July Meeting Minutes
7/13/15
Attendees
Board
Ernest Rodriguez
Dave Magill
Martin Fernandez
Russ Adams
Scott Davison
Bob Compton
Jason Ashmore (phone)
Staff
Ryan Delaney
Brian Balas (phone)
Membership Plan- Ernie Rodriguez
- Adopt membership plan developed by Ryan Delaney
- Work already underway
- Fit into our new Communications Plan
- Board endorsed this approach; there was no need for a formal vote
Board Planning – Jason Ashmore
- Jason recommends BoD begins outreach for new board members in advance of 2015 elections
- BoD in agreement, outreach will commence under the new communications plan
- If you’re interested in serving on the board, please contact a current board member
General Fund Grant Opportunities – Dave Magill
- Emmittsburg liaison Tim O’Donnell brought two potential grant opportunities to the board for consideration, both targeted to the general fund rather than project-specific funds.
- Maryland Stadium Authority is considering expanding its grant opportunities to promote:
- Local quality of life
- Local sporting events that draw visitors to MD (like our Epics)
- Maryland Department of Housing and Community Development provides funding to enhance local non-profits’ staffing and front office operations.
- Tim volunteered to explore our eligibility/get more information on these grant programs, and offered to brief MORE leadership when the research is completed. Ryan Delaney to follow up with Tim.
Communications Plan Workshop – Martin Fernandez
- Comprehensive communications strategy, emphasis on keeping our membership, partners, and stakeholders informed
- Leverage MORE’s activities building trails, leading rides, and building trust and community
- MORE has avenues to do this, so let’s put them to work and share our successes, challenges, and programs
- Website and Communications Training
- Martin provided a tutorial on use of the MORE website and it’s communications functions (blog, trail status, page content, etc.) to attending board and staff
- Encourages board and staff to create regular posts to the MORE blog/front page
- Will draft publication schedule and disseminate to board
- New Trail Conditions Page, coordinated twitter handle and hashtag
- Aims to keep trail conditions updated
- Any user of the MORE site can do this
- Currently moderated by MORE volunteers, but the goal is direct user submission and publication on site
- Complement to other user-generated conditions reports like the DC Trail Conditions Facebook page and MTBProject trail listings
- Covered MORE social media accounts and best practices
- MORE Twitter handles
- Discussion of emergency response plan
- Board discussed a policy to govern statements from MORE regarding emergencies and high profile issues
- Deliberate, measured response
- Full board participation, unanimity a good practice (though not required) for issuing any sort of controversial statement
- W@W flashflood a huge learning experience
- CFC Plan
- MORE is on the CFC list for the first time
- Board and Staff to prioritize; subcommittee of Russ Adams, Ernie Rodriguez, Martin Fernandez and Ryan Delaney agreed to develop plan to market our CFC status and encourage people to select MORE this fall for 2016.
- MORE is on the CFC list for the first time
Board and Staff Reports
Ernest Rodriguez- President
- Working with Ryan, Anthony, Kevin and back-office staff to develop specific MORE membership queries in CiVi CRM
- Working with Ryan to help clean-up membership renewal database
- Volunteering with Bike Lane and PVC for both trail work and support at W@W
- Helping lead Tuesday Night Rides at Wakefield/Accotink
- Recruited volunteer to help reach out to members who have not renewed membership on Bike Lane team
- Represented MORE at Angie’s fight against cancer at Gravity Sole
- Meeting with PHTA
- Attend Loch Raven kick-off event
Dave Magill – Trails Director
- Recruited new co-liaisons for Rosaryville, (Jim McNeely and Mike Moses) facilitated introductions and training, attended work day
- Worked with team to submit another $40k MD RTP grant request for Patuxent, and a $1600 spending request for tools (not yet submitted, should be soon)
- MD Grant Manager Mike Manteuffel resigned due to new job and new home, have not yet started recruiting efforts to replace him
- Several weekend days of “trail tread work” to fix mud puddles at Schaeffer
- Attended Loch Raven kickoff event
- Did field work and attended planning meeting re 13 mile paved and 5 mile unpaved trail along Pepco corridor from Montgomery Mall to Soccerplex. Engineer from DOT plans to submit a budget request this fall for a) $500k for feasibility study of paved trail and b) $100k to plan and build the unpaved trail.
- Arranged for three MORE members (Dave Kalt, Tim Odonnell, Brian Balas) to attend IMBA trail planning workshop in Boulder CO. Met with Kalt to discuss objectives and progress in watershed
- Worked with Rick Meyer to begin flagging 6 mile Black Hills West trail, train Rick in trail alignment approaches
- Coordinated with Eric Crawford re ideas to use the $10k special Epic Series grant offer from SFF
- Reviewed RTP grant package prepared by Carl Alfano for Brunswick MD trails
Martin Fernandez – Operation Director
- Completed Communications Plan – distributed to board electronically
- Not resigning – weathering the storm – lessons learned, implementing changes to comms plan
- Working on epics redeployment
Ryan Delaney – Associate Director
Membership Development
- Created draft membership plan, circulated to BoD for input.
- Database cleanup of MORE folks with multiple records.
- Coordination with IMBA back office to address data issues and outline support for chapter membership efforts.
- Creating lists of lapsed/expired members for BoD-driven, peer-to-peer outreach.
- Identified events and areas to target for outreach and growth
- Patapsco 100 (rain out)
- Loch Raven networking event
- REI DC community space events
- Began outreach to local race teams for membership/volunteers
MTB Project Marketing
- Added trails and visitor info in Fairfax, Arlington, Emmitsburg, GWNF
- Working with Martin and Leslie K to develop area pages for our region.
- Worked with Fairfax Visitor’s Bureau to create a Fairfax County area page for their website.
Partner/Land manager Outreach
- Attended PHTA June meeting
- Continued outreach to George Washington Parkway unit of NPS for singletrack access/future projects and funding discussions
- Visit Fairfax collaboration
- Initial outreach to PATC regarding Rock Creek Park
- REI- discussion of MORE events utilizing their new DC community space:
- Membership opportunity
- Focus on Fort Dupont/DC
Loch Raven
- Initial property owner outreach completed.
- Secured $16,000 grant from REI, check presentation at 7/11 event.
- Event logistics for Loch Raven Celebration at Kevin Heerdt’s
- Mayor of Baltimore, state representatives and county councilmen will be in attendance
- Potential sponsors, donors, and partners as well.
- Developed event plan and speaking points
- Clean Stream trash issues resolved.
- Attended Watershed Coalition meeting to present MORE’s project to city staff, environmental groups, academic scientists.
- Working with Leslie Kehmeier (IMBA Mapping Manager), City GIS folks to develop official trail project map and marketing collateral.
Frederick Watershed
- Wrote second draft of the Frederick Municipal Forest Recreation Management Plan, incorporating work of MORE, FBC volunteers as well as city staff, equestrian, hiker, and environmentalist comments.
- Attended Watershed Ad Hoc Committee meeting on 7/9 (1 year of committee work complete!)
- Assisted Dave Kalt (liaison) with gravity trail assessments to support efforts for legal gravity/freeride trails in official trail network.
Lake Fairfax Pump Track
- Approval and permitting process continues.
- Conceptual design has been accepted by county engineering, but they now require a “Rough Grading Plan” before final approval.
- Working with local environmental engineering firms to find pro bono technical support for this document.