Minutes of the General Meeting of the Greater Phoenix Orienteering Club (GPHXO) Location: Boulders On Broadway, Tempe, AZ Date/Time: January 10, 2020 7-9PM Agenda ====== - Introduction - Establish Quorum - Info About The Club - Election of 2020 Officers - Reports: Treasury, Membership, Permits, Equipment - New Business - New Event Sites/Outreach/Important Upcoming Events - Summary and Adjournment Minutes ====== Note: in the following, the term "agreed" means unanimous approval by all Board members present. Ron Birks opened the meeting. A Quorum was established: we had 4 board members present, and 20 total attendees. General Info About The Club: - Ron spoke about Club Goals and the various types of orienteering events we offer. Election of Officers for 2020: - Ron Birks opened the floor for nominations of Board Members and Volunteer positions. There were no nominations or volunteers. - For 2020 the Board recommended that we keep the same set of Club Officers as in 2019. - Gary moved that the existing set of officers be re-elected "by acclamation." This motion was seconded by Forest and Erik. - The motion was voted for in the affirmative by all present at the meeting. - The Election was therefore concluded. - Results: President: Ron Birks, Vice-President: Glenn Haselfeld, Treasurer: Forest Brown, Secretary: Gary Hickey Volunteer Officer position appointees remain the same as 2019, except Sheryl Berling-Wolff is no longer managing our Membership list. We currently have three open volunteer officer positions: Membership, Advertising and Newsletter. Jill Kyle continues to serve as Publicity officer. Another important form of volunteership is the taking on of course setting and meet director duties. We currently have 21 course setters. This was an area of focus for us last year. We thank all these volunteers! You have enabled us to hold more events, and thereby fulfill our charter, which of course is to promote the sport of orienteering. In 2020 we will focus on giving more Beginner's Clinics. We are happy to see the upcoming clinic at Rio Vista park (Peoria) will be well-attended. We need additional volunteers to teach clinics. Old Business: Forest gave the Treasurer's report. The club has sufficient funding. There is $4587.60 in the Chase bank acct. There is $152.87 in the PayPal bank account. All monies from recent events have been deposited. Forest renewed the GoDaddy subscription. He paid the next 14 months of our storage facility. The only known large upcoming expenditure is the OUSA charter renewal, which will be approximately $1100. Gary gave the Secretary's report, which was merely to say last year's meeting minutes were approved and delivered to the club officers. Ron has archived them in the club's web-hosted electronic archive. Erik talked about Permits. As in previous years, he obtained the necessary permits from BLM and Tonto National Forest for our 2019 events. Erik recently got confirmation from the new contact at BLM that they will not require permits for events. Instead, we will be given a Letter Of Authorization (LOA), which is a more efficient process. Ron Birks handled permits for events held in the City of Phoenix, Maricopa County, Coconino Natl Forest and the US National Forest. Glenn handled permits from the National Forest Service in the Prescott area. Paul Kent is working on getting our permit for South Mountain once again. Erik also kept us up to date with insurance certificates. A new certificate needs to be obtained each year for each event site. Forest pointed out these certificates are available to us (and they are free) because we are a charter member of OUSA. There was no big news regarding equipment in 2019. Glenn will order some new bags in 2020 to replace damaged and old bags. New Business: Ron listed some new Event areas: new maps, etc. There is a fixed course at Rio Vista Park in Peoria (it may be new). There is a new fixed course being created at Papago Park's Hole-In-The-Rock, by an Eagle Scout candidate and Ron. This will replace the previous permanent course which was dismantled by the city. Further, we no longer can use the area near the archery range for clinics, due to expansion of the baseball facilities. There will be a new map and event in the Coconino Forest, north of Dead Horse Ranch, in March. And finally, Rich Ormond is creating a new map at Mingus Mountain, for an event to be held this upcoming June. We need volunteers to man our booth at the AZ Game and Fish Outdoor Expo Mar 28-29, 2020. Two volunteers per day. Gary volunteered to work a shift. Volunteers should contact Ron. The list of Beginner's Clinics was shown. We need additional volunteers to teach clinics. We discussed the three open volunteer officer positions: - We want an Advertising Coordinator who would create and distribute flyers, announcements, etc. We think this could be an effective way to reach people in Flagstaff who may not be aware of our sport and our club. - It would be nice to have volunteer to assume the Newsletter Editor position. - We need someone to manage the Club Membership. This includes maintaining a member database, sending out yearly reminders, and creating reports (such as a list of active members). It also includes sending the annual report to OUSA (Forest will take care of that this year). Ron set up a way for people to join the club online and pay via PayPal. We should have a membership system that is integrated with Paypal, our website and other tools. The database should have more capability than a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet, ideally. Forest looked at one membership system which was unacceptable. He also looked at Wild Apricot, which seemed promising. He will evaluate it further. Jack Kelly has been expanding and improving the electronic timing system he created last year. The system will be able to record each visit to a control. Course controls will have passive devices. Runners will carry active devices. Jack is adapting his tabulation and report software as well. Having electronic timing will be a huge benefit to our club. And, it will come at a huge cost savings over renting or buying a system. We thank Jack very, very much! The floor was opened for Questions and Answers. This was concluded quickly. Paul Kent noted the World Rogaining Championships will be held in the Lake Tahoe area this year, Aug 1-2, 2020. Dan Yamashiro is interested in forming a team to participate in that event. And, the US National Orienteering Championships will be held the week before in the Bay Area and near North Lake Tahoe. These will be big, well-organized events which will be very interesting for orienteers to attend or participate in. The Board thanked everyone for attending and participating. Additional suggestions can be sent to the club or to Board members via email, etc. These Minutes submitted for review and approval by Gary Hickey, Secretary, GPHXO, on January 14, 2020.