President’s Report - Minutes from the June 9 BAOC Board of Directors Meeting were not available and could not be approved. Evan formally welcome BAOC’s newest member, Max Lennon, born on August 26, to the club. BAOC was saddened to hear that member Pat Roth has been diagnosed with cancer. The club wishes her well.
Treasurer’s Report - George Minarik has redesigned categories in the club’s income/expense statement to make more sense. For instance, equipment now includes first aid kits (instead of their being in registration). Bottom line, everything is the same. George has included some proposed 1998 budget numbers on most recent income/expense statement. Contact George if anything seems out of line. Overall, we are little above budget for the year. Most of the overage is due to mapping (specifically Annadel). There will probably not be a handbook ($1600) this year. We still have a relatively large ($1200) equipment expense to cover new controls. The questionnaire still needs to go out. There are still $500 worth of map cases coming. Website reimbursements ($400) are yet to come. 52% of club expenses are due to mapping. 64% of clubs income is due to entry fees. An addition 16% is due to membership fees.
George has designed a new report that shows an income/expense recap for each event. Income includes everything collected at the meet. A discussion ensued regarding there being no income for the Bear Valley event. George proposed a new expense reimbursement request form. The request form includes a proposal for the Club Reimbursement Policies. Discussion of map copying ensued. A recommendation was made that the event director’s checklist include an item that says something about contacting the map director. Discussion about use permit fees and how negotiable they are went on. Questions about non-meet reimbursement expenses such as meet supplies came up. Some of these items will not have been in the budget. Resolution was to bring it up at the board meeting as soon as it is known so proper changes can be made in the budget. Evan suggested that maybe a standing budget committee be instituted to monitor special costs that come in. Questions came up regarding the “10 day after an event” guideline. Discussion ensued and the time was changed to 30 days. A motion was made, seconded, and approved to adopt club reimbursement policy with above amendment (30 days).
Budget Committee - Proposed budget needs to be in the Nov/Dec Bulletin and approved at the December board meeting. Committee includes Evan Custer, George Minarik, and Bob Cooley. Requests for directors should be sent into George by the end of September.
1998 Schedule - Scott Aster distributed a proposed schedule for 1998. He explained how he tried to schedule one B meet per month, and two events per month which alternate back and forth between north and south bay. Scott will be sending out a letter to all advanced folks looking for event coordinators. It was suggested that a column be added to the proposed schedule for “special” notes such as rogaines, father’s day, etc. Suggestion was made to look at ONA to make sure national events were not overlapped with. The question came up as to who decides the type of event (B-Meet, Score-O, Rogaine, etc.) It’s up to the event director with the approval of the event coordinator. Most good maps should have B-Meets. Events should not be widely publicized (web, net, bulletin) until an event director is identified. Scott is looking for directors.
Western states champs. - Tony Pinkham that progress is continuing. There will be remote starts on both days. First day there will be shuttles (two miles) to start area. GRB still have another 3.8 km. to walk. WYOBr have 1.5 km to walk. Courses are planned and vetted. Need help with shuttling people (especially if you have a van.) Bicycles can be used to get to the start/finish area. Still need help in the finish and results areas and coordinators for shuttles and clothing transfer. Late fee can be avoided by getting registrations in by Oct.8.
The membership questionnaire is ready to go out. The plan is to print it up, find someone to stuff it and then mail it out. Lisa Reily will do the computation. Plan is to go in the mail in the next two weeks. Content has been cut in half. Discussion was to whether or not put a stamp. Steve Beuerman will coordinate the stuffing and mailing of the surveys. Cost of postage for survey will be about $150. Suggestion was made to have extras available at an event and also to have a place to drop them off at the events.
Evan announced that there are now several open board positions. Allison Bennett is leaving as secretary. Several suggestions were made as to possible secretary replacements. Evan will follow up with some. Robert Lewis is leaving as Bulletin Editor in January. Stacy Robinson has agreed to take on the position. The Lennon’s are relocating to Maryland and are resigning as Web masters. Wyatt has agreed to take on webmaster spot. Dennis Wildfogel is interested in passing on the training directorship to someone else. Contact Dennis or Evan if you’re interested.
