuquist, alternate director; John Buddington, webmaster; Kathryn Gohl, secretary

The meeting was called to order, on Zoom, at 7:00 p.m. The minutes of the previous meeting were approved, with a correction that it had been Steve, not Dana, who had volunteered to write a review of Avenza and Guthook for Trail Talk. The minutes can be found on the section’s website.

Annual Meeting

The question of what should be done about the section’s annual meeting was posed. Should we avoid a physical meeting? How to vote on officers? Should we do the same thing as last year? Could we do a Zoom meeting of the broader section with ballots due the following week? Would Trail Talk be coming out soon enough?

How much interest would there be in a broader meeting? We seemed to agree that there were few decisions to be made so perhaps, like last year, the annual meeting should consist only of the EC, with ballots going out to members.

Also, should we ask on a ballot how people were feeling about outings? Andrew thought we should start outings as soon as the government would allow it, so asking people’s feelings on the topic may not matter. Dana agreed and withdrew his suggestion.

We agreed that May 1 should be the date for sending out ballots and slate of officers and that they should be returned in two weeks, by May 15. We would have an EC meeting before that—on Wednesday, April 21—to finalize how this might work.

Issues and Budget Review

George reported that the main club has decided again not to hold an in-person annual meeting.

The question of what to do with the infamous oyster stew pot came up. Some suggested it could be sent to the dump as scrap metal. Heather suggested sending it to the ReStore.

Andrew was concerned that we might be violating the bylaws by not convening an annual meeting for a second year and wondered if we needed permission from members to do this.

Dana wondered if we might convene a section gathering, outdoors, within GMC guidelines—perhaps in August.
He thought it was important to get together as a section, otherwise what does it mean to have a section. Steve suggested a potluck; Ken suggested Hubbard Park.

Regarding spring trail maintenance, we were awaiting guidance from the state, at which point there could be further planning. And, of course, we would need to involve a new Trails and Shelters coordinator.

Steve reported there was actually $176 less in the account than shown on his report. The section has around $10,000. He will present the budget in April.

Ken reminded us that a large part of the budget goes to Trail Talk and that the printer gives Nancy a significant reduction in price (approx. 70%?), which he may not always be willing to give us.

Heather reported that although initially membership seemed to have dropped off somewhat, we are now finding that it is slightly higher than the pre-pandemic numbers.

We considered that we would have to send members a mailing consisting of a ballot and a letter from Dana with some sort of statement and request that the ballots be returned. If this did not go out with Trail Talk then it should probably be sent by first class mail since bulk mail would take too long.

It was noted that at some point between the last meeting and this one, a Nominating Committee had been appointed consisting of Phyllis Rubinstein, Morgan Irons, and Cynthia Martin, and that the process was moving forward.

The meeting was adjourned at 8:04.

Respectfully submitted,

Kathryn Gohl, secretary