MORE – Board of Directors Meeting Minutes

April 14, 2025

Virtually present at meeting

• Casey Anderson – President
• Jali Fernando – Executive Secretary
• Alison Wells – Administrative Assistant
• David Beugelmans – Secretary
• Dave Magill – MD Advocacy Director
• Rob Lowe – Membership Director
• Neil Blake – Treasurer
• Michael Ullmann – VA Advocacy Director
• Maris Finley – Activities Director

Not present

• Kathy Mihm – Ride Programs Director

Executive Director Report (Jali)

Two items on to-do list

(1) to get membership up on Shopify

This is ready to be rolled out.

A couple weeks ago, got email from the DonorPerfect development team, and didn’t realize our package includes a way to receive payments.

Shopify is easier to include on website because there is a Shopify plugin. But there are fees associated with it.

On DonorPerfect side, the fees would be a credit card fee for the user. And donation would go to DonorPerfect record.

Going to do a side by side comparison and present it to the board.

Would like to keep it the same price no matter how people sign up.

Casey: In the near term, we are trying to make it easy to sign up.

Second, we are trying to make it feasible to get people to sign up on one-off arrangements via coupon codes, partnerships, etc.

(2) finalize with Ernie the development role

Ernie has been traveling a lot and is not ready to have the conversation.

Need to wait until later. Have not forgotten about it.

This month has been busy with onboarding Alison. Been splitting up tasks and MoCo Epic work. Have been able to focus more on grants and forward-looking work.

Started with MoCo Epic and applying for permits and checking them off. We are working on trying to get camping approved this year. MoCo Parks has not yet said no. Submitted an event plan with camping. Casey will help.

Talked to Liberty Bike Patrol, from Liberty Mountain, and they are willing to do MoCo Epic patrolling. In the past we had a volunteer on call to rescue people, but when you have a volunteer it’s not enough.

The plan is offer to 100 miler to the public this year, so it will be good to have bike patrol on call from 8 am to 8 pm. It’s only $15/person per hour. $600 total.

Catalyst Sports – the MoCo Epic is on its book – we partnered with them the last three weekends for adaptive rides and have 17 bikes. Events are very well attended and are hoping to get them back. Will cost us so applying for grants.

Brainstorming with Alison on how to make the event better and more inclusive/celebratory for people, no matter what distance they are doing. Will share in coming months.

This season is back to back events.

This coming Saturday is the first in the MORE and ride picnic series. Having an event in Gunpowder, with GUMBO leading 4 rides, and MORE pitching in food.

Following week we have the MORE and Third Hill Launch Party – a brewery we partnered with. Six donors to MORE helped brew a beer called One More Ride – It’s a west coast pills. Going to have cans available for sale and will talk to them about having those cans and beer available at the MoCo Epic.

Following week is part 2 of the ride and picnic series at Rosaryville, in partnership with MICL and Minority Mountain Bikers.

The following weekend is women’s mountain biking day, which Kathy has organized.

SplooshMTB

We have agreed that any video in a MORE trail system where mentions MORE and adds link he will get $100. Anything bigger, like MoCo Epic or series would be a bit more.

Alison has been working on trail pages to make them better. When there is a Sploosh video she adds it.

Grants

We submitted a proposal for the Loudoun County Parks grant program: $30 k for bridge materials at Sweet Run State Park. Decision expected in late June.

Bay Fund: waiting for feedback.

Trail Work

We saw strong volunteer turnout at Fountainhead and Patapsco. A new side-by-side is on order; delivery in June. Staff is updating volunteer tracking to ensure hours in Golden Volunteer match documentation for RTP grants.

Financial Update (Neil)

$(20.1 k) net general decrease

$13.4 k general revenues

• $5 k memberships (estimate)
• $6.4 k general donations
• $2 k interest income

$33.6 k general expenses

• $10 k tools
• $9.4 k staff costs
• $8.4 k insurance
• $3.6 k winter party
• $2.2 k other

$(31.0) k restricted decrease

$8.2 k restricted revenues

• $2.6 k River’s Edge
• $1.6 k Lake Fairfax
• $1.5 k Hill St. Pump Track (Frederick)
• $0.9 k Frederick Watershed
• $0.9 k James Long
• $0.5 k Gunpowder Falls

$39.2 k restricted expenses

• $34.4 k James Long
• $3.7 k Gunpowder Falls
• $0.7 k Adaptive MTB

PayPal for Trail Donations

Shopify is the underpinnings of MORE’s website.

