August 2022 Board of Directors Meeting Minutes and Activity Reports

MORE – Board of Directors Meeting Minutes

August 15, 2022

Virtually present at meeting

Ernie Rodriguez - President

David Beugelmans - Vice President

Peggy Flaxman - Executive Director

Tom Howe - VA Advocacy Director

Kathy Mihm - Communications Director

Clay Deming – Activities Director

Dave Magill - MD Advocacy Director

Not Present

Neil Blake – Treasurer

Rob Lowe – Membership Director

• Financial Updates (Neil)
• MORE Board Structure (Peggy)

• Looking forward to 2023 and 2024 elections.
• This is something we should start thinking of
• Ernie will be up for election in 2024
• Maybe we should talk about a president elect position and a past president position, so the president has a longer term but different responsibilities
• Dave M

• Deadline with Ernie’s succession.
• Peggy: Ernie has been in this position for 10 years. Which tells me it’s a hard pill to swallow. Don’t have any suggestions other than us looking at board structure.

• Tom H

• Wonder how other organizations handle things like this. There is a lot of knowledge across different positions. It is an interesting idea.

• Peggy

• The way PTA’s do it is they have a president elect and past president position, so you are president for three years, but you are only president for one year.
• It gives people things that they can do right away. There are places where the vice-president is the president elect

• Ernie

• This is exactly what you are saying. We need better recruitment and planning just to get up to speed.

• Dave M

• Do we rename the video president position “president elect”?

• Peggy

• The idea of “past president” is a good because it helps retain connections

• Dave M

• There may be something in-between. At the appropriate time, is to make it very clear that the vice president is the president elect and that would be one year out from when you are stepping down.
• Gone through that a couple times. This would be more of a commitment.
• The real question is recruiting the next president.

• Clay

• We should advertise this year to see if somebody is interested.

• Ernie

• The job is not as difficult or time consuming as it used to be.

• Activity Reports (Peggy)

• When we start talking about positions, our activity reports need to reflect what the positions are doing, not just what you are doing for MORE.
• For example, when Kathy is communications director she is doing clinics and ride support. She should list her key responsibilities.
• We need to discern position specific activities.
• 🡪 David will include this in request for reports next month.

• Phone Support for DonorPerfect – Needed or Not? (Ernie)

• This was twofold. Letting everyone know what phone support expired because had free phone support for 60-90 days.
• Phone support is $30/month, but need to commit to 6 months or a year. At this point, I never call them. It is pretty intuitive.
• Going to recommend that we let it go.
• 🡪 General agreement to let it go.

• MICL & Virginia NICA (Peggy)

• Ernie and I have been talking with John and Fred and MD NICA.
• For those of you who haven’t been, the races are on Sundays and setup are on Fridays.
• Once the course is set up, nobody is allowed on course unless registered coach or rider.
• John came up with idea that we could do a SMOREs ride for family members and siblings of NICA riders.
• I think this is a very good exposure for MORE. Think it is a good use of the marked course.
• Also starting a listening tour with VA and MD NICA teams. Have contacted coaches and going to practices to get insight on what they are thinking and what they want.
• Coaches have been receptive.
• Also working with John to see if next spring we can work with NICA to help them see what riding is like post-NICA.

• Sponsoring Gravity Soul (Ernie)

• Gravity Soul contacted us and said they continue to list us as a sponsor and asked us if we wanted to sponsor.
• Ernie wants to know from board that we will continue to sponsor them.
• Over the years we have funded various parts of the event, and it has become more general.
• Recommending between $500 to $1000
• 🡪 General agreement to support at same level as last year

• Events (Clay)

• 30th Anniversary Gala (Clay)

• Started looking at catering and getting quotes from a few different companies and restaurants, which have been high. Going to continue to shop around, but don’t want to cut too many corners.
• We are going to the event at Rockwood Manor in Potomac. It has some outdoor areas. In Novembers, rates drop substantially.
• Dave M: Are we trying to break even, or are we going to lose some money on this?

• Hope to make this decision use. Make tickets $120 and offer a few tiers if can think of the tiers to entice people to give more.

• Ernie: We will give special invitations to certain public officials and say they will be special guests and part of the event.

• Dave M: We may also be able to give people discounted admissions at cost.  

• Fall Camping Trip (Clay)

• Talked to Sharon and Philip. Everything is on track. Have 50 or 60 people signed up. Should be the same as last year. Camping Friday, Saturday, Sunday. Going to bring back kid’s ice cream coupons.
• They are going to bring back the potluck on Saturday night. Need to get this up on Facebook and advertise it.
• Peggy has shared the event in Sunday communications.

• Summer Picnic

• Had about 150 people. Bought the right amount of food and had decent number of ride leaders.
• Good event for distance and outside temps.

• Biketown

• The event was great.

• MoCo Epic Update (Peggy)

• We are a little bit behind from last year, but ahead of where we would have been in 2019
• Little shy of 300 registrants right now.
• Our total sponsors are $5500, so less than last year
• One aid station is not covered yet. Not worried about it.
• People were fighting with taking over Spokes aid station.
• Dave M: What is your plan for marketing?

• We are doing the typical social media stuff. Have boosted social media stuff. Have put posters. Pushed it heavily at Biketown.
• Dave M: Is there anything we can do on MeetUp? There are 10,000 bikers in our area on there that use it. For instance, we could do a MoCo training ride.

