MORE Board Meeting 12-JUNE, 2014

Attendance:

• Ernie Rodriguez
• Martin Fernandez
• Melanie Nystrom
• Jason Ashmore
• Jason Miller
• Kevin Adams
• Ryan D.
• Dave Ferraro

Financials:

• Memberships up 60%, but dollars are the same.
• NOVA is not complete – has about $8500 positive cash flow.

Event review:

• There are 3 events in total, where we will know the exact cash flow.
• $6000 from SFF for Mt vernon
• We need to find avenues to better advertise the series events.

Other MORE events: 

• Winter MORE party: SUCCESS
• Trail liaisons-dinner in May: Success!!
• Tour de Fat – $346 in tips; 7.5% of net returned to MORE; no cost this year- $2-4k can be collected. Someone needs to come up with a thank you from MORE ( Jason M. Alluded to doing that).
• Summer picnic: This Saturday!!  RSVP is an issue, but they are trying to get enough food. hopefully, at least 200 participants, but food for 100.
• Fall camping trip – Big Bear, easy trails, find photos of the trail, great warm showers.  Melanie will follow up with Phil. SEPT, 20-21.
• 50 scheduled rides on the weekends – Rob’s not here to confirm.
• Women’s ride with Melanie – filled fast, Patapsco intro rides are on saturdays; things are moving along well.

Final thoughts on events:

• Check NOVA, MOCO ride participants
• Route vandalism
• Survey is out; people were not happy; sholud send an email out, apologize & working on a fix.
• Lake Fairfax Park Proper might be a better place to have this Epic.
• Discussed how to better market the Epics
• marketing is an issue,  simultaneous advertising needs to happen!!

The MORE board reviewed the current status of our established strategic goals. A summary is provided below

Build MORE

• Trail Committee – grant RTP for COSCA – MORE can take on about $200k, & Mike Vanbusco is happy with what MORE is doing; gives us connectivity with Rosaryville.
• Partnership with trail conservatory, building , financial, trail, construction management, strong land manager all required to get things moving and working
• You can apply for RTP grants through schools, & don’t need any NIPA approval  – hiring the kids, so no approval; CSA will recruit the students, and they handle everything.  Melanie is ON IT!!!
• 25 miles of new trails – Emmitsburg, Meadowood – FTHD from 11 to 14 miles.  Trail building is on track.
• Trails signage program – 2 movement- Tom House spoke at gerald conny rename dedication, CCD & patapsco sign work being worked.  Setting policy on whether MORE will have their name on the signs if they are funding it.

Other action items:

• Chainsaw policy is needed. Dave is working on this policy.
• Trail fund policy is done.
• Pete and bike shop liaison – time for another update from Pete to see where we are
• We should be engaging with land managers, but Dave needs the input.
• Sponsorships program – Dave F. – 4 ways to go big – one of those four is sign up a sponsor, get a free registration. Bronze is free registration.  Each of the aid stations during the epic, offer $100 toward registration for patapsco.   $15k through this sponsorship, logo on t-shirts, get them links on the site, etc.
• outreach programs – Dave’s got a plan – major donors plan, sponsorship base is growing, but the BOD needs to adopt a new plan, where you need to raise money. WE need to think about what the sponsorship for MORE means
• Events are the way you get sponsors, and ask them to come back.  the epic  series is a great vehicle to make the “asks.”
• Larger events, like the parties. promote cycling clubs to promote picnics. outsourcing might be an issue.
• Its a fine line between teams and MORE.  cycling teams can’t organizing MORE events might not be an option.  can alienate other groups or shops.  how do we do that? Think about epics & events  as partnerships.
• IMBA world summit – $325 admin, $400 flight, $110 hotel.  MORE should pay.  All in favor to give $500 per person for the summit. August 20-24.
• Increase MORE presence – Ryan & holly have been working that piece, & bringing MORE stuff to all events & Epics.

Serve MORE

• Expand positions – DC advocacy on the charts – officer positions filled, semi-annual board member networking.
• Surveys after the epics currently being worked.
• End of year survey will be led by Jason M.  Help in question construction and push it out.

Sustainability plan:

~mentoring is categorized here-how do we want to raise money to be self sustaining.

• MORE calendar:  needs to be put in both places – on the forum & on the matrix.  night riding expanding
• Dee Reeb’s working on Accotink.
• Melanie & Simona should meet, regarding women’s rides/clininc/etc.
• 2014 strategic goals: family ride program: need to push for leaders; create MTB events: Patapsco & SMORES is new; get with leaders and push leader programs