December 2024 Board of Directors Meeting Minutes and Activity Reports
MORE – Board of Directors Meeting Minutes
December 9, 2024
Virtually present at meeting
Casey Anderson – President
Jali Fernando – Executive Secretary
David Beugelmans - Secretary
Kathy Mihm – Ride Programs Director
Dave Magill - MD Advocacy Director
Rob Lowe – Membership Director
Neil Blake – Treasurer
Not present
Michael Ullmann – VA Advocacy Director
· Executive Director Report (Jali)
o Been fairly quiet so far this month.
o Should have received an email about elections.
§ Timing was not so great so IMBA’s server was down.
§ Will send a follow-up email to people.
§ Ernie will help run it to make it independent
o Going through the list of people who donated this year. Sending out generic thank you’s and anyone who donated more then $100 to get their feedback and interests.
§ Dave M: This is a great idea and lets split this up and reach out to people.
§ Jali: Among large donors, some large donors want to be recognized, some do not
o Hopefully will put together a list of private and state level grants to go after next year, organized by month.
o Been trying to go to as many trail work days as possible. Went to Andrew Leech and James Long trailwork events. Lots of people very new to mountain biking. Both workdays were cold and it was great to see large turnout. Also large turnout at Fairland with more than 30 people working on the “Pit”. Hope to make it to Wakefield and 495 jumps as well.
o Also need people to respond to my poll for dates.
· Member Survey (Jali)
o Know there are some questions about some of the questions, including questions about income and education.
o Casey: Did this with WABA and asked similar questions, including how much people have spent on a bike. In my experience, the one that provokes people is not the income questions and rec and ethnicity question. Asking for us to think about it and I have done this before in previous jobs. Think are good reasons to collect the information.
o General agreement to carefully explain to users why we are requesting this information.
· Germantown Shed Options (Kathy)
o Don’t want to let this got lost and bring this back up.
o We should put this as a budget item for 2025 and will work with Todd to finalize location and get it done.
o General agreement to do this. Also focus on metal shipping container.
o Casey: We should think about whether other places need sheds and other storage containers.
o Neil: This is generally a trail fund thing and would come from there. But we also take it out of the general trails fund, because there is a lot in there.
· Financial Update (Neil)
o $1k net general increase
o $7.5k general revenues
§ $5k Memberships
§ $1.5k general donations
§ $1.5k interest income
§ ($0.5k) reduction to Moco for memberships collected and sent to IMBA
o $7k general expenses
§ $6.5k ED cost
§ $0.5k other
o $24.9k net restricted increase
§ $28.4k restricted revenues
§ $20k Brookfield
§ $3.6k sMOREs Eastern Composite
§ $1.2k Lake Fairfax
§ $1k Locust Shade
§ $1k Frederick
§ $1.6k Other
o $3.5k restricted expenses
§ $1.7k Waterworks (engineering & other misc)
§ $1k Fountainhead (rough lumber)
§ $0.8k Other
o General
§ We are building up cash.
§ There is not much that went on in other general donations.
§ Interest continues to be high
§ There is not much that happened and we broke even for the month.
§ Month after MoCo Epic is fairly quiet
§ Year to date compared to budget, we have December left to go. We should be close to budget.
§ For other general, it is lagging behind. Since Ernie left there is less coming in. No REI, not many specific sponsorships.
· Membership Update (Rob)
o Good month in November 2024.
o Best November on my records, we beat last year by almost $700 pre-fee, and were about $2K ahead of the same point in 2023.
o Memberships got up to 1986 by the end of month, putting us 8 ahead of where we started 2024 and up 86 from my observed low of 1900 in early June 2024.
o Memberships are lagging a bit at this point in December, but some will probably come through by the end of the month.
o Post IMBA fee's we should get about $5020 for the month.
o YTD VS 2023 - 2024 YTD = $89,073 vs 2023 (YTD) = $87,040 = (Pos) $2,033 YTD
o All Members (New, Current) –1986 = (19+1967) vs 1973(Oct) vs 1957 (Sept)
o Lapsed/Expiring –119 = November and October 2024
o Jali: Do you think there’s value jumping on another membership drive that Patapsco will do next year? Or do you think we should do this on our own? It was difficult working with the other group.
§ Rob: Manual memberships are a lot of work to input and manage.
§ Jali: For some reason, they did not collect addresses and can’t process memberships without physical addresses.
§ Rob: We got people back who had dropped off. Some of it may be people may not be reading emails.