• Trails

• Virginia (Tom)

• At Meadowood, will have workday.
• In Prince William County, Andrew Leech is on hold right now. One of the key people is moving to Fairfax County.

• Locust Shade, Martin got work done right before summer picnic. Has been touring around getting ideas for Locust Shade.
• There is a new park looking to make a pump track.
• There is an area called Ocqueon Greenway. Trying to figure out how to connect it to trails in Prince William County.

• Mt. Vernon District Park is going well.
• At Wakefield, have some trailwork days coming.
• Over at Fountainhead, Jeff access finds to aquire materials and have trailwork day. Redid entrance and exist, as well as some other stuff.
• At Lake Fairfax, Tony is thrilled with the way the work came out.

• Maryland (Dave)

• Peggy, Ernie, Jaron, and I have spent a couple phone calls working on Baltimore City. Somebody in the mayor’s office has been willing to listen to us. Has gotten MICL and Black People Ride Bikes representatives to explain why access to trails there would be in the best interest of the people of Baltimore. Have fingers crossed.
• At Patuxent, moving forward on various fronts. Going to get more money back from SHA than expected. Going to reimburse for all bridge designs, which is $2500. Will be building last bridge on Phase I this weekend. For Phase II, have contact with a really good wetlands person who can help.
• Nothing new from Bacon Ridge.
• Spent a day up in New Market. This is a little town on I70. With Mt. Airy getting into biking, they decided to get into it. There have been people building private trails on a 100 acre property. Now they have decided they will go public and create a small network right in town.
• Seneca Greenway, which is a 3.5 mile section that would take out a road section of the MoCo Epic, DNR submitted application to SHA. This was huge because otherwise MORE would have put up $50k bond, etc. Overall, it is a step forward.
• There is a new 3.5 mile trail off the north end of 10 Mile Creek.

Activity Reports

·       President – Ernest (Ernie) Rodriguez

o   Mail out donor swag for major donors

o   Send thank you emails to trail donors

o   Discussions with MICL and NICA clubs to support Listening Tour by Peggy to gather youth needs, expectations and insights

o   Work with Peggy and Neil to follow-up on transferring our deposit account from Sandy Spring Bank to First Citizen Bank

o   Attend VA/DC monthly liaison meeting

o   Attend Loch Raven advocacy pre-meeting with Jaron Shaul, Peggy and Dave, official meeting with Mayor and DPW to follow

o   Attend American Trails webinars - Utilizing location based intelligence, Cultivate Trails Alliances

o   Attend several Active Fairfax Technical Advisory Group meetings

o   Add new donors in DonorPerfect database

o   Discuss and set follow-up meeting (Sept 2) for a possible pump track at Rollins Ford Park in Prince William County

o   Meet with special Fairfax Board of Supervisors Tourism committee to discuss opportunities to complement new Alpine X - agreement to move forward with building multi-use trails at Occoquan Regional Park

o   Attend and support Biketown movie event

·       Executive Director – Peggy Flaxman

o   REI Women’s Cycle Fest Coordination

o   Biketown Event Prep & Support

o   Strava Club Account Support

o   Google Non-Profit Account

o   YouTube Account (Created new under midatlanticoffroadenthusiasts@gmail.com

o   Loch Raven Meeting

o   Meeting with Paul Gilbert

o   MoCo Epic

§  Aid Stations covered

§  Sponsor commitments at $5500

o   Weekly Communications

o   Summer Picnic Support

o   MORE 30th Video Meetings, Audio, Social Media Sharing

o   Youth Outreach

§  MICL Meeting

§  MORE support of friends & Family Rides at Events

§  VA NICA contact

·       Vice President – David Beugelmans

o   Ad Hoc Waterworks trailwork

·       MD Advocacy Director – Dave Magill

o   Rivers Edge – work with Carlo on documentation needed for the new RTP grant

o   Schaeffer – coordinate trimming throughout west moco – did several days of trimming

o   Patuxent – working to set up final bridge build for Phase 1

o   Patuxent – site visit to delineate a wetland in Phase 2

o   General – attend Biketown event

o   New Market – toured trail system there (about 1.5 miles and discussed plans to open to the public and expand them

o   Seneca – obtained $5k grant for fixing up the section under Clopper Road from Athletic Brewing

o   Middletown Valley – coordinated with Kathy Mihm to create concept maps for trails in this area

o   Trail Committee – invited Tim ODonnell to join the Trails Committee (he accepted)

o   Loch Raven – attended discussion on zoom with govt affairs director of Baltimore City, led by Jaron Shaul

·       VA Advocacy Director – Tom Howe

o   Ad Hoc Trail Work Wakefield

o   Ad Hoc Trail Work Mount Vernon District Park

o   MORE Summer Picnic Support

o   Biketown Event

o   Monthly VA / DC Liaison Meeting

·       Membership Director – Rob Lowe

o   Processing Membership

o   Reminders Sent

o   Thank You's for Joins and Renewals

o   Tracking Issues with Monthly - Resolved now - Expiration issue, and changes fixed by IMBA.

·       Communications Director – Kathy Mihm

o   [*]

·       Treasurer – Neil Blake

[*]

·       Activities Director – Clay Deming

o   Summer Picnic Planning and Support

o   Biketown Planning

o   DEI Committee Recruitment

o   30th Planning