Board of Directors’ meeting minutes
Directors
present: John Hulsebus, Tyler Merren,
Mike Branch, Rob Wall Emerson, Richard Long, Frank Wolf, Tom Vance, Tom Coyne,
Richard Hodges and John Boes
Boes called
the meeting to order. Minutes from the
December 2008 meeting were approved as distributed.
Treasurer’s report. Hodges reported we
had received the $10,000 from the Gilmore Foundation. Hodges noted we may need to combine bank
accounts—Comerica is beginning to “nickel and dime us” on transactions. We have $4471 in savings and $24,258 in
checking for a total of $28,729.57.
Report was approved unanimously.
Boes
presented a funding request for the men’s goalball team to go to
Merren gave
a synopsis of his Paralympic experience in
Wolf
reported that he had looked up information on the Michigan Braille
Transcriber’s Fund. Last year, we had
received $4000 from the MBTF. Paul
Ponchillia is assisting Wolf in figuring out what is going on with this grant
request. Wolf is waiting to hear from
Paul, at this point. Wolf believes we
can get funding for next year; however, he is skeptical—with MBTF’s funding cycle—as to whether we can get any funding
for this year. Wolf also noted that
there is some type of an agreement which the Jackson Lions’ Club has with the
MBTF.
Coyne asked
the question—if a donation is utilized this year for match—we know that if that
same donation comes in next year, we cannot utilize that as match. However, could we utilize a donation made by
that source for the next year—therefore skipping a year? Hodges indicated that Gilmore’s effort is
directed at getting new money. So, he
does not know if skipping a year counts as new money. Gilmore’s intention is to have us continue to
get “new” money and eventually wean us off our dependence on Gilmore. Hodges indicated we could try going back to
Gilmore with such a request.
Boes
indicated we need to talk about budget.
Noted was that Gordon was going to check into the Michigan Department of
Education-Low Incidence Outreach (MDE-LIO) program—as a possible funding
source. Noted was the fact that a total
of $800 was received from MDE/LIO for athletes who attended the 2008 Youth
national Goalball Tournament.
Merren
indicated he may have a possible donation to the MBAA. The local chapter of the National Federation
of the Blind (NFB) has been working with the goalball tournament director. There will be a social event on one of the
tournament nights. The NFB has approved
up to $300 to be put toward this event.
Merren proposed that the NFB give this $300 to the MBAA—which would pay
for the cost of the social event—while the MBAA could utilize this $300 as
match money.
Wolf
brought up the possibility of creating an endowment fund. Vance indicated that getting folks to give to
an endowment is extremely difficult—since they are giving money to something
where only the interest is used—the money is not given to something which is
directly being provided. Vance also
indicated the Kalamazoo Foundation will not start an endowment fund with
anything less than $50,000.
Coyne
suggested the possibility that the BLS Department at WMU might consider picking
up the SEC as a regular educational program.
Rationale could be that over the period of several SECs,
you can definitely show great improvement in the skills of the athletes. Basically, if we did not need to spend money
on the SEC, the flexibility and longevity of the organization could be just the
way it is going. The “powers that be” at
WMU would need to look at the SEC as an educational activity in which they
would be engaged. Long commented that
although the SEC may be considered an educational opportunity, WMU would not be
able to fund raise for such a cause. Coyne
commented that if there was an annual campaign at WMU, where one of the funds
developed was a fund of money to run the SEC, this would be a more “salable”
fund raising platform. However, it would
need to be tied to the educational merits of the program. Noted was that it would be great if the costs
related to housing and food could be reduced as a portion of WMU’s contribution.
It was also noted that the “auxiliary enterprises” is a different entity
than are the educational services provided by the BLS Department.
Boes
asked what the actual cost of the SEC was.
Hodges reported that for last calendar year, the amount expended for the
SEC was $18,000. As we look at the 2009
SEC budget, it is about $19,000. Hodges
noted that the projected cost for housing and food in the 2009 budget is the
same as it was last year; it is hard to believe that WMU will not be increasing
their costs somewhat.
Boes
asked how much we spent during our 2008 calendar year. Hodges reported we had spent 37,800. At this point, we have approximately $28,000
in our treasury. Boes
asked—“How are we going to adjust our allocations—or aren’t we?” At this point, we have all of our grants—with
the exception of the match money from Gilmore.
Discussion
ensued regarding possible options for addressing this funding deficit. One suggestion was to cut a percentage of
each program’s funding. Another
suggestion included seeing if we could get some “emergency” money from the
Kalamazoo Community Foundation and from the Michigan Braille Transcriber’s
Fund. Another suggestion was to ask each
group (SEC, goalball and bowling) how much they each felt they could cut
back. Suggestion to
contact the Portage Lions Club—since they had originally indicated they would
like to sponsor a project of some type.
If the Portage Lions gave money, this money would be match money.
Vance made
the motion, which was seconded by Merren, that each of the 3 groups (SEC,
goalball and bowling) be contacted and tell them they will be funded at 90
percent of their 2008 budget. Further
discussion ensued and the Board decided this figure should be that the MBAA
would fund each group at 80 percent of their 2008 budget. Therefore, this would give bowling $3200
(2008 amount was $4000); goalball would have $8000 (2008 amount was $10,000);
and the SEC would have $16,000 (2008 amount was $20,000). This motion passed unanimously.
Boes
asked Vance to contact the Portage Lion who asked him to speak, in order to
pursue the possibility of them making a donation to the MBAA. Boes also clarified
that with the $300 donation that the NFB plans to make to the MBAA—that this
money will be utilized to purchase pizza and soft drinks for the social event
Saturday night of the
Boes
announced that we will be having an MBAA Board meeting in February. The January meeting adjourned at this time.
Our next
MBAA Board meeting will be held on Wednesday, February 11 at
Respectfully
submitted,