Board Meeting Minutes

Minutes from Meeting - Dec. 8, 2008

PASCO Board Meeting Minutes   Time: 7:12

Board Members Present:

Peter Deane, Karol Hines, Bruce Roberts. Joel Klein, Mike Mayo, Larry Roberts

Regional Directors/Governors present:

Jay McDaniel

Old Action Items:

  1. Larry: Put PASCO promotion materials & static display best practices document materials on the web site so that anyone who wants to put on a static display can do so. Larry will put on website soon (needs to create a page to put them on.) -- Status: will be done by year end.
  2. Hans: Call John Volkover for help on the audit –Status: Not due until after the banquet. -- Status: Unknown
  3. Peter: Write the first monthly update for the website. -- Status: Will do over Xmas for January update
  4. Karol: Work to find a new editor to replace herself for Westwind. -- Status: Joel will talk with Joy Pierce, who has expressed interest
  5. Peter: Email NCSA pres. to find out status of Byron airport plan - - Status: Not done -- will do over xmas
  6. Peter: Mail printed material to site champions - Status: Partially done – electronic copies sent. Made 100 double-sided copies of PASCO “where to fly” sheet, mailed to Eric Rupp for Salinas show.
  7. Ramy: email membership list to both Peter and Hans -- Status: Not done.
  8. Hans: to find out how to get Peter as a signatory, and get him bank material and info. -- Status: Not done.
  9. Hans: Tax filing and Audit to be completed by Dec. 31st. -- Status: Unknown.

New Action Items:

  1. Peter: send paginated version of Westwind to Hans as soon as he can
    Peter: send larry PDF version of Westwind as soon as he gets it from Karol
  2. Larry: put new phone conference number on the web site
  3. Peter: do overview presentation for NCSA, BASA & Williams in 2009 (Internal membership communication)
  4. Peter: talk to Ty about managing membership drive with Karol's idea: "Recruit a new member and get a years membership in PASCO for free."
  5. Larry: contact Ty to see if we can update bad emails for some PASCO the members.
  6. Joel: contact Joy Pierce and see if she's truly interested in editing Westwind
  7. Joel: work with Peter to come up with designs for PASCO "spiritwear", t-shirt or cap
  8. Larry: check "hits" on PASCO website and report back
  9. Larry: add 2008 Seminar presentations to web site
  10. Peter: contact Eric Rupp to see if he will be Promotions Chair
  11. Peter: contact Fred LaSor about being Safety Chair
  12. Mike: put together proposal/ideas for cross country community & network building event(s) in lieu of the Cross Country Seminars.

Treasure’s report – Hans Weersch

  • Audit update - none yet
    Peter: End of year financial review report is what Hans presented at banquet.
  • Larry: Peter's presentation is on the website board section, which includes the financial review under "Minutes" link from the annual meeting.

Banquet wrap-up – Bruce Roberts

  • Lessons learned:
  • Peter: It was a success, though spent too much time fixing AV problems. Next year we need an AV volunteer. Next year we will go back to hotel format, and start earlier the whole process earlier. 
  • Attendance
  • Peter: about 80 people attended.
  • Costs
  • Bruce: Initial estimate would be that it would cost $2,000. Final cost approx $2800; includes library & museum, food & rental (about $400) of china & tablecloths; & coffee in am. Full report due at next board meeting.
  • Peter: Need a new venue for the future; we've outgrown the aviation museum.

 

Membership Update - Ty White (as emailed to Peter)

PASCO Membership Report as of 7 December 2008:

PASCO Membership History

Category

11/1/97

11/1/98

11/1/00

11/1/01

11/1/02

5/1/06

10/1/07

12/1/08

Individual

302

292

280

276

276

272

214

216

BASA

47

65

67

60

60

72

71

65

NCSA

61

55

47

44

50

59

57

67

Total

410

412

394

380

386

403

342

348

Statistics on current membership:

  • 348 total current members
  • 36 memberships activated in past 12 months
  • 290 members from CA = 83%
  • 42 members from NV = 12%
  • 246 members receive only e-Westwind = 71%
  • 38% of our members renewed in 2008 with NCSA or BASA
  • Peter: Total membership is up by 6 from last year: 348 total.
  • Individual membership is down by 30% since 10 years ago. This is one reason we need a Promotions Person.
  • Attracting new members (banquet/seminars)
    • Karol: How about a membership drive for new members -- perhaps we could give an incentive, something like "Recruit a new member and get a years membership in PASCO for free"? We need to get the people at Williams who are new to soaring or the region in the past 5 to 10 years who aren't members.
    • Peter: need to follow up withTy to see if we can get correct email info for those members whose addresses bounce (only about 10 total).
    • Peter: Should we have some PASCO t-shirts / "Spiritwear"?
    • Joel: will do design, working with Peter

