February 2025 Board of Directors Meeting Minutes and Activity Reports
MORE – Board of Directors Meeting Minutes
February 10, 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
Maris Finley – Activities Director
Not present
Michael Ullmann – VA Advocacy Director
· Executive Director Report (Jali)
o Membership Portal (Jali)
§ Looking into another option for members to sign on and Shopify has a subscription order
§ We would put a plug in on our website (join page) and you can join through Shopify.
§ Have a few questions. Thinking of doing it starting in April, and in full swing during main membership drive.
§ Few questions:
· The members that we get through Shopify, are we going to ask IMBA to process them, like we do when we get members from an event, or do we want them to separate?
· General agreement that people can sign up on Shopify, and then we enter them into the IMBA system.
o Update on Hiring (Jali)
§ We have received 19 applicants for the admin coordinator position.
§ Have put together folder with application info for people who will be interviewing. There is a matrix for ranking candidates.
· Financial Update (Neil)
o We send or financial statements to our accountant and they go through and put together their financial statement. Will send out and walk through if want.
o Along with that we do the Form 990. We don’t need to pay taxes, but we need to file the return. It informs the federal government about donations, costs, etc.
o The 990 is often used for grants, applications, many different things. So it is important.
o Also filed the 1099, so any vendor that is not a corporation that we pay over $600 results in us needing to do this. Mostly food truck vendors, photographers, people who run clinics, etc.
o In terms of January, it has been light. Try to include everything by end of December, which makes January light. February typically isn’t too active either. Will have updated for next meeting.
· Membership Update (Rob)
o Still in process of updating records, will get it done later tonight or tomorrow.
o Big thing is we ended up with a really strong month, doing $7300 memberships, which is a new record for January.
o We processed 92 NICA memberships for a large portion of this and is the source of the big jump.
§ NICA members pay $20 to join, and $12 goes to IMBA.
§ These were a surprised and just appeared in the system
o We had 16 large donors covering about $2050 in memberships.
o Auto renews stayed about the same. Auto monthly members are up. We gained 5 this month, which is very good.
o This is the strongest ever January and went above anything we’ve ever done.
o NICA/IMBA Memberships (Rob/Jali)
§ Jali
· There had been some conservation with MICL about getting their graduating seniors to join. This didn’t go anywhere.
· Eventually, it turned out that NICA national did a push with IMBA chapters and asked all graduating seniors if they wanted to join their local chapter, and then they automatically did that. May be both from Virginia and Maryland.
· It is not clear if this is a permanent thing. Asked and they will likely keep on doing it.
§ Dave
· Now that we have high schoolers as members, we need to think about to engage them, especially in advocacy.
· Jali – will touch more on that shortly.
· Trails
o Virginia (Michael)
§ Not much to report. Have a couple of projects about to happen but the weather has been impacting it.
§ James Long is doing their extension and will add about 1.5 or 2 miles, and shortly after that will have another project – a jump line – and they are going to have volunteers that will work it.
§ Locus Shade is on hold. They had a plan in place, but then we met with County, and had a meeting with Dominion, which let us know they have a 1 or 2 year plan that could run right through the existing jump line that they were looking to add a back side to. This is put on hold for a year or two.
§ Talked to a number of liaisons, who will be at the winter meeting.
§ Two liaisons at Mt. Vernon now.
§ Casey was able to solidify a meeting with Fairfax Parks. We have some projects that are linger for 6 to 12 months, but Fairfax Parks is not giving us required approvals.
§ Dave M
· Just became a Trailforks administer for the entire MORE area and noticed there are 15 miles of trails in the area around Centreville, both of PW County and some in Fairfax County. Trying to find out if they are legitimate singletrack trails. Would be interested to know if there is something there where we should be looking to find if we should adopt them. It is a lot of trail.
· We should look at Trailforks and if we see a new trail appear, we should see if we want to bring it into our system.
o Maryland (Dave)
§ Four different request for funds that are in the works.
· Emmitsburg has $50k grant from the city to rebuild some of the trails. Come forward with idea to make a connector to make a loop. Emmitsburg is putting together a proposal for $10 or $12k to add more to that trail.
o Mt. Saint Mary college is looking to build trail network that would connect to Emmitsburg.
