Board of Directors

Regular Meeting -- June 6, 2009

The Board of Directors held its regular monthly meeting at 2007 Bert Avenue, Austin, TX 78704, starting at 1 pm. The following directors (constituting a quorum of the full board) were present at the meeting: President Kathy Lee, Vice President and Secretary Leslie Harvey, Treasurer Pam Chambers. and Robert Gardner. Robert McGarey (Executive Director) was also present at the meeting.

Reading of Mission Statement and Approval of Minutes

The Mission Statement was read aloud at the beginning of the meeting. Minutes from the previous meeting were read aloud and approved with the typos corrected and the fact noted that Leslie was not present at the meeting..

Executive Director's Report

Tumblebus has helped with finances.

The Self Esteem Workshop made $2,050 which is the most income we've ever had for that particular class. Bob thinks that's the maximum amount he can keep in the class to make it manageable.

Annapurni has completed all of the main bank statements up to current. We can't find out how we're doing till we get the accounts payable done. By next board meeting we should have profit and loss statement to present to the board.

Bingo franchise tax is unknown at the moment. The legislature is in the midst of doing what they do and the bingo bill's status is unknown.

GoodWheelChairs sale went poorer than expected. There was a massive rain downpour which changed the amount we hoped to sell. We made $650.00 which was far less that the $5K we hoped to bring in. We did acquire some new skills and ideas for future sales. The infrastructure for GWC is improving slowly and Smoky has helped fix, refurbish the GWC and the space they're in so he has a bench to work from.

Jerry Kilpatrick has gotten the programming done so that we can post things to craigslist. He's learning applescript, mac generally, pan talk, javascript and is doing a great job from not knowing those to begin with. Bob is extremely excited about this and being able to post classes and events to the web is a huge deal. It frees up Bob's time immensely and allows him to focus elsewhere.

Core staff meeting is going to occur on Monday June 6th @ 6pm.

We've had many wonderful volunteers get started with various projects from calendar planning, funding and grant research, fund raising efforts and library organizing. We're all excited to have such wonderful help from people who take tasks and do a good job. This marks a large transition for the center as more and more tasks are delegated and Bob and Robert feel like they're organizing the troops, for a good cause of course.

Bob and Robert have focused on making sure volunteers know that we're a small organization and we need help building the Center. We're not a well oiled machine already running that they can plug into as much as a place where they can create the Center as they see it in their minds. Having people take initiative and realize that they're creating the center as they work helps with their perspective if they're confused about our lack of business savvy.

Bob mentioned summertime being for planning and preparation for fall, a time where we may be more busy with various workshops, classes and events. We're going through the kitchen and activity room to clean, prepare and organize them for that purpose. From noon until the last class of the day all of the main rooms are class space, not private space. Bob thinks this will make it easier to maintain a clarity about what the space at the center is for. He hopes this will finish by September so we can embrace the fall.

Hannah feels that the space separation from private to business makes a lot of sense and should help the flow of the Center. She's excited to see that she could feel comfortable to have teachers in and classes in an environment where there's a businesslike atmosphere.

Bob also mentioned the possibility of getting temporary storage space to keep some of the things we're cleaning out. It seems that we're grasping how far we can come in a short period of time.

The plumbing issues we've had with the orangeberg appear to be less intrusive than we first thought. We're going to talk to Steve to see if he can repair what's needed and we think we'll not need a huge crew to do so.

Rachel has given her months' notice and is moving out. She had many issues, some of which we feel had merit and also feel she just decided it wasn't a good fit for her. Beyond her 40 hour a week job she felt tired at the end of the day and felt her volunteer hours a burden. We're parting on good terms and Bob gave her a good reference for her new apartment.

Since there was no further business, the meeting adjourned at around 3 pm.

Minutes submitted by Leslie Harvey, Secretary, June 6, 2009.