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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
    • Facebook
    • Instagram
    • 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.

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.