Austin Cycling Association

Board of Directors meeting minutes for July 2010

Wednesday, July 28, 2010

recorded by Sandy Raphel, ACA secretary

Location: Bike Texas headquarters, 1902 E. Sixth St., Austin, TX.

Present: Gilbert D. Martinez, Monica Leo, Eileen Schaubert, Tommy Eden, Michael Portman, Fred Meredith, Patti Hill, Pete Dahlberg, Sara DeShong-Baker, Stanton Truxillo, Susie Truxillo, Gary Holliday, Tom Wald, Sandy Raphel

ACA President Gilbert D. Martinez began the board meeting at 6:31 p.m.

Voting item 1: Approval of the board meeting minutes from the previous month’s meeting. Gary Holliday made a motion to approve the minutes for June, with a correction regarding the booklet Eileen is working on. Stanton Truxillo seconded the motion. The motion carried, with Monica Leo abstaining.

Voting item 2: A proposal to increase Sara DeShong-Baker’s hours from 10 to 20 hours per week. Stanton Truxillo made a motion to increase Sara’s hours, to 20 hours maximum per week, which would be effective Aug. 1, with the expectation that the board will create and prioritize a task list for Sara’s increased duties; the board would commit to that rate until the end of the year, at which time it would be reviewed again. Eileen Schaubert seconded the motion. The motion carried unanimously. Sara requested that the board members begin tracking their volunteer hours, as that information is needed for any grant requests. Sara is interested in helping Gary with the budget and Susie with membership duties, as well as creating a membership survey. She is also interested in possibly doing grant writing for ACA.

Discussion item 1: The status of the 2011 candidates. Gilbert Martinez has been contacted by several people who are possibly interested in running for the vacant positions. ACA membership will be notified of the vacancies in the August newsletter, and it will be posted on the website. Any candidate running has been requested to send Fred Meredith a brief bio and a head shot for Southwest Cycling News.

Discussion item 2: Finding volunteer coordinators via social cycling. Sara DeShong Baker has several contacts who are possibly interested.

Discussion item 3: A proposal from the Alliance for Climate Change. Stanton Truxillo will be doing further research on the organization, to be discussed at a later board meeting.

Discussion item 4: The ad hoc committee to help make ACA's finances more understandable to board members. The committee members were Gary Holliday and Tommy Eden. Gary told the board members to feel free to go to him with any specific budget requests or questions.

Discussion item 5: The “Ask a Question” feature on the website. Gilbert advised the board that the feature has now been turned off by the web team because the forum was not being maintained. Patti Hill will be following up with the web team in order to gain access to the forum and said questions.

Discussion item 6: The status of ACA’s involvement with the Wurst Ride. Susie, Stanton, Sara and Fred will be representing ACA. ACA will have a rest stop at the ride, Susie will organize all rest stop support, and Fred will organize SAG support.

Discussion item 7: The proposed Art in Public Places David Byrne bicycle racks. Annick Beaudet of the City of Austin wants to schedule a meeting to discuss more details. Gilbert will get more information and get back with the board.

Discussion item 8: The 2011 Easter Hill Country Tour. Stanton Truxillo would like to get the word out early about the ride and volunteer requirements. They will be looking for a publicity chair volunteer. Stanton is also looking for a volunteer with basic html skills to help update the website. Patti Hill will ask her contacts and put the request in the e-newsletter.

Vice president’s report: Monica Leo reports that the August meeting will be held at Whole Foods downtown, with a panel of people whose jobs are on their bikes. The “My Bike is My Office” panel will consist of pedicab drivers, bike messengers, and food deliverers. The September meeting location is still to be determined, and the October meeting will be reserved for TxDOT.

Treasurer: Gary Holliday handed out several financial reports, including a P&L statement, monthly financial tracking, and an A/R aging summary. Gary made a motion for ACA to cover the cost of tax preparation for the filing of the 2008 and 2009 tax returns, not to exceed the amount of $1500. Michael Portman seconded the motion. The motion carried unanimously.

Legislative Liaison Committee: Tommy Eden reported that there was no meeting this month.