This accepts credit cards, and Martin links PayPal.

Paypal has been difficult because people’s PayPal identifier does not link up with Shopify transaction detail.

What Neal needs to do is use the email addresses to match them up.

At least one or two people, maybe more, have a different email address in PayPal than Shopify.

One thing we could do is turn off the PayPal function to turn it off. What we could do is a QR code for PayPal so that people can donate directly through PayPal.

General agreement to add this to trail pages.

Membership Update (Rob)

Quarter Est – $13,931 after IMBA.

Jan – 5,288, Feb – 3,663, Mar – 4,980

We had a pretty decent month. Was scared numbers were down. Had 16 paying joining members.

In March 2025, MORE recorded 16 new member joins. Membership renewals varied by timing: 58 members renewed within 15 days of expiration, 10 renewed between 15 days and 3 months, none renewed between 3 and 6 months, and 8 members renewed after more than 6 months.

Additionally, MORE received significant financial support from 12 large donors, each contributing $1,500 annually. No NICA memberships, which are priced at $20, were recorded during this period.

As of March 31, 2025, MORE had a total of 2,106 members, with 1,598 of them having paid dues within the past 12 months. The estimated value of these memberships, prior to any IMBA share, is approximately $97,400.

Among these members, 835 are enrolled in annual auto-renewing plans, which include family accounts. Of these, 591 are paying members. The annual value of the auto-renewing group is estimated at $39,000, or $49,800 when combined with monthly auto-renewals. Comparing year-over-year data, the number of auto-renewing members increased from 578 in 2024 to 597 in 2025, marking a net gain of 19 members in 2024 and a decrease of 6 members so far in 2025.

Additionally, there are 93 monthly auto-renewing members, a decrease of 1 from the previous month. These members contribute approximately $890 per month, or about $10,680 annually, averaging $114.84 per member each year. This group has seen moderate growth over time, rising from 87 members in 2024 (a gain of 5 for that year) to 92 members in 2025 (a gain of 1 year-to-date).

April is typically when we see things pick up in terms of memberships, and May is very busy with the annual membership drive. Huge month with a huge number of memberships renewed. Will be a very busy month.

Trails

Virginia (Michael)

Master planning session for Sweet Run State Park in Loudoun, near Harpers Ferry, and then a Zoom call. Michael attended the Zoom call. Had a good turnout, but the way they ran the meeting there were a number of good turnouts from different user groups, so they limited what people could say. If you wanted to walk about a user group, they told people to fill out a survey. Because this is a state park, they were looking for anybody who is within 2 hours of where the park will be to give opinion. Has lots of elevation.

James Long Park opened up a new section called Creekside. Added about 1.2 or 1.4 miles. Good response from users.

Last year there was some work done on the park and there was a ton of extra dirt. The park authority donated the dirt to the two liaisons and in process of trying to get together group of people building jump lines to use it.

Loudoun County MOU

Received potential thumbs up to build a skills park at a park in Loudoun County.

In the process of drafting a new MOU.

Will send updated document when ready.

Within Manassas, there is a city with its own mayor. It is fairly small. They have an old golf course. It has been sitting vacant for many years. Was connected with mayor. They have a city manager that moved here recently from Seattle, where he loved mountain biking. Have a meeting to walk around.

DMV Mountain Biking Sawyer Class

Called Michael about. Told them he’d bring it up. Asking if MORE would sponsor a couple of his guys for a sawyer class.

Jali supports sponsoring them if they are interested.

Second request was a request to become liaisons at Wakefield and/or Accotink. Said he would look into it.

Maryland (Dave)

We spent a lot of money on tools. Was surprised by how large the tool orders were. Been having very large turnouts. Strong desire in some of these places for more of our trail building tools. Got them sorted and delivered.

RTP grant applications are again being taken this year. RTP seems to have survived the change of administration. We are working to submit for the second time for another phase of Patuxent. Have lots of support.