§ Casey: IMBA needs to make sure all of its IT systems are up to snuff
· Trails
o Virginia (Michael)
o Maryland (Dave M)
§ Trail programs are winding down for the winter.
§ Talked about great workdays in Maryland (and Virginia).
§ Update on Grants and Indemnities (Dave M)
· Working with Dave B and Skull to try to get a level of risk put on MORE that’s acceptable to what has happened before. MD appears to be digging in its heals with an ability to come after MORE.
· Where we are, we have three larger grants – two LBI rants and an RTP grant –which are asking for open ended indemnities from MORE in connection with receiving money, which has been fine. But we are concerned because the grants are for projects on state land, and the grant language says we are indemnifying the state.
· The LBI grants have proposed to be limited to construction period, we’ve asked to limit to extent of insurance.
· SHA is saying no for the RTP grant, and they are making it indefinite. SHA is saying SHA is not part of the state. We are trying to get that in writing.
· Trying to avoid exposure for MORE. The answer may be to up our insurance.
· We are now working on legislation to fix the issue.
· Ride Program Update (Kathy)
· Events Update (Clay)
· Executive Session (Board) (CONFIDENTIAL)
Activity Reports
· President – Casey Anderson
o [*]
· Jali Fernando – Executive Director
- Put together candidate bios and messaging around Board elections
- Met with Montgomery Parks and Friends of Patapsco Valley State Park about future adaptive programming
- Met with Shenandoah Valley Bicycle Coalition, Blue Ridge Off Road Cyclists, and Roanoke Valley Greenways about Virginia statewide organizing
- Helped onboard new Liaisons for Locust Shade, Mount Vernon District Park, and 495 Jumps
- Assisted Liaisons in setting up new products on the MORE store and updating trail webpages
- Attended trail work days in James Long, Andrew Leitch, Fairland
- Regular newsletter and social media communications
- Ongoing projects: Planning a fundraiser with Third Hill Brewing, putting together a calendar for 2025 grant applications, organization of files on the Intranet
· Secretary – David Beugelmans
o Coordinated board meeting and finalized minutes
o Draft legislation re: indemnify in MD state grants
o Advocate for and advance Annapolis Flow Trail and Bacon Ridge/Waterworks Connector projects
· MD Advocacy Director – Dave Magill
- Submitted paperwork to turn the $100k LBI award for Seneca Greenway into an actual grant agreement
- Working with Dave Scull and Beugelmans to draft and seek a sponsor for MD legislation that would eliminate the indemnity MORE is being asked to give to DNR as landowner from LBI and RTP grant agreements
- Working with DNR to try to change the indemnity language
- Wrote letter of support for 14 miles of trail in Severn River State Park
- Held kickoff meeting at Rosaryville for the $160 RTP grant
- Send Patuxent Phase 2B synopsis to Sen Hester to seek her support to resubmit this for an LBI grant
- Edited and submitted a draft bid package (20 pages long) for NWB boardwalk RTP project
- Extended the permit from SHA to build the sidewalk under Clopper Road
· VA Advocacy Director – Michael Ullman
o [*]
· Membership Director – Rob Lowe
o Membership Review - November, Year to Date Trends (Sorta).
o Prepping Membership Cleanup for IMBA - Targeting sending by end of week (13th of Dec).
· Ride Program Director – Kathy Mihm
o Plan multiple Ugly Sweater/PJ Rides with collection for food pantry donations
o Assist with ride set ups, calendar entries and ride planning
o Order Muddy Trail Signs and begin distribution to liaisons
o Develop trail concept map for Frederick Trails area
· Communications Director – N/A
· Treasurer – Neil Blake
o $1k net general increase
o $7.5k general revenues
§ $5k Memberships
§ $1.5k general donations
§ $1.5k interest income
§ ($0.5k) reduction to Moco for memberships collected and sent to IMBA
o $7k general expenses
§ $6.5k ED cost
§ $0.5k other
o $24.9k net restricted increase
§ $28.4k restricted revenues
§ $20k Brookfield
§ $3.6k sMOREs Eastern Composite
§ $1.2k Lake Fairfax
§ $1k Locust Shade
§ $1k Frederick
§ $1.6k Other
o $3.5k restricted expenses
§ $1.7k Waterworks (engineering & other misc)
§ $1k Fountainhead (rough lumber)
§ $0.8k Other
· Activities Director – Clay Deming
o [*]