Ride director: Greg Ritter did not attend the meeting but sent his report to Gilbert. He reports hosted rides and classic rides are doing fine. He reports that in the near future, he will encourage ride leaders to offer some more casual, social type rides.

Membership: Susie Truxillo could not report current numbers due to the database being updated. She will send the numbers out to the board members as soon as she is able to generate that information.

PR/Communications: Patti Hill reports that the e-newsletter has 3,434 subscribers and the July issue had an open rate of 1,012 (34%), with the highest number of clicks being for the Austin Cycle Camp promotional offer. The ACA Twitter account has 664 followers, is following 496, and has posted 917 tweets.

Southwest Cycling News: Fred Meredith reminded everyone that the deadline for the next SCN issue is Aug. 15.

Yellow Bike Project: Pete Dahlberg reports that there are new coordinators in training, which will make more hours available in the coming months. There have been a few break-ins at the new facility, and collective members have been forced to install alarms. He also reported that the Earn a Bike program is back, with 20 to 25 people now in that process. He also asked for any input from ACA for the YPB newsletter.

Tom Wald announced that LOBV will be having a benefit ride on Aug. 7 and encouraged everyone to get on the LOBV email list, if they have not already done so.

Stanton Truxillo made a motion to adjourn the meeting. Gary Holliday seconded the motion. The meeting adjourned at 8:51 p.m.

ACA Board of Directors meeting minutes for June 2010

Wednesday, June 30, 2010

recorded by Sandy Raphel, ACA secretary

Location: Bike Texas headquarters, 1902 E. Sixth St., Austin, TX.

Present: Gilbert D. Martinez, Monica Leo, Wes Robinson, Eileen Schaubert, Tommy Eden, Michael Portman, Fred Meredith, Sandy Raphel

ACA President Gilbert D. Martinez began the board meeting at 6:52 p.m.

There was one voting item on the agenda: Approval of the board meeting minutes from the previous month’s meeting. Wes Robinson made a motion to approve the minutes for April and May, as circulated on the board list. Monica Leo seconded the motion. The motion carried unanimously.

Discussion item 1: Weekly Monday board conference calls. Greg Ritter suggested putting the calls on hold for now, to be revisited in the future, as things have slowed down after the Armadillo ride. The board email list was also discussed, with Tommy Eden suggesting that board members reply only to those needed in personal email discussions. Gilbert Martinez agreed and made a friendly request to the board as such.

Discussion item 2: The intentions for 2011 board candidates. Currently, the board vacancies are as follows:

President: Gilbert Martinez intends to run again.

Vice President: Monica Leo does not intend to run.

Secretary: Sandy Raphel does not intend to run

Treasurer: Gary Holliday intends to run again.

Legislative Liaison Chair: Tommy Eden intends to run again.

Ride Director: Greg Ritter does not intend to run again.

Membership Chair: Susie Truxillo; still to be determined.

Education Chair: Wes Robinson; still to be determined.

PR/Communications Director: Patti Hill does not intend to run.

At Large (LOBV): Eileen Schaubert; still to be determined.

At Large (Bike Texas): Michael Portman intends to run again.

At Large (Yellow Bike Project): Pete Dahlberg; still to be determined.

Discussion item 3: Letters to TxDOT. Eileen Schaubert made a motion that ACA write a letter to TxDOT thanking them for some of the recent bike facility projects. Wes Robinson seconded the motion. The motion carried unanimously. Eileen will draft the letter, send to Gilbert and send to the board for final approval before distribution and publication in SCN.

Discussion item 4: Website training for other members of the board. Joel Schaubert and Monte Morast will be training other board members interested in learning the new website. Gilbert will look at dates and times for a training class sometime in July. Fred Meredith would like to learn how to transfer information from SCN to the website and from the website to SCN.

Vice president: Monica Leo reports that the July meeting will be an ice cream social held at Bike Texas. The August meeting on “My Bike is My Office” will be held at Whole Foods.

Treasurer: Gary Holliday was unable to attend the meeting but reported 
that ACA has had two good months and now has a net income of $3,154 for the year through May. We also have approximately $35,000 in the bank. June will definitely show a net income. This is despite writing off $6,982 of uncollectible receivables, primarily from Bike Month in 2009.

