FY 2017 Board Retreat

The annual board retreat was held Sunday November 13, 2016 at ST’s house.  Members present: Syrilyn Tong (ST), Mo Musick, Amanda Bent, Mindy Gallagher, Gary Pohl, Carrie Correia, Marina Day and Eli Sonafrank.

After preliminary coffee and mingling, we all sat down for introductions and a team-building exercise, then it was down to business.

History and overview of the library: Geared towards the 3 newcomers, a short presentation on JTEL, to include very informative histories on John Trigg, the Clausens’ cabin and Passive House was given by Mo and ST.

Committees, and specifically who wanted to do what, were then discussed, with the following division of responsibilities: ST: Finance and policy re-write.  Mo: Finance and business plan re-write.  Amanda: volunteers and memberships. Mindy: Finance and finance portion of policy re-write. Gary: Facilities and grants. Carrie: garden part of Facilities and policy re-write.  Marina: policy re-write. Eli: Facilities.

Marina stated that she knew of a fundraising workshop, but couldn’t remember the details. She later advised that it was the Gail Perry workshop sponsored by United Way of the Tanana Valley, which was held Wed. November 16, 2016. She attended and the board later voted to pay for her registration fee of $50.

Annual goals: The overriding goal was to get the Clausen Cabin up and running. Remaining work was to finish sheetrocking, taping, painting, install the subfloor, flooring, building the handicapped ramp, and fixing the roof (small leaks around the openings). At some point, the water system will also need to be looked at, but not required for a functioning building and was tabled for now.

Grants/fundraising: Since the priority was Clausen, the majority of the grant-seeking was geared towards that end. These were the grants discussed and the projects the proposals would be written for: GVEA’s GoodCents – Clausen roof project. Sam’s Club – new laptop for finances.  Co-op Lend-a-hand – programs. Deirdre was to continue looking at the Paul Allen Foundation for major funding for the Passive House Phase II. Grant donors would be recognized by publicity, and depending upon amount, a plaque on the walls of the library. Giving Tuesday, a national event to encourage generosity, was given the go-ahead for Deirdre to write up donation requests to fund JTEL, since there was so little time to actually do anything for the event (Nov 29).

Annual budget: The majority of the budget went towards mandatory functions (utilities, insurance, rent, etc), with discretionary funding for Clausen projects.

At the conclusion of the retreat, we moved into a short meeting.