City Club of Eugene
Board Meeting Minutes
September 26th, 2024
Attendees: Andrew Kalloch (President), Thomas Hiura (President-elect), Kathryn Adair (Treasurer) via Zoom, Sandy Smalley (Secretary), Joey Bruckner, Alyssa Gilbert, Kelly Johnson, Ralph Pledger, Marti Ravits. No absences.
July Minutes – Kelly moves to approve. Minutes approved.
Discussion of WOW Hall – Marti asks about the cost (~$250-275/forum). Marti was surprised by the lack of light, lack of professionalism– stuff on stage. Ralph mentions that moving to the stage may help. Thomas said he’ll follow up on the crates/cones. Kelly is positive about the space – even had someone who came because of the WOW Hall. Hasn’t found problems with parking. Looks forward to trying to have folks on stage. Sandy doesn’t like it for City Club – comparison to Marquis (Country Club Rd.) – New City Hall would be a nice option in 2025 (if it materializes). Ralph says WOW has worked out well for AV (aside from the lack of storage). Expresses the need for a backup for Jim on audio editing. Thomas tends to agree with Kelly.
Sponsor Brainstorm – AK to follow up with Joey re: Hershner Hunter. Ralph: EWEB? Marti: Approach realtors and dentists – wondered about Columbia/Run Hub Building. Kelly: Peoples Bank – taking over Cascade Title. Kathryn will look at Summit Bank. Thomas: Bike shops. AK to share forthcoming programs with the Board on a more regular basis. AK instructs the Board to run with their ideas and make the asks.
Additional Agenda Item: Josh
AK noted that we won’t be able to get UO interns due to lack of staff (we can post temporary/part-time jobs with UO if we want to)
Josh to continue doing a few hours a week – Board packet, development, social media (AK to ask Josh about title and social media posting).
Committee Reports
Ralph (Membership) – no committee action. Membership steady around 100. Will try to get more aggressive on retention. AK mentions the value of recurring memberships. Kelly wonders about the process and the value of membership – willing to continue working with the Membership Committee to think through options.
Andrew (Program) – Provided Board with programs through 2024. Noted Joel/Alyssa continuing in leadership roles.
Media – Motion approved to continue with Alpha for now until we figure out URL challenge/long-term plan (Alpha to charge us $50/month, but allow reimbursement upon request). Longer term, Joey to think about joining the Media Committee. Alyssa mentioned WordPress-hosted site as an option.
Finance – Kathyrn provided a report/budget overview. Highlighting consistency of revenue – a big reason for the change in the bottom line was a deep cut in expenses. Questions raised about membership vs. sponsorship dollars. Discussion of forum sponsor goal – reasonable, maybe a bit ambitious! Need to stress in program committee (Alyssa). Kathryn trying to be conservative with revenue estimates based on past income. Personnel expense projection assumes a part-time accounting support (we have some leads from the Finance Committee + other nonprofits). Sandy moves to adopt the FY 2025 proposed budget. Thomas seconds, motion passes unanimously (Kelly abstained as had to depart shortly before the vote).
Additional Agenda Item
Alyssa mentioned how she was aggressively approached by someone who called the City Club number that was displayed on Google and was hung up on (the number was an old office number, long defunct, that doesn’t exist on our website,
only the Google “page” for CCE when you Google City Club of Eugene). AK has deleted that number from the Google page, as well as our “office hours”. Those changes won’t take place immediately but should be final on the Google page within 30 days.
Respectfully submitted,
Andrew Kalloch
President