Armadillo Hill Country Classic: Susie and Stanton Truxillo were unable to attend the meeting. ACA will need a ride director for 2011.

Education director: Wes Robinson reported TS 101 Classes were held on June 25 and 26. Wes and Doug Ballew have scheduled a Youth Instructor Seminar on July 31 at the Dell Children’s Medical Center and have scheduled another class for Oct. 23. The ACA web team has updated the Education Classes web page to provide summaries of all of ACA’s current education offerings. ACA provided 85 helmets to the Austin YMCA for three youth events planned for this summer. ACA also received a thank-you note from Allan Elementary School for a helmet donation toward their Coordinated Approach to Child Health program. LAB is currently working to coordinate a LCI seminar in Austin in the September time frame. Although the details remain to be worked out, anyone interested in becoming an LCI who has not yet completed the TS 101 training should register and attend the class soon.

Legislative Liaison Committee: Tommy Eden reported that the TxDOT Bicycle Advisory Committee met June 29 and is looking at the City of Austin Complete Streets program. The federal government is requiring improvements at the state level. On the city level, lots of new bike lanes, part of the new bicycle plan, are being implemented. The Bicycle Advisory Committee will now be meeting quarterly.

Ride director: Greg Ritter reports that the hosted rides are well-attended. He has been receiving emails regarding road construction. Greg hopes to have more social rides/activities for the summer months.

Membership: Susie Truxillo could not attend the meeting but reports 1,213 memberships, 202 being supplemental (87 individual and 35 household), for a total of 1,415 members.

Southwest Cycling News: Editor Fred Meredith reports that things are going smoothly. Wes Robinson has requested that Fred send him some of the archived educational articles for the website’s education page.

Yellow Bike Project: Liaison Pete Dahlberg was unable to attend but reports that NCD and CAMPO are working on a five-county regional bike map, to follow shortly behind the new local map. They will be putting out a rough draft of the regional road ratings, similar to the red, blue, green system of the current local map. Pete will let us know when this is up on the web and wants us the spread the word to the ACA members and anyone else who knows the roads around Austin.

Eileen Schaubert is working on creating a booklet on cycling street smarts, which will be modeled after the guide “Street Code for NYC Cyclists.” Gilbert Martinez will be the copy editor, and Pete Dahlberg will be contributing content.

Eileen Schaubert made a motion to adjourn the meeting. Wes Robinson seconded the motion. The meeting adjourned at 8:22 p.m.

ACA Board of Directors meeting minutes

Wednesday, April 28, 2010

recorded by Sandy Raphel, ACA Secretary

Location: Bike Texas, 1902 E. Sixth St., Austin, Texas

Present: Gilbert D. Martinez, Wes Robinson, Stanton Truxillo, Susie Truxillo, Gary Holliday, Eileen Schaubert, Tommy Eden, Fred Meredith, Sara Deshong-Baker, Michael Portman, Greg Ritter, Pete Dahlberg, Sandy Raphel

ACA President Gilbert D. Martinez began the board meeting at 6:34 p.m.

There were no voting items on the agenda.

Agenda discussion item 1: Adventure Cycling Association’s initiative to create a U.S. bicycle route system. Should ACA support? Does the board support the effort?

Stanton Truxillo made a motion to support Adventure Cycling’s effort to develop a U.S. bicycle route system. Greg Ritter seconded the motion. The motion carried unanimously.

Since a donation from Austin Cycling Association would be difficult at this time, Stanton made a motion to add a paragraph to the website and e-newsletter with a description of the effort and a link to the Adventure Cycling website. Gary Holliday seconded the motion. A friendly amendment was made to allow Gilbert Martinez to draft the description. Stanton accepted the friendly amendment. Gary seconded. The motion carried unanimously. Wes Robinson suggested using Facebook and Twitter to send out the message as well.

Agenda discussion item 2: Developing a policy to handle requests for helmets, as well as a specific request from Keith Byrd with Social Cycling Austin. The request is for adult helmets in exchange for volunteers at ACA events.

