Meeting Minutes for December 2007 Board Meeting
Date: 12/3/07
Time: 6:30 pm
Location: The Common Man, Concord NH
Attendees : Bruce Smith, Alan Legerlotz, Paul Michali, Dana Sion, Michael Morin, Martin Callahan, Gordon Geick, Dick Cadieux.
Meeting was called to order at 7:00pm.
Bruce started the meeting with Cassandra’s report (emailed in because she could not be here this evening). Her note indicated:
“SEC Update (12-3-07)
The main focus of the SEC at the moment is the Holiday Party (1-26-08).
Approximately 20 people have registered for the event. There will be two
more e-blasts going out before the event - one this month and another in
January.
3-D Auto has confirmed and paid for a Holiday Party Sponsorship at the 5-Series
level ($1,500). There are a few other potential sponsors (Concord Motor
Sports is one such potential) that are reviewing and seriously considering
sponsorship. Additionally, VSR and Guitar World have donated items - VSR
donated the Art Car and Guitar World the microphones to be used for the
entertainment. Guitar World's donation has assisted in reducing the cost
of the event by approximately $500.
The estimated net cost to the chapter is roughly $5k, and does not include
potential sponsors.
Once the Holiday Party has passed, the focus will be on the events for
2008. One such event is the Go-karting. The idea is to have a
full-day (8 hours verses 3 hours), and will be working with DEC to determine a
date that does not coincide with a DEC event. This needs to be done asap
as the venue is selling out Saturdays quickly.
Some other events being reviewed: Susan G. Komen's Ultimate Drive,
Wine-Tasting, Road Rally, performance event (i.e., opera, ballet etc),
dealership event around arrival of 1-Series and M series.”
People were very excited about the 3D Sponsorship and the possibility of others. There are 27 registrants for the holiday party already. 3D will be donating prizes for the holiday party and the Euro Depot is donating the use of a steering wheel for use by the entertainment.
Dana mentioned that we have been rebuilding a relationship with Tulley and suggested that we continue doing that. This quite important because people feel that Ira is not doing much with us since they acquired Holloway BMW. Someone suggested talking with Mini of Peabody about some sponsorship for us. Even though they are in Mass, we have no dealer in NH, so we don’t want to step on Boston’s toes, but if they’re willing to sponsor us too, we’d like to talk to them.
Paul asked about sponsorship for the holiday party and what the sponsors get with respect to the web site. The flier said Web Site and Profile, so we want to make sure we’re doing right by them. The calendar will be updated to say that the party is sponsored by 3D. A suggestion was made that we give 3D the option of bringing the race car and parking it at the entrance.
Membership is up to 710 (net +13 members this month). If we grow by 4% in terms of membership numbers for the year there is about $500 of BMW CCA National merchandise we can for our use.
Next was the topic of Elections. Gordon was the only person at the meeting who voted in person, and he voted out loud for the exiting board. Dick motioned to close the polls at 7:24 and Al seconded. The vote was to accept. Winners are: Bruce 67 votes, Dick 66 votes, Alan 65 votes, Mike Dion 67, Bylaws were accepted with 67 votes. There were 68 voters total and all but 3 people voted on line. Martin suggested that Paul write an article about the election for the newsletter. Bruce mentioned that for next year we need to do better in terms of having the election planned earlier so we can make the profile dates and things to make it easier on everyone. Al suggested a calendar for the entire year and volunteered to put together a full calendar with all of those dates on it. He needs dates from (SEC, Profile, DEC, Board – including elections, meetings, etc…) and this can all be done electronically. About 500 of our members have email addresses, with about 40 addresses that are not current. If we get things in profile we feel that people should be able to get to the electronic materials.
Paul will still like to do a training session for people. Bruce suggested a January meeting with just the board and chair people and host the training session then. Gordon suggested that we get some people who might want to be more involved with the club to do web site things. Bruce will send out a note about this training and the business meeting.
Newsletter/webmaster conference is coming up in April. This happens every 3 years and Paul and Martin are the ones we recommend sending; Both Martin and Paul and interested in going. The venue is Salt Lake City, Utah. Martin and Paul can sign up when registration opens in January.
The schedule is Fri April 18th and Mon August 25th for the driver’s schools. ADSS dates will be Instructor day April 12th and Students April 13th for the April school and August 23rd. Street Survival would be good to have May 4rd or 11th with another instructor warm up day on the 3rd or 10th. Al will check with Bette on dates. Climb to the Clouds is a Mt Washington Hill Climb in September. We would like to do a Mini ADSS at some point, perhaps the weekend before the Minis on Top event (target around June 21st). Gordon will talk to Pete about this. We are still up in the air about the doing a “spouses and sprouts” or all women’s ADSS in September. We want to be able to do Gift Certificates for Christmas. We need to make tuition decisions so we can open registration for everything in February. We’re having problems getting enough instructors for ADSS. We’ve had a few people who have really come through such as Laura and Paul. Gordon has gotten some inquiries (about 5) to be instructors and we’ll use those people as much as we can. Cross club marketing continues with other clubs. The DEC energy has dissipated a bit and as a result Gordon is looking for more volunteers and is hoping that we can do some DEC business at the board meetings. We want to make sure that the board meeting is the board meeting and not the “bored” meeting where its all track events and those who don’t care don’t have to be involved with that part of the meeting. Something to think about is Gymkhanas and trying to expand the events we offer.
There was a motion to vote on the marketing director position description and it was accepted unanimously. There was then a vote on if Dana should fill the position, and the motion carried unanimously.
Bruce discussed profile costs and advertising fees. The profile is currently on a path to start costing us money if we continue at the same rate. We believe we need to be more aggressive about advertising rates and space. We need to cut cost or raise funds. Martin put together some figures. Total cost per issue is around $2898 and the basis is 24 pages per issue and 875 mailed copied. Cost per year for 6 issues is $17,388 – at 5 issues its $14,490. We get $10,800 from national so we need to make up the rest for the year or do better by making the profile pay for itself. We’re agreeing on publishing 6 issues per year. We will vary the number of pages based on the amount of ad space we’ve sold.
As new business, Tom asked (through Paul) whether or not we need insurance for this meeting. Bruce will check with National.
Al will look into business cards for the board members and other officers via vista print. Al volunteers to order the cards.
Dana has the online store ready to advertise.
The meeting was adjourned at 9:10 pm.