January 2025 Board Meeting Minutes and Strategic Planning Session

MORE – Board of Directors/Strategic Planning Meeting Minutes

January 11, 2025

 

 

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

Clay Deming – Outgoing Activities Director

Maris Finley  – Incoming Activities Director

 

 

Not Present

Michael Ullmann – VA Advocacy Director

 

 

·      Intros/ice breaker

-                                Overview of positions, chance for new board member to ask questions regarding roles

 

·      State of MORE

-                                Where are we in 2025? Membership, reach, trail inventory, sponsors and partners

-                                Revisiting goals set in 2022 strategic planning

 

·      Membership and Marketing

-                                What do we want to achieve with our membership base?

-                                How can we leverage membership in trail advocacy?

-                                Revisit membership ideas from 2024

 

·      Indemnities and Insurance

-                                Dave M

§  Call with GA delegation next week about this issue.

§  We have in Maryland to get the big grants, we may need to sign up to indemnities.

§  Large general liability claims are rare and the largest he has seen is not very large.

§  It is worthwhile to sign these clauses to get this kind of money. Recommended increase to insurance to $2 million per occurrence, and participant accident insurance, which would provide money towards insurance costs. The last one is an increase in D&O insurance. This is fiduciary coverage.

§  Asking to be able to sign grant agreements, even if legislation doesn’t happen.

§  Will board approve Dave M to sign grant agreements even if there are no changes to indemnities.

§  Jali and Dave will come back to board with more information and will defer on signing the agreements as long as possible.

 

·      Lunch break

 

·      Volunteer hours and annual report

 

-                                Kathy: Do we care?

-                                Rob: We care.

-                                Dave M: I’m working on getting more time added.

-                                Kathy: We need a deadline because we use the numbers for the annual report and for the awards at the winter membership meeting.

-                                Clay: If we want the numbers for awards, we need them next week. But I use this mostly for graphics so that we have a list of the top 50 MVP list. Posters are very quick to make.

-                                Dave M: Will ask for everyone to get data in by Jan 21, with goal to get everything by Feb 1.  

 

·      2025 Budget

-                                Discussion and approval by Board

-                                Dave  Motion to adopt 2025 budget as modified at meeting by Neil.

§  Second from Kathy

§   2025 budget passed unanimously.

 

·      Programs and Advocacy

-                                What are strengths and recent successes of MORE in terms of activities, membership, rides, and advocacy?

§  Winter membership meeting

·      Clay: Having at the Silver Spring Civic Center is a huge upgrade for the event.

·      Rob: People in VA complain about coming up. Doing somewhere more central could be nice, but it’s hard to please everyone.

·      Clay: It could make sense to do it in Northern Virginia one year. Rob: Ernie has some ideas.  We need to book this in March for the next January/February.

·      Ma: Goal should be make event better every year.

§  Summer Picnic

·      Clay: This is a chance for us to buy our members and volunteers lunch.

·      Dave M: Maybe we should set the bar lower, and do one in MD and one in VA.

·      Clay: If anything, you can scrap this one because it’s a lot of work with limited results.

·      Ma: Instead, the budget could be used for pop up events throughout the summer.

·      Jali: There are some liaisons really want to organize events.

§  General Events

·      Jali: EX2 and the Bike Lane like having MORE at their race events because they donate proceeds to us. It is nice for them to say to the community that some proceeds are going back to trails. Try to be at these events. Same with Sheduro.

·      Clay: People like movies. We had a film even at a brewery several years ago. People would like social events like this every once and awhile. But it’s important to keep the cost down for event rental.

·      Ma: Likes the idea of regional group rides that end with food/drink after.

·      Clay: Should also have a Board of Directors ride, and invite donors/VIPs.

-                                What are some areas of growth in these programs?

-                                What would you like to achieve in 2025 for your program?

-                                How can this be achieved?

-                                Additional staff and their role

§  Jali: Looking for a part time person from Spring to November. This person would focus on marketing to approach businesses, bike shops, show up and events, etc. Or it could be the reverse so Jali will be able to do these things.