· Seneca Creek State Park – there are 7 miles of trail north of the SRT. We went in with the two liaisons and met with park manager and other officials, and they asked for MORE to come up with a reasonable proposal. Only requirement is there is a failing bridge and they want MORE to rebuild the bridge. The bridge is used all the time and is on the greenway and is part of the MoCo Epic route. Will follow-up on that will come to trails committee with proposal.
· Greenbrier has $80k grant where they are building a new trail, and are adding $9k worth of tread repairs on portions of trail that don’t work. Will send to trails committee very soon.
· At the Watershed, they have a $10k or $12k repair on Boundary Line to fix it up.
§ We have an RTP grant for boardwalks at north end of Northwest Branch Trail. MoCo Parks build 2.5 miles of trail north of that trail, but haven’t been out yet. But going to have a lot more trail in that area soon.
§ Maybe good news on the indemnity issue. We have a call tomorrow with the SHA administrator about the issue and discuss concerns.
§ Jali
· Just met with MoCo Parks to build on the MoCo Epic partnership. We want to make this a big one because it’s the 15 th anniversary.
· Asked to be more coordinated with our marketing because we showcase a lot of their trails. They are going to share the event more clearly with people in the county and getting photo and video up there.
· Also discussed the possibility of camping. If we are able to get camping, we will be able to cast a wider net and make it an East Coast destination.
· Also trying to listen the number of required police.
§ Casey
· Just asked them to scrub their list of things for MORE to get a permit. Hung up on overtime for Park Police and think it is loaded up with too many people looking for overtime.
· We also talked to them about taking over the REI concept of having a fleet of bikes that MoCo Parks owns that we could plug into our ride program if we can manage that. Maybe something as simple as giving us access to a shed with bikes so that we can make them available to first time riders.
· We also got a rundown on all their plans for the next couple years, and they are knocking out our priority list.
§ March 9 there will be liaison meeting at REI.
§ Spending a lot of money and time building out Patuxent. The gap between two portions of Patuxent is a wildlands, and the equestrians are promoting a bill that would amend the law to allow equipment in do maintenance. The law currently prohibits mountain bikes. Asked if they would allow us to amend to provide one through trail to allow for bikes.
§ At Rosaryville, walked inner trail to see how it is. Many of them are not official and park manager wants to close them down. We want to use a series of connectors so people can do shorter loops and not need to ride a full 10 miles. They are going to have a meeting with the equestrians on Wednesday.
· Programming by Partners
o MICL (Jali)
§ Met with new league director. We are on the same page. Because there are a bunch of new NICA members, installing the relationship of advocacy in mountain biking. NICA has a program called team trail corps. Want to push MORE trailwork days and get students out there. Want to make sure they are kept informed of all their trailwork days. Said that if there are teams that want to do trailwork on their home trails, we can coordinate to make that happen.
§ They are include Team Trail Corps hours in points for championships, so it matters from a team perspective.
o Catalyst/Adaptive (Jali)
§ MoCo Parks, Prince George’s Park, and Friends of Patapsco are all doing a weekend of adaptive riding. There is a group called Catalyst Sports that’s coming up to the area in late March and is staying for 4 weeks. They are bringing a fleet of 17 bikes for parks to borrow and run programs.
§ Nothing is needed on our end to spread the word. Have worked to make sure they have our waiver and to make sure they share hours.
§ Catalyst Sports is planning to set up shop in the DMV area within the next year.
o NICA National (Jali)
§ Diana Allan, who used to be part of the Maryland league, is now at NICA national. Trying to organize a family day at Rosaryville, and trying to get engagement in Prince George’s County.
§ Once she has her plans in place, may reach out to Kathy to see what we can get together in terms of rides. Thinking of running some beginner clinics, depending on bandwidth.
§ She was going to try to get a few NICA coaches to run clinics for kids. Still coordinating to see if there is anyone who can lead adult rides.
o Trek
§ Jason Irla, who is the trail liaison at Hawash, started a job at Trek
§ Connected with regional manager and want to partner with us for trailwork, but sponsoring trailwork day, spreading the word, etc.