Communications

a. Website Updates – Larry Roberts

  • Larry: Needs material for website.
  • Karol: Do we have links to the local yahoo groups on our site? Larry: Just for our group.
  • Karol: Lots of info gets posted on Hollister web site, Truckee in the summer. We could put links into our page
  • Peter: How do the "hits" look on the site?
  • Larry: Will check.
  • Peter: Need to add the 2008 Seminar presentations to web site

b. WestWind Update – Karol Hines

  • Karol: Westwind now at 40 pages. Will be 44 when done. Will include junior scholarship; Larry can add that to web site later.
  • Peter: Awards need to be explicitly mentioned in the newsletter:  Publish awards in West Wind – Flight, Exceptional service, Les Arnold
  • Karol: Will be off to Peter tomorrow night. 44 pages!
  • Peter: Will do the PDF conversion and get it off to Hans.

Winch progress - Marc Ramsey

  • Peter: Apparently there may be some  Alameda options--Auto towing to a limited height. The site is near by to both Marc & Paul, the principal ground launch drivers. Will have to wait and see what is possible there.

 

PASCO Director positions – Peter - All

Officer selection

  • Peter: This is where we ratify the new board, which we took care of in the last meeting in October.
  • Plus, we have two remaining committee chairs still to fill: Safety & Promotions, and still trying to find editor to replace Karol.
  • Motion: Moved that all members will continue in their current capacities.

Promotions

  • Peter: Promotions is a tough one to fill. Peter went through the whole PASCO roster to match abilities/interests. (Joel volunteered to assist whoever becomes the promotions chair as " #2 ".)

Safety Chair

  • Discussion re candidates – Fred LaSor to be contacted by Peter

Westwind Editor

  • Discussion around characteristics of a good candidate- the Westwind editor should be excited about the idea of being the voice of the region's soaring community. The editor has to care about facilitating regional communication, and understand its importance. Discission around potential candidates - Joel: Will contact initial candidate(s)

 

Goals for next year - Peter - All

Review & Refine

  • Fill all the board & committee positions
  • Increase activity of site champions (through promotions chair)
  • Increase air-show promotions: 3 to 4 air shows per year. with volunteers & glider.
  • Larry: Need to plan far enough ahead.
  • Peter: will do Half Moon bay every year. Salinas is good. Maybe Travis airshow,  something near Sacramento.
  • Increase use of the private pilot glider support program.
  • Peter: need to draft a letter to send to each of the FBO's and clubs with copies to the site champions so we can start spending this scholarship money and get more visibility.
  • Consolidate FAA relationships. Build on good relationships to date. People in mind: Rolf & Karol
  • Get Westwind back to punctuality.  It's got to go out in March & September.
  • Website infrastructure upgrades: Not too much left to do at this point.
  • Improve on annual seminar & banquets again.

Discussion:

  • Peter: Is it time for the return of the Cross Country seminar? Is it missed since Carl stopped doing them?
  • Karol: Carl's purpose of doing the x-country seminars was more of an advanced course in flying x-country in the Great Basin.
  • Peter: (Paraphrasing Mike) There are two considerations: 1) Cross country training  & learning vs. 2) Cross country community & network building.  Which do we most want to facilitate? Maybe not a seminar, but some other kind of group activity? Mike to put a proposal together.

Contests:

  • Rex & Noelle want to have a regionals in June at Montague at the same time as Nationals. Truckee wants to have a regionals in August, Rumours about the desire for a regionals at Crazy Creek.

New Business

  • Motion passed to look into Panoche access cost support for PASCO members—the board reviewed the possibility of making a donation to help keep the Panoche field open for glider access. (both at the board meeting and in subsequent email exchanges between all board members) However the terms of the agreement between the landowner and HGC meant that it was not possible for PASCO members to gain access rights to Panoche from the donation so the donation was rejected.

Next meeting: Monday January 12th

  • Meeting adjourned at 9:04