Posted on by Rosa Esquivel

Executive Board Meeting Report – March 5, 2018

Meeting Started at 7pm

Pre Meeting Discussion (Hari, Greg not present)

  1. Vacant Publications Position
    1. President Janet Abelson appointed Hari Lamba to Vice President of Publications
    2. Hari Lamba can begin working on the newsletter and other duties
    3. Scott Lyons will assist Hari in the transition
    4. Background on Hari: Democratic Engineer that works on environmental issues on free time and has extensive experience with working for various non-profit organizations.
  2. Web Consultant Question

Quorum reached at 7:25 pm

  1. Call to order & Roll Call
    1. Members Present: Quorum present consisting of President Janet Abelson President, Executive Vice President Mister Phillips, Membership Vice President Champagne Brown, Treasurer Greg Lyman, and Records Vice President Rosa Esquivel, and Acting Vice President Hari Lamba.
    2. Members Not Present: Programs Vice President Paul Fadelli.
    3. Visitors: Past Presidents Scott Lyons and Peter Chau (joins at 7:36 pm via phone and later in person)
  2. El Cerrito City Council Conflict Discussion
    1. Greg will refrain from participating in program discussion in order to avoid conflict of interest.
    2. Potential council conflict areas can include: Prop 13 and/or Charter City.
    3. Programs will be moved to end of meeting so that Greg can leave and not be present during discussion.
    4. Loving Day discussion will only be on logistics so there is no conflict.
  3. Minutes of last executive board meeting were approved
    1. Mister Phillips and Scott abstained
  4. Treasurer’s Report
    1. Fourth of July booth applied
    2. Paid bill for Harding Elementary School event on 2/27/18
    3. Four new memberships
    4. Around $11,000 balance in account
    5. There have been no payments from the ECDC club to Jeff in the past
    6. Rent is paid on a monthly basis for regular club meeting location
  5. Web Consultant
    1. Jeff Koertzen, is excited to help us and Greg will reach out to Jeff as the Web Manager, Jeff will post items to website
    2. We prefer to hire Jeff as a consultant, it will depend on his status
    3. Greg will negotiate contract with Jeff
    4. Greg will share contract scope with board
    5. Working on negotiating a $2,000 contract with Jeff
    6. If there is no LLC, then we issue a 1099 as an employee
    7. Action: Greg will negotiate contract and determine IRS status
  6. Election of open positions
    1. Champagne pointed out that bylaws say that majority of voting club members can elect any member at any of the next meetings
    2. Another section of Presidential duties includes assigning and appointing members to any vacant positions
  7. Membership Report
    1. Champagne wants a database
    2. Champagne recommends Wild Apricot for tracking membership, website events and other activities, customer size 1000+, $70 month, free trial; However, Champagne is willing to see if Jeff can do something better
    3. Only issue with only online membership is that membership still likes personal membership and some still like to write checks
    4. We are still using Mail Chimp,
    5. Jeff needs current membership list, and expired membership list.
    6. We just need to be able to generate active membership list for each meeting so that we can check membership
    7. $40 per month for Wild Apricot software exceeds budget
    8. We have around 100 paid members right now and expecting 200 by August because of the endorsements
    9. Club membership fluctuates between 100-300 depending on elections
    10. Motion to ask club to approve bigger budget for membership software – on hold till next meeting – Cost is based on percentage of membership
    11. Champagne will continue to do research and work with Mail Chimp, Wild Apricot seems to be too expensive for the club
  8. Newsletter
    1. Scott might still be the website administrator
    2. Board voted on Newsletter items
    3. Next Deadline is March 12 (to Hari – Hari requested items by March 10th)
      1. Greg will alert Paul to get program items to Hari by March 10th
    4. Hari needs to print and mail items by March 17th to meet next deadline
    5. Paul has provided Program information for the next newsletter.
    6. Hari has received Paul’s content from candidate profiles?
    7. 15 members still want newsletter mailed to their house.
    8. Item 1: Preview upcoming Meeting: Janet and Paul will provide content information to Hari
    9. Item 2: E-board report: report back to club on board item discussions (from Rosa)
    10. Item 3: review of previous club meeting (see Rosa’s Notes)
    11. Item 4: club member submissions (i.e. Hari’s article, Resolution on the same, Peter Chau’s submission).
    12. Hari will send newsletter to Scott, who will figure out how to get it into the club website
  9. Website
    1. We should maintain historical link of previous club resolutions
  10. ECDC Platform
    1. ECDC platform activity is an off year activity
    2. Mister Phillips is part of platform activities; he advises working on these in 2019 to prepare for the next election
  11. The ECDC IRS status discussion
    1. We are a 501(C)4 organization as per IRS rules. We are a political organization. As a club should we have an EIN?
    2. We have to exceed $25,000 a year in funding before we have to register
    3. We do not have employees, and the answer was no to all IRS questions, as to whether we need an EIN
    4. We are a nonprofit, and we might need to get an EIN?
    5. 990EZ annual filing for IRS
    6. Action Item: Greg to find out if we need EIN and what an Employee is.
  12. Awards Storage
    1. Rosa is keeper of all club historical items
    2. She keeps for a year and donates to historical society
    3. She has to keep awards in a safe place for the club
    4. Dinner plates and club items
  13. Events
    1. El Cerrito High Cafeteria, we have not yet booked it, but Mister Phillips should request it for Saturday August 25th from 9am to 4pm for the endorsement forum –
      1. Confirm that our meeting has been calendared in the central database
    2. Paul is working on speaker forums for County offices for June timeframe.
    3. Next meeting in March, we will hear from county superintendents
    4. Loving Day – do we want a booth at the event?
      1. We need volunteers to be at the booth
      2. Event is around a Saturday around June 12th
  • Volunteer article to get volunteers
  1. County offices forum will be the 6th or 8th of March (we are invited to come to the West County Dems club)
  2. September Meeting
    1. Mister Phillips has to contact Superintendent
  3. We might need a walk campaign for June
  4. Greg to do volunteer article for all activities (walk, Loving Day, Fourth of July), respond to Janet Abelson
  1. Web Consultant
    1. Mister will work with Greg on Jeff’s contract
  2. Next General Meeting is 3/27 any other items?
    1. Hari’s Position
    2. Volunteers
  3. Next Board meeting is 4/2

Greg Lyman leaves meeting as planned as of 9:10pm.

  1. Program Discussion
    1. Affordable Housing
      1. David Chu’s proposal for zone change around BART stations
    2. October 20th looks good for October dinner.
    3. We still need a better venue; St. Jerome’s or St. John’s social hall are accessible, if not Kensington

Meeting Adjourned at 9:22 pm.