§ Also spoke about REI leaving experiences businesses, and they indicated they can lend rental bikes for clinics.
§ Also want to host training rides leading up to the MoCo Epic, so we can set them up at ride leaders.
§ Also willing to have MORE stickers and fliers in the shop.
· Ride Program Update (Kathy)
o Located Todd Bauer to see if we can use MoCo Parks fleet.
o Spent a ton of time trying to get 2024 data from Golden Volunteer. In both categories, we need to do better to get people to enter hours when doing trailwork. Need to communicate better with ride leaders on how to use golden.
· Events Update (Maris)
o Trying to support Clay for winter meeting. Have a call scheduled for tomorrow to figure out how to support him.
o For events, going to start with 6 locations for the first year so we have a big geographic spread.
§ Jug Bay is on list.
§ This would be a summer ride series.
§ Should we spread this out over more time, or do between Memorial Day and Labor Day?
· Consensus that this time period sounds reasonable.
§ Have a tracker with all the details.
o Another newer event that I am proposing. Working with Tom Newton and think it would be neat to do a tie in with the festival lights at Seneca Creek State Park.
Activity Reports
· President – Casey Anderson
o [*]
· Jali Fernando – Executive Director
- Running Third Hill Brewing fundraiser
- Developing partnership with Trek for trail work and rides
- Hiring Administrative Coordinator
- Event support for winter membership meeting and trail liaison meeting
- Coordinating with NICA on membership and partnership
- Coordinating with Catalyst Sports, FPVSP, Montgomery Parks, and PG Parks on adaptive programming
- Attended meeting with Montgomery Parks on MoCo Epic and trail projects
- Attended monthly Our Virginia Outdoors meeting
- Updated individual trail webpages after Google Maps update
- Responded to admin support requests from trail liaisons
- Regular newsletter, social media posts, and email communications
· Secretary – David Beugelmans
o Coordinated board meeting and finalized minutes
o Advocate for and advance Annapolis Flow Trail and Bacon Ridge/Waterworks Connector projects
· MD Advocacy Director – Dave Magill
- Discussed/edited requests for funds that will go to the Trails Committee
- Emmitsburg
- SCSP
- Greenbrier
- Watershed
- A little more work on insurance renewal with Jali
- Reviewed resumes for admin position
- Worked on bids for lumber for NWB boardwalks
- Set up call with Administrator Pines of SHA to discuss indemnities in RTP grants
- Meeting with MoCo Parks regarding work plan for 2026, MoCo Epic support and beginner ride programs
- Finalized year end trail stats
- Helped set up March 9 liaisons meeting, draft agenda
- Numerous calls regarding equestrian sponsored bill to change rules in the Pax Wildlands
- Walked the inner trails at Rosaryville with park ranger and liaison to select trails to keep/close/refurb
- Video call with Trek personnel to discuss areas for potential joint action
- Updated Trailforks mapping of Cedarville, learned various new features on TF
· VA Advocacy Director – Michael Ullman
o [*]
· Membership Director – Rob Lowe
o [*]
· Ride Program Director – Kathy Mihm
o Compiled/organize/analyzed 2024 Volunteer Data from Golden Volunteer and CalendarWiz and develop final tally for volunteer hours in various categories
o Arranged and coordinated First Aid Class for Ride Leaders/Sweeps, Class to be held 2/15
o Reviewed 2024 Ride Lead/Sweep data and updated Ride Leader email list on Outlook
o Discussed coordination between MORE and MoCo MTB bike fleet for skills clinics
o Distributed a few Muddy Trail signs to liaisons
o Contributed to 2024 Awards nominations
· Communications Director – N/A
· Treasurer – Neil Blake
- Filed 1099s
- Sent financial information to the account to prepare the 2024 financial statements and Form 990
· Activities Director – Maris Finley
o Spent time figuring out my new role, reviewed position needs, goals, tapping into resources
o Talked with past board members to gain more info and start developing a plan for the year
o Started layout and planning for the Summer Ride Series (next step is to contact liaisons to schedule)
o Looking into adding a possible new Winter event for November: Bike Ride through the Gaithersburg Winter Lights Festival @ SCSP
o Winter membership meeting – working to support Clay for his last event