Board of Directors’ meeting minutes
Directors
present: John Hulsebus, Sue Fluri, Mike Branch, Tom Coyne, Frank Wolf, Richard Hodges,
John Boes and Sherry Gordon
Guests
present: Sue Kemper from the Portage
Lions’ Club, Mike McAbee
Boes
called the meeting to order. Minutes
from the May 2008 Board meeting were unanimously approved, as distributed.
Treasurer’s report. As of the end of
May, we had $22,654 in both accounts combined.
Bills are coming in from the Sports Education Camp so our total at this
point is definitely below $20,000.
Hodges noted he did pay the Miller Schuuring
fidelity bond. This expense of $125 was
one of the pre-approved costs for MBAA administration. Treasurer’s report was approved
unanimously.
Wolf asked
if the Braille transcription money had been received; it has not yet been
received. However, it is anticipated to
be received yet this fiscal year.
Notation made that at this point, we do need
more matching money in order to match funds for the Gilmore grant.
Sue Kemper
introduced herself. In our previous
meeting, Mary Lou Brooks had indicated there were a group of Portage Lions Club
members who had volunteered a good deal of time at the SEC. These folks were interested in finding out
what other projects the MBAA had and where volunteering needs were—that the
Portage Lions Club might be able to assist with. Sue indicated the Portage Lions had discussed
the possibility of putting information on the t-shirts which all athletes and
volunteers wore. The Portage Lions had
also talked about encouraging other Lions Clubs in the area to volunteer—just
like the Portage Club had done. Sue
indicated the Portage Lions Club needs projects to be involved in. Sue indicated one project the Portage Club is
interested in is to encourage local restaurants to have Braille menus
available. Gordon indicated she would
give Sue a resource for obtaining materials printed in Braille. Vance suggested that if restaurants around
WMU had their menus in Braille, we could advertise in our SEC materials that
these restaurants had menus in Braille.
Wolf
described another project which was previously done—where one of the mothers of
a child who was blind worked with kids, usually ages 7-10 years, and they did
rock climbing, tobogganing, goalball, etc.
This gave the kids a social occasion to attend as well as some fun
things to do. This type of a project
definitely takes a lot of coordination, as well as provision of transportation. Sherry noted that at KRESA, they have the
Explorer’s Club, indicating this is for school age children and may be
something for both the MBAA and the Portage Lions Club to look into assisting
with.
Hulsebus
described the
Fluri
described our tandem club, indicating we are always looking for persons to
captain a tandem bike.
Gordon
indicated that since our last meeting, there had been an e-mail vote, which was
approved. The funding request was for Kaylee Maxum, a young athlete who
had participated in the 2008 SEC and had done extremely well in
gymnastics. It was recommended that Kaylee receive a scholarship to assist her in furthering
her gymnastics skills of up to $200. Due
to time constraints, Kaylee’s mother was going to pay
the $200 for a gymnastics scholarship and then would request reimbursement for
the $200 from the MBAA. The
reimbursement request will go directly to Hodges. At this time, Hodges indicated he has not
heard from Kaylee’s mother regarding reimbursement.
Hulsebus
read the funding request for the 2008 National Goalball Tournament, being held
in
Hulsebus
reported he had found some software which would, in essence, be a “Storefront”
for the SEC pictures. We could organize
the pictures anyway we choose and then the customer (athlete or their family
member) would go to that site, choose the pictures they want, the quantity of
each picture, and then the pictures would be provided to the purchaser by a
vendor, who would ship the photos to the purchaser. There would be no cost to the MBAA. The vendor would take a 15 percent commission
from the total cost of the purchase.
Hulsebus had questions regarding how we would want to handle the shipping
and handling costs and whether we would want to offer a package deal for
purchasing photos. Hulsebus indicated
there is currently a link on the MBAA web site where you can begin to go
through the process to order photos. Since there is no vendor chosen to obtain the photos from, you
cannot complete the ordering process.
Discussion was held regarding these questions. Coyne raised the question about—if the MBAA
makes a lot of money, do we use this money received for MBAA or do we set it
aside to be used for the SEC? Hodges
noted that since we do not have a mechanism for dealing with sales tax, we are
better off to just have the money go toward the 2009 SEC. Suggestion was made to just have people order
the number and sizes of photos they desire, rather than offering package deals
and then just have a flat rate for shipping.
Gordon
noted that Ponchillia had a list of all the SEC athletes, volunteers and
coaches’ addresses—where a letter advertising the photos’ availability could be
sent. Hulsebus suggested doing a “trial
order” to make sure everything works out the way it should. Another question Hulsebus has is—where does
the check get sent? Does it need to go into
an electronic fund transfer account or do we actually get a check? Hodges indicated we would rather receive a
check, if at all possible.
Coyne made
a motion to form a committee, consisting of Vance, Coyne, Hulsebus and
Gordon—to work out details of the sale of photos. Committee was formed by unanimous vote. This committee will make decisions soon, due
to the fact the MBAA Board does not meet in July and August.
Fluri
reported the weather has not been cooperating this summer for tandem
rides. The ride in May was cancelled,
due to cold weather. The next ride will
be on Saturday, June 21 and will include the fund raising ride for Habitat for
Humanity in
Branch
reported the bowling tournament went well.
Some of the
Vance
brought a frame that is very attractive and he felt would be a good idea to get
in an 8 by 10 size to put a picture of an athlete and then give this to our
major donors. He felt this frame would
definitely be something a donor would display on their desk. He got this frame at T.J. Max for $6. He has not been able to find an 8 by 10 size,
but will continue to look. If he cannot
find an 8 by 10 size, the 5 by 7 size is also very nice.
Compliments
to Chuck for the pictures he took. Vance
commented that Chuck did an amazing job on the pictures and that we got our
money’s worth.
Vance
indicated he would begin putting the annual report together. Suggestion to contact John Kusku, the MBAA
athlete who ran in the Boston Marathon this year—and possibly have Kusku
highlighted on the front cover of the annual report. Hodges will have the financial report done by
the end of July.
Coyne
suggested we follow-up with Bill Welke’s
suggestion to create a $25 scholarship for SEC athletes who are not able to pay
the $25 to cover their USABA membership fee.
Sue indicated the Portage Lions Club has a fund which has in it $1000
which has not been used in several years.
She asked if the Portage Lions might be able to cover the $25 per
athlete. Coyne explained that if that is
a project which the Portage Lions Club was interested in, that the money might
be donated to the MBAA and ear-marked to assist SEC athletes in paying their
USABA membership fee. By doing this, the
donation could be used as match money and the Lions Club could, in essence,
double their contribution to the MBAA.
Sue will bring this up at the next Portage Lions Club meeting as a
possible project.
Wolf
indicated he would be in touch with Mary Lou Brooks and see if she would be
interested in helping to prepare the grant requests this fall. Hopefully she will assist. Either way, Wolf will take responsibility for
submitting the grant requests to Gilmore and Upjohn.
Meeting was
adjourned. Again, a
reminder that we do not meet in July and August. Our next meeting will be held on Wednesday,
September 10 at
Respectfully
submitted,
Sherry
Gordon, MBAA Secretary