Executive Committee meeting of 31 December 1969
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27 April 1955 |
Executive Committee meeting of 31 December 1969
Reidun called the Executive Committee to order at 7:00 p.m. at her home.
Officers present: Reidun Nuquist (President); Ken Hertz (Treasurer/Membership Coordinator); Kevin Ryan (Publicity Coordinator); John Buddington (Webmaster); Kathy Gohl (Vice President); Nancy Jordan (Trail Talk Editor); Fred Jordan (Trails and Shelters Coordinator); Mike Wetherell (Director); Mari Zagarins(Secretary)
Officers absent: Eric Seidel (Alternate Director)
1. The committee approved the minutes of the December 4 meeting.
2. The Trekkers:
The committee discussed the motion that was tabled at our last meeting for lack of time:
That the Trekkers are a component of the Montpelier Section, with an emphasis on offering weekday, short-notice outings. As for all section outings, trip leaders must be GMC members.
The purpose of this motion is to formally recognize the Trekkers as a part of the GMC Montpelier Section. The major advantage in doing so is to eliminate liability concerns: as part of the Section, the Trekkers would be covered by GMC insurance provided that trip leaders are dues-paying members. Reidun maintained that the change would require little or no extra work from anybody. After speaking with Dave Hardy at the end of our last meeting, Reidun was also able to confirm that there wouldn’t be a problem, liability-wise, with announcing outings by email rather than the usual newsletter format.
Prior to our meeting, Andrew Nuquist sent the Executive Committee a bulleted list of background information about the Trekkers. Ken took issue with one of Andrew’s bullets: “In deference to Trekker preference, written trip reports should not be required. Attendance figures could, however, be kept and might be useful for Section statistics.”
John agreed with Ken’s objection, commenting that since the section already has a mechanism in place to receive trip reports, Trekker leaders should be asked to submit them. Reidun observed that the Montpelier Section is the only section that systematically encourages leaders to submit reports; other sections either don’t require them, don’t ask for them at all, or only request casual data like trail conditions and participant numbers. She noted that outing reports are of interest to historians.
John amended the motion as follows: That the Trekkers are a component of the Montpelier Section, with an emphasis on offering weekday, short-notice outings. As for all section outings, trip leaders must be GMC members and are expected to submit a report.
With one abstention, the committee voted in favor of the amended motion. John will update the Montpelier Section website and Nancy will change the language of her email messaging to reflect that the Trekkers are now part of the section. Reidun will write about it in her President’s Report in the next issue of Trail Talk.
Following the meeting, The Trekkers voted 9 to 2, with 1 abstention, to accept the amended motion.
3. President’s report:
The membership meeting on December 4, featuring Kevin and Christie’s slideshow about their trip to England, drew in a solid crowd of 23 guests. Reidun thanked Ken for hosting the event at his house. So far, the membership meetings have been a great way to interact with new section members and others we don’t usually see. Reidun hopes to schedule the next such event during the fall.
The Taylor Adventure Series program on January 17 delivered an astounding turnout of over 150 guests — more than were technically allowed in the meeting hall at GMC headquarters. Fortunately, GMC staff didn’t seem perturbed by this violation of fire code regulations, suggesting instead that it was “a good problem to have.” See Treasurer’s report for details about the success of this fundraiser.
The Nominating Committee, composed of George Longenecker, Priscilla Page, and Cynthia Martin, has contacted members of the Executive Committee and confirmed that all are willing to be nominated to serve another year. Christie Carter has agreed to be nominated for Membership Coordinator, the only position currently approaching the end of its term. In accordance with section bylaws, information about these nominations will be posted on the website in advance of Annual Meeting in April.
Mari has agreed to write an article for the section news in the summer issue of the Long Trail News.
4. Vice President’s report:
Kathy observed that not many volunteers have signed up to lead March outings, but there will be many in April and May. She continues to enjoy a very positive response from volunteers by directly asking them to sign up to lead trips.
Now that section events are no longer included in the Long Trail News calendar, the deadline for trip leaders to schedule outings has been pushed back. It’s harder to accommodate people who miss the new later deadline because there is less wiggle-room, and Kathy and Nancy have had to work out a few creative solutions. The deadline for the summer issue of Trail Talk is April 10.
The section annual meeting is scheduled for Saturday, April 5 at Christ Church Parish Hall in Montpelier. Kathy is looking for volunteers to join the planning committee, which currently consists of herself, Reidun, Andrew, and Ken. Dave Hardy and Joe Sikowitz from the main club will attend.
