City Club of Eugene
Board Meeting Minutes
July 28, 2022
Via Zoom
Attendees:
Kaarin Knudson (President), Andrew Kalloch (President-Elect), Kitty Piercy (Past President), Ingrid Kessler (Secretary), Richmond Coburn (Treasurer), Sandy Smalley, Marti Ravits, Marilyn Milne, Ralph Pledger, Sally Bell, Miles Pendleton, Silver Mogart (ED)
- Welcome @ 5:32 pm: Review our Board Agenda and Congratulations to Andrew Kalloch, City Club President-Elect! We discussed the work accomplished to adhere to excellent electoral procedures – thanks to all involved.
- Minutes Approval –Our June 2022 Minutes were attached. Moved to approve as presented. Seconded and Approved.
- Executive Director’s Report
a. Live Attendance: We don’t have all the numbers from last week’s forum as Silver was out sick, but there has been ongoing steady attendance with audience returning from week to week. Do we have numbers from before COVID to understand, comparatively, how big our audience now is? We used to have double our current in-person attendees per week (around 60 pre COVID). But now we have many virtual views, up to 120. Candidate fora are typically well attended. Other entities are experiencing a similar drop off in audience as personal and professional travel resumes. We need to continue to monitor trends.
b. Community Engagement: After the Ukraine program, Silver received calls from people wanting to help. Those folks were directed to the United Way.
c. Podcast Management: Marilyn and Silver had a glitch in accessing our podcast platform that has now been resolved.
d. Membership numbers are holding steady. We have had some members join at the student rate, including one person who left an electronic note on our Client Relation Manager software which was helpful.
e. Our office organization process is underway.
f. Sponsorships: We lost one business that was an in-kind sponsor because it is now, overall, less active and is no longer an entity that is looking for new clients. We will investigate further to follow up with them. We need to continue appreciations and thank you’s until the business ends the relationship – we’re so grateful for our sponsors! We also need to make sure that we are staying in front of renewals for sponsors and members. We will be moving to coordinate the work of committees to streamline our processes. Have we in the past had sponsors outside of Eugene proper? AARP of Oregon is a gold sponsor and the only sponsor we have outside of Eugene.
g. Communication: We need timely information — between board meetings when appropriate.
h. Planning: We are in a time of change. Let’s make sure we don’t replicate what we’ve done in the past, or guess at the future, but move with the change. - Treasurer’s Report & Campaign Update – Skip Coburn. Financials were provided via e-mail.
a. Our Cash balance is down from last month and our bottom line, YTD, has swung from slightly positive at the end of May to negative at the end of June. The reason is because we are experiencing a shortfall in revenue. Our expenses are holding. On the revenue side is a concern for sponsorship. There is an appeal to the Board if anyone has a good relationship with our contacts to ask them to please renew, especially Lane County. We miss you, Lane County! Losing support makes a difference to us.
b. Annual Fundraising Campaign: The initial portion of the campaign raised almost twice as much last year as we have this year. Silver has sent out an email solicitation to our larger group of donors and supporters but there is concern as to where the annual campaign will end this year. Why aren’t we getting a better response? The economy is very uncertain. Also, this is a similar – or the same – approach that we’ve used for the past two years. Perhaps it is stale. For previous year’s efforts, we made a lot of phone calls and that was part of the success. We need Directors to please ask friends and colleagues to donate, including a follow up phone call. The personal touch makes all the difference. Thank you to Skip and Marti for all their efforts!
c. Fundraising Planning: We need Board attention and strategizing as to how we will fund ourselves, with new ideas welcome. And, we need to have an ongoing conversation about our funding with our members. Engagement is an ongoing process. We need more outreach. We have an engaged board and want to continue and strengthen our Board efforts. Compared to other organizations, we have smaller turnover in sponsorship and membership. Therefore, let’s make sure we look at new prospects, too. Even in this economy, with the right prospect list we can find new organizations who are aligned with us. What about grants? That hasn’t been a big part of our efforts in the past. We did apply for an AARP grant this year and unfortunately we did not prevail. Accessing grant funds may be some fertile ground for us particularly for special projects, In the past, fundraising efforts included a newsletter as a touch point and also in-person fundraisers. We could even use Turtles as a resource. We could also make an occasion around honoring long-term members and supporters. - President’s Report
a. Reappointment of Committee Members: We have had some timing challenges so this is still in process.
b. Operations Update: KLCC: Paul Thompson, our audio engineer who has been transferring our recordings to something that is KLCC-ready, is retiring. We have a person who is ready to take this work on. The cost for this will be $75-$100 per week which is a new line item expense that will begin in September. This work needs to be something that the board, other volunteers, and the organization can rely on. We are expecting, by keeping this professional and involving only our AV committee and KLCC, that this will be a seamless transition. Thank you so much to Paul for his excellent and invaluable work over the years!! And thanks to Marilyn for finding and facilitating this solution! In discussion with KLCC, some new and exciting ideas surfaced. Stay tuned for those updates. Office Space: We have an office at 804 Pearl Street which is undergoing some organizing including historic paperwork. Likewise, electronic documents are being re-organized. Additional items were tabled for time. - Requests from Mary Leighton: The BEST program proposal and Monuments Project proposal: A written description of these projects was provided in the board packet and an overview of each project was briefly shared. There is concern about our budget and our ongoing financial obligations and priorities. Each of these proposals involve $650. To their credit, each of these projects address a longer view towards promoting civic engagement. The projects are both worthwhile but the timing of this ask is difficult due to our finances being in flux. What would our involvement be besides the funding? Mary Leighton is our connection but, beyond her efforts, our involvement is one of financial sponsorship. There was the thought that we should be pursuing partnerships not just sponsorships. To reiterate, we support these projects. We need to think creatively as to how to do this work. What else could we do to promote this work — including serving as a conduit to link these projects to other community partners? Our mission is narrow but important. We need to focus on our own mission, with limited priorities, but our enthusiasm for these proposals shows our support for this work that is being done. There was significant interest in creating a Friday Forum around these projects. Kaarin will send out a brief summary and consensus to the board detailing our discussion and will have ongoing communication with Mary.
- Committee Reports: Written reports were provided. Discussion, except under membership, below, was tabled for time.
a. Media
b. Membership – Follow-up on student membership: After discussion, there was a motion to change the qualification for Student Membership to part-time from full-time and to remove the ten-dollar fee, but to continue to require student ID. The motion was seconded and then passed. Ralph will change the language on our website.
c. Program - Executive Session: The Board entered into an executive session to discuss matters of a proprietary nature.
9.Adjourned at 7:32 pm
Faithfully Submitted,
J. Ingrid Kessler, DVM, Board Secretary
