U.U.Rowe Camp and Conference Center Board Meeting
March 15, 2009
Rowe Camp and Conference Center
Board of Trustees Meeting Minutes
January 31, 2010
Approved March 21, 2010
Members Present:
Simon Deletka, Acting President, Felicity Pickett, Karin Broadhurst, Mark Taylor, Fred Schoeps, Treasurer, Sue Baldauf, Clay Connor, Clerk
Prospective Members Present:
Gail Epstein, Annie Skillings
Others Present:
Guy Thompson, Stewardship Committee Chair
Paulette Roccio, Facilities Manager
Simon Deletka called meeting to order, and Simon pointed to Agenda posted on flip chart:
Welcome
Check in
Approval of Minutes
President’s Report
Director’s Report
Treasurer’s Report
Development Committee Report
Board Focus
Short Term
Long Term
Strategic Planning
Committee Work:
Finance
Personnel
Nominating
Stewardship Committee
Programming Subcommittee
New Board Members
March meeting date
Other Business
Members checked in, shared recent events. Introductions were made.
The board approved the minutes from the November 8, 2009 meeting.
President’s Report (Simon)
- Simon is now acting President of the Board of Trustees. Cathy due to health issues can no longer perform her duties as President.
- Simon wants to look at the next 5 years and think strategically
- Simon will bring a different style to Board leadership
- Board needs to go forward with a new structure—wants to get agendas out to members at least a week before for future meetings.
- Executive committee will have more of a leadership role to take care of business
Experience/vision/what we would like to see
- More regular and frequent contact between board members
- Bob Scheier will assume VP duties and will not longer serve as Development Committee Chair
Director’s Report - Submitted by Felicity P.
Things have been going along pretty smoothly. Enrollment has improved since last spring, but is still not where we would like it to be and below where we were last year at this time. We are not yet out of the woods.
The good news is that since September, we have only cancelled one program due to low enrollment. On many weekends we have found ourselves having two medium size programs and using the Rug Room and the Gathering Room for many conferences, because Brook House is too small for the group. But we have not had any what I would call large groups, with the exception of Ysaye Barnwell.
At the end of the year we sent out a one-page flyer update. I was concerned about the enrollment. We had a lot of positive feedback about the piece itself and enrollment did jump, though in hindsight I wished we had captured the numbers before we sent it out so that we could have seen just how cost effective it really was. It cost $2,300 to send out 7,000 of the flyers. We sent them to folks who had been to a conference before. Our total mailing list is 26,000.
These one-page flyers may be a way to catch those programs that fall into the poor timing zone, where they are printed in the catalog but are too early to be in the Center Post as well. To do that we would need the descriptions of programs that are at the beginning of the catalog and send it out before the catalog goes to print.
The question is that if we see an increase in enrollment when the catalog, Center Post, or an update goes out, should we be sending these updates more regularly? How effective would it be to send them by email and save printing and postage?
Over the last several years, I have been coordinating the Winter Vacation Week. My vision is to turn it into Rowe’s family or intergenerational camp and I do see that happening, though slowly. This year we made up a poster to send out to the churches, but there were a few glitches and it went out much too late to be effective. We sent it out anyway. With repeat programs, sometimes people need to see them more than once before they check it out. It was a small group this year, and we did have two single parent families. The mix of children and older folks and everything in between made for a wonderful group. Everyone had a great time. One thing I realized during the week is that this is really a camp, but I haven’t had a staff, so the coordination all week falls on me. Staffing and pricing are two issues I would like to look at for this program. We had a number of families call because they were confused by the pricing structure and many didn’t come because it was too expensive. I think we can build this program.
There has been growing interest in looking at our programming for folks in their 20s and 30s. Some questions came up about it when board members called former camp folks for the annual drive and I know that it is an issue dear to Karin’s heart. Since there seems to be some energy around it, I asked Douglas how he would feel if we explored it more while he was on sabbatical. He said he would love to have a list of programs and leaders that would attract younger folks to the conference center and we should pursue it. I would like to see if we could put a committee together to develop a survey. We could use the program that Bob used for our annual drive survey. We certainly have enough former campers on our mailing list that we could send it to.
A few weeks ago we had a conferee collapse at the dinner table. Fortunately, there were two doctors in the group. We called 911, but it took them almost a half hour to get here. At that point he was more with it and refused to go to the hospital despite our encouragement. It was an interesting weekend and we had more negative feedback that particular weekend than we have had over the course of months, even years. A lot of the negative feedback was about the food and food service and I wonder what the unconscious effect of the Friday dinner crisis had on people’s experience.
