Wild Ones Natural Landscapers, Ltd.
Board Meeting, October 20, 2013
CALL TO ORDER
The meeting was called to order at 7:01 PM (ct).
BOARD MEMBERS PRESENT: Trina Hayes, Jan Hunter, Tim Lewis, Joe Powelka, Bret Rappaport, Marty Rice, Dan Segal, Bill Snyder, Janis Solomon , Karen Syverson, Rick Webb, Maryann Whitman, Steve Windsor
BOARD MEMBER ABSENT: Trish Hacker-Hennig.
OTHER ATTENDEE: Executive Director Donna VanBuecken.
INTERIM WORK
In an online vote concluded September 15th, the Board voted to accept the Nativars Statement as revised by a vote of 9-2 (SW, JH- No). The revision is stated below and is the first paragraph of the revised document:
“Due to the loss of genetic diversity and other potential problems described in our position statement on ‘Nativars’, and because nativars are understood to be very different from native species in the wild, Wild Ones does not encourage the use of nativars. We feel this is the only position on nativars that is consistent with Wild Ones’ mission statement.”
PRESEIDENT’S REPORT and VICE PRESIDENT’S REPORT
Bret Rappaport and Joe Powelka will be heading up the 35th Anniversary Committee. Bret suggested a venue of Milwaukee or Chicago, Rochelle Whiteman has already started checking places in Milwaukee. The three will meet before Thanksgiving.
TREASURER’S REPORT
Treasurer Marty Rice reported that income is $14,356 below expenses with income over $171,000 and expenses over $185,000. Last year the same month had similarly been down $13,170. Memberships should regain strength through the year-end. More and newer chapters have pushed up our reimbursement expense percentages. To increase our income Finance is suggesting a focus on marketing and membership; Joe has suggested bringing in business members, possibly finding grants and new ideas. Long-range planning could be welcomed. If every chapter were to find one new business member we would bring in $12,250 Marty added.
Joe also pointed to a graph that showed dues income is 10% below the budget trendline. This means we will have to be more conservative when budgeting for 2014. Expenses are tight, creating strain on the office staff as there is only so much to cut he added.
Donna VanBuecken remarked that “we kind of break-even” on Associate members– chapters get just $2 per Associate member. Donna added that we are currently living on float because of the summer slowdown in membership income. This should pick-up in the final quarter.
Steve Windsor asked for the balance of restricted borrowings, these are $24,500.
Donna said that Wally Watson finished a 4-hour financial review and it looked good. President Lewis said it would be nice to have this report on file.
SECRETARY’S REPORT
Steve Windsor reported a new chapter, the Front Range chapter in the Denver area with 10 members. The two chapters mentioned as new at the prior Board meeting are now each over 30 (Blue Ridge and West Cook). No decharted chapters. 51 chapters total (including 3 seedlings).
Steve presented an analysis of the 153 Associate members. Since only 17% of the Associate members have not given us an email address, halting Journal delivery to this membership group in favor of an online Journal would be feasible. This would make their contribution to WO operations on par with Wild members. He also discovered that we lack email addresses for 9.4% of Wild-Wilder-Wildest members. Interestingly, about a quarter of our chapters have given us 100% or one shy of 100% of their members’ email addresses.
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR’S REPORT
Donna Van Buecken reported the Wild for Monarchs work has slowed but should pick-up next year, we have received payment. Photo contest winners have been decided. People’s Choice ended in a tie after an extended deadline. There were about 173 entries, our largest total. Membership totals 3542, 217 remain in inactive status. Our October renewal reminder mailing had to be postponed until next week. She will also do a Won’t you come back mailing, these usually generate at least 100 responses. The WONT column is not tracking those who renew online; this column will be removed from future reports. We can have a column for Lifetime members she affirmed.
COMMITTEE REPORTS
GOVERNANCE COMMITTEE: Karen Syverson reported that this committee met on Sept. 16 and discussed how to get the four primary Board committees established in their new incarnation. Notably, the Internal/External Communications Committee needs to pull together, decide on its tasks and have its tasks approved by the Board.
NOMINATING COMMITTEE: Karen Syverson detailed the status of this committee. Janice Hand is chair of the Nominating Committee, Karen as member and Governance chair is the liaison between this committee and the Board. Kathy McDonald and Tim Lewis are its other members. They are currently reviewing nominations and have asked for guidance from the Board on the Board size. With returning Board members we will have 11. They want to build the Board, in a way that will limit turnover in 4 years. They would like to aim for 12 - 14 Board Directors. They are composing a prospectus of Board responsibilities and an application. A letter soliciting chapter suggestions for candidates will be sent to each chapter President. Candidates will be reviewed at the February Board meeting. Donna added that the objective is to now get people who want to be on the Board and are willing and able to participate. No more hog-tying.
OLD BUSINESS
DIRECTORS’ INSURANCE: Marty said Sally Wencel is investigating this area.
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR AND JOURNAL EDITOR SEARCH COMMITTEES: Nothing to report.
NEW BUSINESSS
NUMBER OF DIRECTORS ON THE BOARD: As stated earlier, Karen asked for guidance on whether 12-14 will be the appropriate number of Directors. There is a process for assuring a minimum number of votes. Joe asked that they pursue as many as possible, there should be no recommendation from the Board because they should try for 15; it will represent more diverse membership. Donna added there will be an ad for Directors in the next Journal. Karen said the committee wanted to know if the Board was okay with us pursuing as many qualified candidates as possible.
Steve Windsor motioned: “ that we ask the Nominating Committee to pursue the objective of 15 Board members.” (JP – 2). Trina Hayes said that with 50 chapters 10 or 11 doesn’t seem to represent the organization. Maryann Whitman said we should aim for a class of 7; +/- 2. Go for 15. Jan Hunter said get as many nominations as you can. The motion carried by Voice Vote Unanimously.
