July 2023 Board of Directors Meeting Minutes and Activity Reports

 

 Virtually present at meeting

Ernie Rodriguez – President

Jali Fernando – Executive Secretary

Neil Blake – Treasurer

David Beugelmans - Secretary

Tom Howe - VA Advocacy Director

Kathy Mihm – Ride Programs Director

Dave Magill - MD Advocacy Director

Nate Frey – Communications Director

Rob Lowe – Membership Director

 

Not present

Clay Deming – Events Director

 

• Financial Updates (Neil)
  • -$0.8k Net general decrease
  • $11k General revenues
    • $5k Memberships (estimate)
    • $3k MoCo Epic sponsorships
    • $1.3k Interest
    • $1k MORE store (Shopify receipts to be allocated)
    • $0.8k general donations
  • $11.8k General expenses
    • $6.3k Exec director
    • $2.6k clinics
    • $0.7k annual report
  • -$35.3k Net restricted decrease
  • $1.8k Restricted revenues
    • $1k Waterworks
    • $0.7k Lake Fairfax
  • $37.1k Restricted expenses
    • $21.8k Rivers Edge
    • $15k Wakefield
  • Membership Update (Rob)
    • Data
      • YTD VS 2022: 2023 YTD = $47,880 vs 2022 (YTD) = $47,158 = (POS) $722 YTD
      • All Members (New, Current): 2083 = (2053+30) vs 2063(May) vs 1998 (Apr)
      • Lapsed/Expired: 120 = June 2023 and May 2023
    • Good month in memberships and joins, we only fell about $200 short on total memberships where I expected a much larger gap due to early renewals in May as part of the Membership Drive.
    • New joins were also staying up but not near 2022 numbers. I just realized part of the issue may have been we may have started MoCo processing in June typically and I don’t think we’ve pulled/processed any yet for MoCo 2023. 
    • We had peaked near 2083 members, but are down a bit due to holidays, etc in early July.
    • New Joining Tracking – 30 in June, 56 in May, 34 in April.
    • Total Current Members – 2,077, with 115 lapsed members in June and May 2023.
    •  Peggy used to start processing memberships at the end of the month for MoCo registrations. She would start to submit these to IMBA at the end of each month for June, July, and August.
      • Jali: Encouraged people to join on their own and then they get a code.
    • Trails
      • Virginia (Tom)
        • Held monthly liaison meeting.
        • Wakefield has been rained out for ½ of the Wednesday races, but having makeup on Wednesday.
        • Fountainhead, Jeff had hurt himself, so he is back and engaged again. The park has approached him. He wants to create some beginner friendly stuff. There is also some budget with the park. Trying to figure out what he can do with the amount of real estate available. A while ago had considered a progressive jump trail, but that is on hold as they figure out the beginner stuff.
        • Things are going very well at Lake Fairfax, mostly focused on maintenance.
        • James Long had a race and were able to raise some funds.
        • Things are going well at Locust Shade. No update on Forest Green.
        • Did have some new liaisons: two new people at Meadowood, and someone in Loudon County.
      • Maryland (Dave M)
        • As Tom said, had liaison meeting last weekend on Sunday. 42 or 43 people.
          • For many people, it was their first meeting.
          • A wide range of subjects. Lots of discussion about lessons learned with bike parks. Talked about fundraising, grants, regional cooperation, working with land managers. Kathy gave a nice summary of ride programs. Also interesting information on adaptive trails.
          • Emphasized a couple of messages: develop a five-year plan, talk to land manager, come up with a bunch of different asks and be happy if you have half.
        • Hedge trimming is in full force. Lots of people out there across the state trying to cut back the vegetation.
        • Got lots of rock work done in MoCo. Spent $2000 to buy good quality rock because trying to harvest rock from Maryland streams, people don’t like it.
        • RTP
          • Got some feedback that it’s a tough year for RTP grants in Maryland. Submitted for 3 RTP grants. Have many applicants, including new applications.
          • Said that nobody is going to get more than one grant. Tried to offer up priorities later, but don’t know if they can consider it.
          • There was some feedback that MORE as described as one of the easy people to work with. Probably due to change orders. Going to work on being as easy as possible.
          • Other message was trying to submit larger projects for more money.
        • Maryland Bond Bill Funding – Wants to work on 3 or 4 $100,000 requests for various projects. Going to start working on getting those things organized.
        • In MoCo, going to meet with Casey Anderson to go over five-year plan.
        • Biggest expenditure right now is the River’s Edge project. This is about ½ way done and will be done in September.
  • Events
    • MoCo Epic (Jali)
      • Got 100 registrants this week, which is still very far from where we want to be.
      • Will be doing more pushes saying there will be a price bump on August 1.
      • Looking pretty good in terms of sponsorship. Need one more aid station sponsor. May do a post targeting teams or local businesses. The group that did not got back to me was Trek. They are the ones we are missing.
      • Good news on food. Have two vendors who approached us and who are excited. One wants to sell on Saturday as well. In the past, we’ve given away.
        • Ernie: We could give vouchers to volunteers, so we could “pay” them for the food.
        • Kathy: It would be beneficial to have a third party handling the food due to all the other stuff that needs to happen.
      • Fort Dupont Cleanup (Jali)
        • DCMTB wants to do a cleanup here. Jali would like to have event there.
        • Don’t require special permit pick up trash but require special permit to clean up vegetation. Put in a request, and it will take a month for them to do.
        • Wants permission to do cleanup
          •  General agreement that she should move forward.
          • Tom will help and organized workday once approved.
        • NICA Collaboration for Take a Kid Mountain Biking Day (Jali)
          • IMBA got in touch with me. NICA wants to partner with local chapters with take a kid mountain biking day in October. Seems like a good opportunity, although I know we have a strong program through sMOREs.
          • It would make more sense to work with NICA on trailwork and what the value of MORE would be to kids graduating from NICA. We would be partners with team in the area and it would be up to us to determine what to do.
          • Rob
            • When is this? Jali: Any time in October. Rob: This does make the lift easier.
          • Ernie: Todd is already tagging his rides with “take a kid mountain biking”.
          • Jali: If we are going to do anything, we already have sMOREs. It wouldn’t make sense for us to do it unless we have a trailwork event.
          • Jali: I will give them a “yes” and we can figure out specifics later.
  • Communications
    • Survey Next Steps Discussion (Nate)
      • Sent summary of survey results to the quantitative questions.
      • Have pulled data.
      • General feedback to report data so we can see how many people answered each question, rather than having larger numbers reported as just “multiple answers.”
      • Nate will execute net steps.
    • Quarterly Newsletter (Nate)
      • With the delay in annual report, wants to know what to do with getting back on cadence.
      • Kathy: Idea of doing a summer report and then fall, with focus on upcoming elections.
      • Jali: We have a good cadence with weekly newsletter. We should do the quarterly newsletter to focus on elections and advertising roles.
      • Also need to recognize sponsors.
    • Ride Program Update (Kathy)
      • Reviewed everything at liaison meeting. Don’t have anything to add.
    • Admin
      • Dig In (Jali)
        • This is grant for capacity building. Once we raise $5000, they will match it.
        • In the project, put the goal was $16,000.
        • In a nutshell, it is a volunteer super series throughout winter that will culminate in the winter meeting, with workshops on a variety of topics. Want to secure fundraising.
        • Since we already have $5000, wondering if we could use it as a match.
        • Kathy: Can we use the $5000 that we already have, so the fundraising will happen after the pic or at some point later.
        • Jali: We would just need to put the money in through the dig in portal.
        • Ernie: Last week, had a $1000 donation and told Ernie to put it wherever we need it. So the money doesn’t need to be what we allocated in our budget. REI used to give us $10k/year for capacity building.