§  Dave M: This should be someone who works 20 hours a week.

§  Neil: Some people have a full-time job and could do this separately. Also thinks there are some tasks that this person could for Neal

·      Will include $30k in the budget for this. Agreement that this would be around $30-35/hour

-                                Maryland (Dave M)

§  Our focus on advocacy has been Prince George’s County and continuing to show support in Montgomery County

§  Patapsco

·      The park management has decided to take over the trail programs there. Next year the trailwork will not be MORE branded events. Likely because park management likes doing it.

·      Friends of Patapsco has taken on the role of the people that raise money and build infrastructure.

·      Fighting over turf doesn’t make sense to me.

§  State Level

·      DNR Secretary told us in the spring they are going to announce a policy that allows Class 1 e-bikes on trails.

·      At Rosaryville, we are seeing if they loosen their TTF (technical trail features) policy.

·      Trying to encourage us to build these types of facilities on town and county property. 

§  Casey

·      Wants to sit down with Dave M and determine the different types of jurisdictions, how they are run, etc, so we can determine the best plan to approach each one, so that we can determine staffing.

-                                Virginia (Michael)

§  Strengths and Recent Successes

§  Strong Partnerships in Prince William County

·      Three trail systems: Locust Shade (largest/destination trail), James Long (medium-sized, western PW County), Andrew Leitch (smaller, local).

·      County parks respect MORE’s trail liaisons, giving them flexibility for improvements.

·      Notable updates in 2024:

·      Locust Shade jump line rebuilt, black line (“col du shade”) revamped.

·      Andrew Leitch added a few miles of trail in separate segments.

·      James Long is adding about 2 miles of trail and working on a jump line.

§  New and Engaged Trail Liaisons

·      Mt. Vernon District Park gained two new liaisons (one being Thatcher Merrill) to revitalize the trails and address rogue/pirate features.

·      Dan at Conway Robinson is doing great work as a new liaison.

§  Strong Existing Destination Trails

·      Fountainhead, Lake Fairfax, and Wakefield have strong liaisons who are mostly self-sufficient and maintain high-quality trails.

 

§  Areas of Growth

·      Navigating Park Authorities

o   While relationships with Fairfax Parks and NOVA Parks are said to be strong, the lack of clear approvals or commitments delays trail improvements and expansions.

o   Examples include delayed green line extension at Fountainhead, pump track/jump line proposals, and Brookfield extension plans.

·      Bridging the Gap with MoCo

o   Montgomery County has a dedicated trail crew, staff, and bike programs—setting a high bar.

o   In Virginia, MORE struggles for permission and approval despite having volunteers and funding to build new features.

 

§  Goals for 2025

·      Expanded Trail Infrastructure

o   Build additional trails, pump tracks for kids, and jump lines for all skill levels.

o   Continue to enhance existing trail systems to draw more riders and families.

 

§  How to Achieve These Goals

o   Strengthening Relationships and Advocacy

o   Engage in more networking, personal outreach (“shaking hands, kissing babies”).

o   Raise additional funds and leverage current partnerships.

o   Push for clearer commitments and faster decision-making from park authorities.

·      Goal Setting

-                                SMART goals for 2025-2027

§  Membership (Rob)      

·      Likes the idea of tracking both members AND supporters, which will make us a much larger organization. This is a big thing.

·      Raising awareness of what we do through marketing, better storytelling.

·      Want to try to encourage people to go to five dollars a month membership.

·      Also wants to revamp emails, maybe moving to Constant Contact, but thinks sending basic text based email is better.

·      Casey: Maybe another goal should be to pester IMBA to fix up their CRM.

§  Kathy

·      Improve use of Golden Volunteer

·      Improve rides, training

·      Work with new activities director on new popup events.

·      Casey: We should also look about getting access to someone else’s bikes for beginner ride opportunity.

-                                Jali: For the spring tool order, we should make clear that in certain counties you can no longer use gas tools (such as leaf blowers in MoCo), and encourage purchase of electric tools.

-                                Delineation of roles

-                                Calendaring