5. Trails and Shelters Coordinator’s report:
Both towers have been erected on the Winooski bridge. Project foreman Matt Wels has informed Fred that the next project will be the construction of the massive anchor to the north tower. Matt also told Fred that volunteers may be helpful in mid-May for constructing wooden stairs and a platform at the north tower.
Work on building the rest of the bridge under the overhead cables is expected to be in July and August. The section may be called upon for help during these phases of the project.
Information is pending from Dave Hardy concerning the startup of trail work connected to the bridge.
Spring work parties are scheduled for May 10 at Bamforth Ridge and May 17 at Smugglers’ Notch.
6. Treasurer’s quarterly budget report:
The Taylor Series brought in $55 from cookie sales and $371 from admissions, totaling $426. Since the venue rental was free and the presenters declined an honorarium, the only expenses were a $23 gift to the presenters, $26 for cider and paper plates, and $34 for posters, totaling $84. Ken noted that the amount of admissions we received would have been doubled if we hadn’t hosted the event at GMC headquarters since they asked for a 50/50 split. The advantage of hosting at GMC was that we were able to rent the venue for free.
Currently, the section is ahead on income and within budget on expenses. Ken is planning to discuss a dollar-a-month “paper statement fee” on checkbook activity, but he suspects it’s for sending a copy of the statement to GMC, which it requested some time ago.
The section has two CDs, totaling about $4,400. Ken plans to renew them.
Ken noted that the GMC Director of Finance position is vacant, and that Matt Krebs is currently acting in that position with support from a private accountant.
Ken shared the proposed budget for 2014-2015. Even though he hasn’t assigned any money to product sales (since the section has no products for sale), he has kept them in the list of line items for year-to-year consistency. The committee raised no objections to the proposed budget, so Ken will present it at the section annual meeting.
7. Membership Coordinator’s report:
The current membership list from the main club reveals that 19 Montpelier Section members have been dropped this quarter. This seems significant. Ken shared the list of dropped members and encouraged committee members to reach out to people they know and ask them to rejoin.
8. Editor’s report:
After the latest issue Trail Talk was left to languish in some post office distribution center for several weeks, Ken emailed a notice to section members that a digital version was available online. Nancy is now interested in offering members an online version every quarter. Mari recommended that she contact the main club to go over the logistics of doing so. Nancy will bring this information to our next meeting. Kevin suggested a mechanism for reducing the size of the Trail Talk file, which is 25 megabytes for the current issue.
Nancy is looking for photos for the summer issue of Trail Talk. She asked Kathy to insert a request for high-resolution images into trip leader packets. All photographs can be sent to Nancy and Ken. Nancy also requested write-ups from members about events and outings that she can print in Trail Talk. Reidun thanked Nancy for her work in creating a newsletter with good variety, photographs, and news from members and volunteers.
9. Publicity Coordinator’s report:
Kevin outlined his procedure for sending the list of outings and events to media outlets each month. He separates outings into two groups: one for local publicity only and one for unlimited publicity. The Times Argus continues to be unpredictable about which events it will include in printed copy, although all events Kevin sends are included on its website.
10. Webmaster’s report:
Ken has been keeping everything up to date on the web, and John hasn’t had much to do. Ken noted that he doesn’t receive a report from every trip leader. He has begun capturing the website annually to give to the Vermont Historical Society on a disc. He is also working on digitizing past issues of Trail Talk to give to VHS on a disc as well.
11. Director’s report:
At the Board of Directors’ last meeting in January, staff was in transition. A hiring committee is in the process of interviewing candidates for new executive directors, and they aim to hire someone by early April. Mike noted that the Annual Report will be posted on GMC’s website in March, and it will reflect the annual auditor’s report. The next board meeting will take place next Saturday at GMC headquarters, and anyone can go. The Annual Meeting will be hosted by the Killington Section at Mountain Meadows Lodge on June 14.
The Young Adventurer’s Club is experiencing “winter doldrums,” according to Mike. Events have been cancelled due to weather, and the core group of kids involved are getting older and pursuing other interests beyond hiking. All the same, it’s been exciting to see other sections start their own YAC programs based on the Montpelier section’s success.
12. The next EC meeting will take place on Wednesday, June 4 at Reidun’s house.
Respectfully submitted, Mari Zagarins, secretary