 

Activity Reports

• President – Ernest (Ernie) Rodriguez
  • Attend American Trails webinars for Trail Building Skills Database and Wheelchair users feedback - want descriptions not accommodations
  • Participate in VA/DC Liaison meeting
  • Virtual meet & greet with REI community programming team
  • Virtual meeting with new Golden Volunteer management to provide feedback with Jali
  • Discussion with Dirt Farm Brewing with public trails on brewery land
  • Meetings with Covanta regarding replacing water mains at Laurel Hill requiring trail segment closures
  • Publish MORE's 2022 Annual Report on website 
  • Order and receive new sMORE's EZ-Up's and Flags
  • Review Frederick Bike Park MOU with Dave
  • Update MORE membership database
  • Send Thank you emails to donors, Frederick, Lake Fairfax Park, Waterworks and James Long all have active project requests
  • Participate with Fairfax County Accotink Dredging Task Force - Review data for decision not to dredge
  • Pick-up NEW Liaison Shirts for liaison meeting

 

• Jali Fernando – Executive Director
  • MoCo Epic preparations, sponsor coordination
  • MORE tent in Wednesdays at Wakefield races
  • Logistical support for Trail Liaison meeting
  • Dig In grant coordination
  • Summer Picnic planning and communications
  • Upcoming: MORE tent at Big Bear Bike Bash
  • Weekly newsletter and social media posts
  • Distributed Membership Drive prizes

 

• Secretary – David Beugelmans
  • Coordinated board meeting and finalized minutes
  • Finalized 2022 Annual Report

 

• MD Advocacy Director – Dave Magill
  • Helped organize and run the liaisons meeting at Fairland
  • Continued to organize team trimming efforts in MoCo, trimmed several times
  • Assisted Frank Comer with rock work on the Seneca Greenway trail
  • Provided additional info to SHA regarding MORE’s FY2024 RTP grants
  • Assisted new CJ liaison with her first trailwork day
  • Recruited two more volunteers for hedge trimming
  • Provided comments on the Frederick pump track MOU
  • Prep work for meeting with MoCo Parks to discuss 5 year plans
  • Working on one day permit to use the full Seneca Greenway for the MoCo Epic

 

• VA Advocacy Director – Tom Howe
  • Monthly VA / DC Liaisons Meeting
  • Wakefield Trail Work
  • MtVDP Trail Work
  • Trail Liaison Meeting Planning
  • Provided additional content for the Annual Report

 

• Membership Director – Rob Lowe
  • [*]

 

• Ride Program Director – Kathy Mihm
  • Set up numerous rides on Golden, Meetup and MORE Calendar
  • Skills Clinic at Schaeffer Bike Park
  • Lead multiple rides - weekend and women's
  • Develop Rider Resource Document
  • Set up Clinics with Hillary M including MoCo Parks permits
  • Review Annual Report
  • Review MoCo Epic materials
  • Bike Box - loaner management and correspondence
  • MoCo Planning Map for Dave M.

 

• Communications Director – Nate Frey
  • Analysis and summary of survey data

 

• Treasurer – Neil Blake
  • -$0.8k Net general decrease
  • $11k General revenues
    • $5k Memberships (estimate)
    • $3k MoCo Epic sponsorships
    • $1.3k Interest
    • $1k MORE store (Shopify receipts to be allocated)
    • $0.8k general donations
  • $11.8k General expenses
    • $6.3k Exec director
    • $2.6k clinics
    • $0.7k annual report
  • -$35.3k Net restricted decrease
  • $1.8k Restricted revenues
    • $1k Waterworks
    • $0.7k Lake Fairfax
  • $37.1k Restricted expenses
    • $21.8k Rivers Edge
    • $15k Wakefield

 

• Activities Director – Clay Deming
  • [*]