There was a discussion regarding proposed new board positions. The Permit & Insurance Director would be responsible for getting permits for all events. If someone would do it, it would be very useful. It would take some of the load off of both the event director and the event coordinator. Regional coordinators may be familiar with the local rules and politics. Give suggestions to Evan. The Outreach Director would take care of the monthly requests we get to give presentations, training, run courses, etc. Everyone was in agreement that this is an important part of the club. Nick Corsano said that youth outreach requests could be funneled through him. This would include the campfests, great outdoors fair, REI clinics, etc. Suggestion was made that the board should give guidelines to how to prioritize requests. Suggestions should go to Evan.
Mission Statement - USOF is putting together a mission statement for sponsorship reasons and as a clarification of their purpose (recreational vs. competitive.) What would be the purpose of BAOC having a mission statement. Discussion went on about the value of having a mission statement. General consensus was that current board is energetic and has a good feel of its mission. It was decided to not come up with a mission statement at this time.
Club Reorganization - Evan’s goal was to make it easier for some of the positions by regionalizing some functions. Publicity can really use a lot of help. Regionalized equipment would minimize some of the hassle with tracking and distributing the equipment. Event direction might also be regionalized due to the number of events. Question came up regarding regionalizing social director responsibilities.
Discussion went on regarding whether or not a separate Santa Rosa club should be established. A question came up regarding where maps would come from. Gary said that a lower quality map of urban areas and campuses would be used in the beginning. Several comments were made that there are not more meets done in the North Bay because there are not the folks that can run events. Comments were made regarding how difficult it is to find folks to run North Bay events. Wyatt mentioned that DVOA do a lot of “beginner” events (White and Yellow only) which help to draw new members and money. Allison mentioned that it would be nice to have an apprentice program for things like mapping. Consensus was that adding regionalized positions is a good idea but finding bodies might prove difficult. Doing anything with Santa Rosa will be put on the back burner.
Questions came up regarding what support we are giving to the Monterey Bay Orienteering Club. Wyatt said that their biggest need is to have people attend their events. George mentioned that they also need some technical expertise to show them how to do point-to-point courses. Wyatt will talk to them about what he might to do help them out.
Mapping Report - Bob Cooley - Will hold beginning mapping class. Wyatt made a small WY map of coyote hills. Bob is going to rework Calero. There is an extra square kilometer that could be mapped but would require a 15 minute remote start and a Red or Blue course to use it. Briones and Morgan territory are being redone with volunteer effort. Laser range finders are approaching $250. It may be time to buy one. Bob has started looking at getting permits for Sierra 2000 and have had some problems. Evan suggested that Gary Carpenter might be able to help with environmental impact statements.
Web Site - Late breaking announcements need to be posted by Tuesday prior to an event. Event directors need to send announcements to the Web masters. Cross links from other clubs are increasing traffic. Yahoo is bringing the most new visitors to the site. There is a lot of data available regarding site traffic that could be analyzed if someone chose to. We’re getting about 50 hits per day. Other suggestions will be given to Wyatt as the new webmaster.
Quick Start to Orienteering - Evan has a first draft. Suggestion was to use information on a bulletin board as opposed to a handout. Ev & Jean will make sure that they are in all the registration kits.
Finlandia - We need to get them a skeleton proposal as to what we might request. Steve Jankowski is working on it but has not yet sent anything out. Nancy is meeting with some of the folks from Finlandia this weekend. Wyatt described some areas that might be useful in an initial proposal. Wyatt also suggested that the board be involved in approving the skeleton proposal. Wyatt will focus on just the Jukola and Venla events
Publicity - Nancy said that flyers would be useful.
Membership - Add Youth Group activities and Outreach and social as volunteer areas.
Uniforms - BayOnet, Bulletin postings. Had some choices at Berkeley event. People voted on colors and fabrics. More people voted for stripes across the front than prior comments. Burgundy was slightly ahead of the green.
Equipment - Old bags are going away after Montebello. We have 100 Silva type and 60 of the new color blind friendly bags. After the A meet the bags will be split between the two equipment kits. The old controls can be used for practice sessions, outreach programs, etc.
Juniors - Looking at sources for new orienteers - Big Brothers/Sisters.
Monday October 6 there will be an Intermediate orienteering workshop in Oakland.
Registration - Should we put Montebello on the hotline. Thorsten said that it should go on the Website. It should also go on the hotline.
The next board meeting will be Tuesday, December 9 in Oakland.