Board of Directors

Regular Meeting -- July 7, 2007

The Board of Directors held its regular monthly meeting at 2007 Bert Avenue, Austin, TX 78704, starting at 2:20 pm. The following directors (constituting a quorum of the full board) were present at the meeting: President Pam Latham (Oceanna), Vice President and Treasurer Pam Chambers, Secretary Kathy Lee, and Robert Gardner. Robert McGarey (Executive Director) was also present at the meeting.

Reading of Mission Statement and Approval of Minutes

The Mission Statement was read aloud at the beginning of the meeting. Minutes from the previous meeting were read aloud and approved.

VICE PRESIDENT'S REPORT

Grant Proposal. Pam reported that she has started working on a grant proposal for the Fentress-Brown Foundation, a local family foundation that we have been in contact with in the past. She is working on getting a grant to redo the back porch area.

EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR'S REPORT

New Board Member. Because of his interest and volunteer work here at the Center, it was unanimously

RESOLVED, that we appoint Robert Gardner to Place 2 on the Board.

Advertising. Bob announced that People's Pharmacy now is distributing bags with our ad on them. Lia and Oceanna took the lead in raising the money to fund this project, and the Board expressed appreciation.

Garage Apartment. Bob announced that he has been talking with Morgan Anderson, a friend of our current Artist in Residence, J. P. Smith, about being a Nonprofit Management Intern and living in the Garage Apartment. J. P. is moving to California on July 18th to study theater at UCLA, and so we have some space that might be able to be available for Morgan.

As an alternative, Oceanna has been calling around to obtain information about how much the standard fees are for renting art space, so that we might be able to convert the Garage Apartment into an art studio. However, she has left messages and no one has gotten back with her yet.

Bingo. Bingo continues to do well, brining in another $15K for the unit this month. However, it is all being saved in the unit's bank account to cover possible slow months in the future.

Trip to California. Bob said that his trip to Lake Tahoe did not net any donations, but did result in some wonderful connections that could be beneficial in the future. The conference he attended afterwards was very good, even though not many attendees were present. He did make some great re-connections with some of the presenters there, and hopes that he might be able to set up some sessions for them to meet with some of his clients here in Austin through video conferencing, which may be made possible by the faster computers that were recently donated to the Center, as well as by the faster internet connection that we had to establish with AT&T, since our current ISP, Speakeasy, was not able to service us any more.

Chrysler auto. Bob said that we still haven't received the title and registration from Kim Iberg for the car.

Membership. Bob asked again about his proposal to change our membership structure. The Board decided to table further discussion for next time, but did discuss several ideas for increasing membership, such as a more-established member acting as the sponsor for a new member, and having Open Houses.

Marketing. Robert Gardner talked about a new approach to marketing he is taking by placing an ad on Craigslist offering a free Tai Massage session to people who write him to tell him why they would like to have one. He said that approach will let people know who he is and what he does, and that we might be able to use the same approach to market some of our other services. Oceanna mentioned that maybe we could set up a class in Human Potential.

Dr. Gladys Project. Bob said that he asked Lisa Storment in California to help on this project, and she said she would, starting in September. She's the one who pulled together a Celebration for Bob's sister Analea and raised $25K for her, so Bob is really excited about what her help might mean for this project.

Since there was no further business, the meeting adjourned at 4:34 pm.

Minutes submitted by Kathy Lee, Secretary, July 7, 2007.