On Rosaryville grant, have been making steady progress on defining the project. Park management is very excited. We are getting much closer to meeting environmental standards to sign grant.

On indemnity issues, it has been a slow month.

We have a new contract at Emmitsburg and it’s going to be very positive to see what they do.

We have trails committee approval another redo of the Boundary Line trail at the Frederick Watershed.

Finally got qualifying bid for the Northwest Branch boardwalks. Need to work through buy American and material certification requirements.

Ride Program Update (Kathy)

Rob: Kathy got clinics posted; Women’s MTB Day is coming up in May. Will share.

Activity Reports

President – Casey Anderson

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Jali Fernando – Executive Director

• Managed advocacy efforts on Program Open Space
• Assisted River’s Edge trail liaison with crowdsourced fundraiser for Phase 1 refresh
• Applied for a Devinci Community Grant for River’s Edge project
• Assisted with adaptive days in Patapsco and Fairland
• Assisted with setting up registration for Women’s MTB Day, MORE skills clinics, and Rosaryville Family Day
• Worked with graphic designer on new annual report layout
• Worked with Andrew Levine to improve security for Microsoft 365
• MoCo Epic: finalized event plan, applied for permits, refreshed sponsor letter, submitted grant for adaptive fleet rental, coordinated with Liberty Bike Patrol for emergency response services, and other planning
• Represented MORE in Our Virginia Outdoors meetings
• Logged donations, sent tax receipts to donors
• Drafted weekly newsletter and social media posts

Secretary – David Beugelmans

• File MD and VA annual report filings
• Coordinated board meeting and finalized minutes
• Advocate for and advance Annapolis Flow Trail and Bacon Ridge/Waterworks Connector projects

MD Advocacy Director – Dave Magill

• Received, stored, and distributed about 100 tools, with the help of Kem Chavez and others
• Working on RTP grant application due April 29 for Pax Phase 2B
• Drafted MD advocacy report for annual report
• Worked on map for Rosaryville showing all locations where signs and posts will be placed using RTP grant funds
• Executed contract for new trail at Emmitsburg, previously approved by the Trails Committee
• Received bids for MWB lumber for boardwalks, obtained approval from SHA to proceed with one bid

VA Advocacy Director – Michael Ullmann

• Participated in a meeting for the Sweet Run State Park master planning
• Worked with the James Long Liaison on plans for a new jump line; helping facilitate a crew to plan out the jump line
• worked with Stephen Martinez on a plan for a skills park in Ashburn
• In discussion with Manassas Park about a possible future trail at a former public golf course.
• assisted with closing out the grant process for James Long Park who added about 1.5 miles of trail, the project (Creekside) is finished and opened this month.
• working with the Mt. Vernon trail Liaisons to facilitate a meeting with the county to meet the new Rec Center/park manager and discuss improvements for the future
• working with Martin and PW County Park to redefine MOREs commitment and the purpose of the MOU we executed with them in early 2024

Membership Director – Rob Lowe

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Ride Program Director – Kathy Mihm

• Trained 4 new ride leaders
• Updated Calendar and Golden Volunteer with Ride program details
• Organized 6 MTB skills clinics with Hillary Marques for MORE Members
• Cancelled Background Checks through Golden Volunteer
• Bike box loan management
• Planned Women’s MTB Day event for May 21, 2025
• Met with Emmistburg Trails for map planning

Communications Director – N/A

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Treasurer – Neil Blake

• $(20.1 k) net general decrease
• $13.4 k general revenues
• $5 k memberships (estimate)
• $6.4 k general donations
• $2 k interest income
• $33.6 k general expenses
• $10 k tools
• $9.4 k staff costs
• $8.4 k insurance
• $3.6 k winter party
• $2.2 k other
• $(31.0) k restricted decrease
• $8.2 k restricted revenues
• $2.6 k River’s Edge
• $1.6 k Lake Fairfax
• $1.5 k Hill St. Pump Track (Frederick)
• $0.9 k Frederick Watershed
• $0.9 k James Long
• $0.5 k Gunpowder Falls
• $39.2 k restricted expenses
• $34.4 k James Long
• $3.7 k Gunpowder Falls
• $0.7 k Adaptive MTB

Activities Director – Maris Finley

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