Wes Robinson volunteered to draft a policy for helmet requests and send to the board for suggestions and discussion at the May board meeting. Any suggestions should be sent to Wes before the next board meeting. Keith Byrd’s request for a few helmets in exchange for volunteer time was discussed. Eileen Schaubert suggested creating an adult rodeo/education event and utilizing the volunteers. Michael Portman offered to underwrite 100 adult helmets for Austin Cycling Association. Eileen and Michael will work together on the details and discuss at the next board meeting.

Vice president’s report: Monica Leo was unable to attend the meeting and sent the VP report via email. The main items from the report: The ACA May general membership meeting will be a hosted ride from the Waterloo Ice House on Burnet Road. The June meeting will have Annick Beaudet as the featured speaker with the proposed location of either Zilker Hillside Theater or Waterloo Park. Monica has commitments from volunteers for 18 breakfast stations for Bike to Work Day. The costs were low this year. ACA’s cost for updating and erecting the street banner was $325. REI is covering an additional $300 of the cost. A group of volunteers has requested $50 to help cover the cost of food. Monica will send an article to be posted on the website, with a link to the city bike map with breakfast stations marked on the map.

Treasurer’s report: Gary Holliday handed out copies of the P&L statement, balance sheet and financial tracking document. Gary reports $14,576 in the account, after the T-shirt order; $6,982 was also written off. Contributions from membership are falling but are projected to come back up next month, with the Armadillo Ride. Patti Hill has done an excellent job has by getting more commitments for contributions to ACA and the Armadillo Ride this year.

Armadillo Hill Country Classic report: Stanton Truxillo, Armadillo co-chair, reports that we might need volunteers for backup delivery drivers and rest stops. In case of bad weather, we might need a backup SAG, and he will inquire about a standby school bus. Mellow Johnny’s will have a coffee truck at the ride start in the morning. Stanton reports 292 registered riders as of the day of the board meeting.

Education report: Wes Robinson, education director, reports that the Education Committee did not meet in April but is scheduled to meet May 12. On the agenda, they will be developing the Bicycle Diversion Program, offering the classroom portion of Traffic Skills 101 via the City of Houston’s website, www.bikeed.org, and Spring Youth Instructor/Skills Instructor courses. TS 101 April 16 and 17 classes were canceled. Sessions on April 23 and 24 had two classes, held at Mellow Johnny's and REI Gateway. TS 101 classes will be held on May 14-15, May 21-22, June 18-19 and June 25-26.

Legislative liaison’s report: Tommy Eden reports that the Legislative Liaison Committee has been reviewing the results from the City of Austin’s efforts to comply with its Complete Streets Policy. The committee found that it has been compliant. Tommy would also like to see more ACA representation in meetings.

The board requested that Tommy draft proposed recommendations for the bike boulevard and circulate before the next board meeting. The recommendations will be discussed at the May meeting.

Ride director’s report: Greg Ritter reports that he needs more help with Classic Rides. He also reports that the Bikenanza fundraiser and bike show was a big success with 17 bikes entered and 40 people attending the event. Greg will also be planning a Food Ride; details to follow.

Membership report: Susie Truxillo reports 1,029 individual members, including 43 new memberships from people signing up for the Armadillo Ride. Family memberships bring the total to 1,229. Susie reports that the trend seems to be going from households to individual memberships.

Southwest Cycling News report: Fred Meredith requests that contributions and content for printing be sent to him when they are ready. Please do not wait until the deadline. Fred reports that he has been producing page proofs.

Web team report: Eileen Schaubert, reporting for the web team, says more content and articles are needed for the website, as are more people with the ability to enter items on the site. Seventeen bike shops will be giving 20 percent discounts on helmets for Bike Month, with links to the shop being added to the website.

Yellow Bike Project report: Pete Dahlberg reports that the ribbon-cutting ceremony was held on Wednesday, April 28. The grand opening of the new headquarters will be on Saturday, June 1. On the day of the festivities, YBP, in conjunction with the Austin Public Library will host a Bike-in Book Swap at the Terrazas Branch Library. In the afternoon, Austin Bike Zoo will parade from the library to the grand opening festivities.

Wes Robinson made a motion to adjourn the meeting. Gary Holliday seconded the motion.

The meeting adjourned at 8:41 p.m.