December 2006 Minutes

Date: December 3, 2006

In attendance: Simon Delekta, Granger Macy, Cathy Perkins, Felicity Pickett, Guy Thompson, Bob Scheier.

The meeting opened with the usual check-in during which Guy resigned from board, he felt that he would not be able to follow-through with the Board’s fundraising plans for this year. Guy indicated that he was willing to continue as chair of the Stewardship Committee and participate in other tasks as needed.

Cathy let the Board know that the October 2006 Minutes were sent out but without the financial report. Fred Schoeps will send this out soon. Cathy moved that the Board accept the October 2006 minutes and Simon seconded the motion. The minutes were approved unanimously.

Director’s Report

Felicity announced that the Rowe program enrollment was down but noted that when the December statistics are tallied in, the final enrollment numbers will show an increase.

The new septic system for Fromson has been installed. This system is rated as good for 100 yrs. Alex Tanari, work-study intern, has been hired as the Guest Facilities Coordinator on a temporary basis to replace Lance.

The accountant has completed the 990 report work. When his work is completed the financial reports will have complete figures.

Felicity reported on her visit to Ed Larow of Conway MA. He wants to set up scholarship fund. After some thought he decided to give it Rowe, as he feels the money will have a greater impact if given to Rowe. It will be an endowment of $500,000. The endowment rules will be written to allow for flexibility to use the money for other things, if need be. He wants it to go to scholarships primarily. It will be the Ed Larow Scholarship Fund.

Ed is also considering a planned gift to Rowe to start two years from now. This will allow Rowe to get some of the money sooner.

An $8,500 bequest was given by Vera Crane. She was a friend of Rowe from many years ago. Felicity also reported that the “End of the Year Campaign” mailing is going to printer next week. It will get to a lot of people by end of year, though not all.

Sue Richardson wants to set up a memorial for Mark Reich who was a former camper. She took care of him at end of life. The fund will be centered on accessibility in general, or perhaps more specifically around Chapel accessibility. She will contact friends of Mark to set this up.

The Young People’s Camp Director was selected. Pippy was selected. Pippy also attended CU2C2 this year with Johno and was selected to serve on theCU2C2 Board. She will be working on a project for CU2C2 on youth camper issues.

Liza Silverman was also hired as Kindred Spirits Director. She has been on staff for 2 years, and will bring a lot of energy to the position. Tom Allen will be cycling out of leadership as part of the goose energy management system, three directors, one elder on the way out, and one new director in the middle. There has been a little tension at this camp around the hiring process. This is getting resolved as we implement new policy for hiring.

For the Jr. High Camp Director position, there were only two applicants. Notices were then sent out inviting more people to apply. Out of this, a list of candidates was generated. There should be directors in place by the time the catalog is sent out.

This will be year three of thenew hiring policy. This may be problematic as existing contracts come to the end and those directors that have been on for a long time come up for some kind of reapplication. Felicity wants to talk about this with the Board for support around this change, but thinks this will be a good change for the camps.

Cathy suggested a letter to the directors to remind them of the new policy.

Treasurers Report

History of last 10 years on conference attendance is in this report. Attendance is looking good with December numbers ending up where we were last year.

Unrestricted development is down from last year, but the total development will show an increase, total being $11,000, due to a bequest of $8,500. Membership dues are also up.

End of November income from conference center is up. Enrollment is down; the increase is due to the fee increase.

$1600 from Shantigar. $1000 income from CU2C2 for the administration we do for them. Our total income is up from last year. We should be under budget at this point.

Program expenses are down from last year. Salaries and related expenses are slightly down from last year. General and administration expenses are down from last year. Development expenses are up from last year. Total expenses are down over last year.

In terms of the balance sheet, we are up by $76,000 from last year thru 12/3/2006.

Marketable securities are up by $23,000. Cash and securities are up by $1,000 over last year.

Stewardship Report

Not much done since last reported. Went over Jimmy Williams’ septic system job and it looks like good work done. Final bill has not come in. Payment of this will come from staff housing. It will be around $16,000 based on the estimate. We have 12,000 in that account now, so will not hit our budget too hard.

Development Report

Bob asked if everyone had received their portfolios from Felicity containing donors to call. Bob reminded everyone to get busy calling their donors before the end of the year. Bob offered to lend support to anyone that needs to practice a call.

Bob announced that he had set up a blog to allow for share our thoughts and inspirations about our fundraising activities, and encouraged everyone to sign on. Bob also let everyone know that he set up a campaign thermometer to track the Board’s fundraising progress, which stands at $555.00.

The Boston Woodside Fundraiser went well. The benefit made $4,200.

Felicity has gotten input from members not to send out the Annual Report to save paper, and to only send a reminder that it is up on the website. Felicity asked for ideas. One was to send out a reminder that it is online, or to just send out paper reports to our major donors. Another suggestion was to send it out to everyone, but to add an option to opt out of paper it in future. It was decided that Felicity will look at maybe creating a one page summary and she will get back to us.

Nominations Committee Report

Simon indicated that he would reach people in the coming weeks. Pauline wants to be involved but will not be able to be on the Board due to allergies. She will be probably be involved with development. Cathy will be checking with Vivian about email account for Board members.

Long Range Planning Committee

Holly is not up to doing the survey instrument. Cathy is checking with Joe Robotski as Holly recommended seeing if he can help with that. Granger will look into doing a survey maybe doing this with student help from his college.

Other Business

The Board’s next meeting is one week before workweek. Granger asked if we would consider having it coincide with workweek. This may be possible in the future, but not this year. Cathy moved that the meeting be adjourned. The meeting closed at 11:49PM.

Respectfully, Bob Scheier