EDITOR’S REWRITE OF THE NATIVAR STATEMENT: A ready Journal article would partially rewrite the recently approved by the Board Nativar statement for editorial clarity. Various motions were offered, discussed and subsequently disbanded. Eventually Karen Syverson motioned “I move that we permit Maryann to make appropriate edits for correctness for grammar or whatever” (BR -2). Dan Segal asked if we were talking about edits to the statement or to the article. Bret answered the article. Steve Windsor suggested posting a web link to the actual Nativar Statement. Maryann will do so. The motion carried by Voice Vote Unanimously.
ELMER KRUSHINSKE’S BEQUEST: Wild Ones received a gift from the estate of Elmer Krushinske of $100,000. Donna reviewed a priority list from a 2011 endowment proposal; she chose from that memo items appropriate to Elmer’s bequest. Marketing: Give Jamie the opportunity to do marketing. She has had to fill in as layout person for both the Journal and the website. The salary proposed for her includes both an increase in salary for her time and more hours to bring her into full-time status. She is full-time now only thru funding from the WFM Joint venture. Jamie may do travelling to chapters or to where we will be growing. Internet Development: If Jamie is doing marketing then we need someone to pick-up her internet work. We have 45 of 48 chapter websites to develop. We also need to do social media in-house – including Linked-in and Twitter. Administrative Support: Someone will need to do other work that Jamie also does including Quick books & advertising for the Yellow pages. This is listed for full-time but could be part-time. WC Coordinator (seasonal): trying to maintain the WC currently takes time away from staff. We need educational signage. The coordinator could be an intern; grant writing would be done. Total cost of this proposal is $80,300.
Other Items: Donna is seeking grant assistance for a new computer and copier. Phase 2 of the web needs completion – this consists of chapters getting their new webpages and moving the members only documents from PERL to Wordpress. We would like to maintain blogs. The survey for WFM has been successful, a report is pending - there were 500+ responses. There should be a public survey. The bottom line is that social media is essential to marketing.
Joe Powelka asked about the 2nd year of this staffing regimen. Donna replied “If we can’t Afford to keep them on they’ll have to go. If we haven’t achieve a goal of bringing in more members and more grants to be able to pay for their salaries then we can’t pay for them. I do not recommend borrowing money to pay for operations. If we can’t afford to keep them we just won’t – if we can’t afford to keep them that means we haven’t been successful in our goals.” We will have approximately $30,000 left. Donna presented an email copy of the estate’s attorney’s letter which identified no restrictions on the bequest.
Joe Powelka then moved “to consider the generous bequest made by Elmer Krushinske be tabled until an ad hoc committee made up of the executive committee members and the earlier marketing committee that created the 2010 marketing plan and members of the finance committee complete an evaluation of the bequest and develop recommendations on how the bequest can be used for spreading the word. The ad hoc Committee is to report back to the Board recommendations for Board discussion and approval prior to the acceptance of the 2014 budget.” (JS – 2) His reason for making the motion was because he saw the recommendation as a continuation of policies done the last 3-4 years that did not create significant growth. Even so, the marketing plan of 2010 should be used as a basis for disbursing these funds. Because we don’t have a strategic plan in place it is also too soon for consideration he added.
Bret Rappaport remarked this was a tremendously generous gift. We owe it to the decedent to use the money wisely. Karen offered her concern that instead of an ad hoc committee this work should be done by the Internal/External Communications committee. Steve suggested the work go from there to Finance.
Joe’s perspective was that the Executive Committee consists of the operating officers who oversee the organization day to day. The Marketing Committee has put together a previous marketing plan. And the Finance Committee needs to be involved because this will impact finances for years to come. It may come back to the I/E Communications too.
Bill Snyder said we need to proceed with caution since we are setting a precedent for how we use large bequests. We also need to make sure we are coordinating with our obligations such as restricted funds at the same time we are talking about expanding our operations.
Dan Segal said you need to spend money to make money. This doesn’t fit into a single committee. Jan Hunter would like more information and reconvene with comments from the chapters. President Lewis said he has already received some chapter comments. Too many ideas would bog us down.
Janis Solomon said “this is a matter of strategic planning and I don’t think we are there.” It would be a mistake to dash off. Some of our Board marketing plans are grandiose. We won’t have a chapter in every state or province any time soon. Let’s consider what limited goals we should realistically set in our organization to make the most effective use of this bequest.
Rick Webb typed Donna’s ideas are very good but if someone can get or add something better go ahead, take some more time to decide. Beware of too many cooks making stew. Marty Rice asked with environmental concerns permeating the world why is our membership not growing? We should look on a larger basis, taking our issues to the media.
Maryann Whitman suggested revisiting sections 5,6 &7 of the marketing. Also we do need to take time and spend this money carefully. An ad hoc committee would be useful.
Steve Windsor said this donation allows us the ability to demonstrate we have acted responsibly with a large donation. We should approach the prior (2012) potential $2 million dollar donor and give them the chance to match this current bequest. To finally have an audit would give us a chance to receive other donations. We don’t have a ready-made place to put large donations. We should start with a $10,000 or $15,000 fund to which other donations could be easily added. We have the potential to say we have established an endowment fund, that we didn’t gobble up the money all at once, that we paid down our debts – all responsible acts to impress other donors so that we might multiply this gift.
Karen reconsidered and suggested going ahead with the ad hoc committee made up of the Executive Committee with the chairs of the other committees included.
Donna responded that we shouldn’t include the chapters – this will bog down the process; but we should be transparent. The Grow WO plan proposed the marketing assistant to find a way to grow. Lack of staff has precluded full follow through of the plan. Social media is the key. She doesn’t want to foolishly sit on the bequest.