I am delighted to have my daughter and granddaughters living here at Rowe and thrilled to have a Facilities Manager. It feels good to see some progress with getting contractors to complete projects and will feel even better when we see the projects done. I never realized how much of my time was going into covering the Facilities Manager position and not even doing it very effectively. I now feel like I can take a breath and figure out what I need to work on next rather than having to respond to what is in my face and always running a bit late. In fact, I was able to do this report on Friday morning this week instead of my usual Sat night sometime before midnight. It feels good and sometimes a bit disorienting, but I think I’ll have an easy time getting used to it and I know it will serve Rowe well. It also gives me more time to be a full time grandmother, which has been delightful.
There is a lot going on in the facilities department. One of the benefits to having a Facilities Manager is that we are better able to manage our major projects in a more cost effective way. Paulette has been working on getting estimates from contractors for the dining room floor and for the Rec Hall deck. She has been working in partnership with Deb, and has put time and energy to find some new contractors and to pursue more competitive pricing. I will let her tell you more about it.
Report from Facilities Manager - Paulette Roccio
Estimates for Rec Hall deck and farmhouse floor
replacement/repair should be in by February. Some of the quotes we received from new contractors were much lower than quotes received from contractors we have used in the past.
Paulette showed Board samples of the bamboo floor products for floor replacement in the farmhouse. Contractor that supplied the sample quoted $18,000.00 bid, job to be completed in 4 days. Other contractor offered bid at $22,000.00, job to be completed in 2 weeks.
Deck estimates: Range from $7,700 to $33,000.00. We are still waiting for one more estimate.
Gail asked why was there such a difference. Guy mentioned usual factors are contractor’s need and willingness to perform work to improve contractor cash flow.
Treasurer’s Report - Submitted by Fred S.
(Excel documents already submitted summarizing assets/liabilities, enrollment)
Cash position has improved.
Stock investments
Capital endowment—alternative ways to structure this fund possible.
Choose investments
Budgeting process—staff and each program area develops the program budget historically.
Stewardship Committee Report
Guy stated that at this time of year (Winter) not much activity so nothing to report.
Development Committee Report - Submitted by Bob S. in absentia
To date, the total for the 2009-2010 Capital campaign, both board and Rowe staff came in at $22,760. We also have outstanding pledges of $550 for a grand total of $23,310. This is well beyond last year’s capital campaign, which totaled $16,000 at this time, and $20,000 at year’s end.
The board total for the capital campaign is now at $13,563. Felicity indicated that this year non-board capital campaign fundraising was under what the board achieved partly because of the way contacts were divided. The board was given the lowest hanging fruit this year.
Felicity submitted a 10K grant proposal in December to the Community Church of NYC for the Woodside Program. This opportunity came to us via long time Rowe friend Sheila Kaminski, member of the church. Felicity points out that when we do our fundraising calls, it is good to make small talk to find out about these sorts of opportunities. In the past this how we have been successful with grants.
Each of us was given approximately 20 calls for a total of 220 calls to make, there were 11 of us making calls. 68 of the calls were successful, bringing in a total of $13,568, well above our goal. While this is very good news, and illustrates a lot of hard work, the goal we should be shooting for is 50% of our calls bringing in a donation. So, we have that to aim for in the future.
4 calls, the outcome should approximately bring in I YES at amount asked for, 1 less then amount asked for, and 2 NO.
Simon noted that we were close to our goal so follow up on phone calls is essential.
Board Focus—Simon D.
Short/Long Term
Need to determine focus that is responsible.
Board will have a retreat in October.
March meeting will be a “semi-retreat”—Simon stated that he would not be able to make the 3/14 date, so he wants members to consider 3/20 or 3/27, he will poll members via email.
Sue asked about filling vacancies on the Board. Discussion followed about vacancies, officers finishing terms in an acting capacity, Bob S. as VP.
Committee Responsibilities - Simon D.
Simon asked each Board member present to look at the five committees on the agenda chart and gave his views on the role of each committee. Simon requested that each board member consider which committee they would like to serve. Simon also stated that he hoped RCC Center staff would participate on appropriate committees.
Finance—monthly report should be developed, guidance on investments and consider an audit to be performed.
Personnel—oversight, salary structure for staff and policy, comprehensive review of personnel policy, evaluations that are humane and not summative, and development/implementation of evaluation process for Director/Executive Director.
Development—Changes in Chair, Chair duties
Nominating—structures for recruitment, strategic leadership assistance
Programming – to review our programming and look for ways to bring younger adults to conferences
The meat of the October meeting will be Board Focus—long term/short term.
Simon reported that Chris Callahan and Minnie Wood are still interested in serving on the board. Gail’s membership on the board is moving forward. Nominations for other prospective members should be emailed to Bob and Simon.
Mark Taylor will investigate about RCC liability/responsibility toward conference participant’s safety. This came up because of conference participant collapse at a Fall conference.
Karin asked about the refinance of mortgage debt—Felicity met with banker and RCC got a reduced interest rate.
Meeting was adjourned at 11:52 am.
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