Minutes
Following are the minutes of the Officers' Meeting, which went three hours (whoa). If you have any questions, or want to make any suggestions or requests of the club, please see the Officers page and contact the appropriate officer for your inquiry.
Club Direction - Year 2 - Rhonda is very excited about the start of the COC's second year. With all the new officers and event leaders, she feels that the club is evolving wonderfully, and the club will only continue to get better. She thanks each of these fine people who has stepped up to help with running things.
- Officer Titles, Jobs, Duties: Rhonda asked each officer to review their title, job, duties, etc, and confirm that they're still happy with what they're doing. Everyone is happy with their job, and the only change made is that Steve is going to take on the Legal Coordinator position.
- Theme Photos: Jerry and Holly, and then Jerry and Rhonda, had prior conversations about doing "theme" photos of the officers, and swapping them in/out at specific times (ie. perhaps cowboy photos around Stampede time). Jerry and Holly are going to follow up on what our first "theme" may be, and try to have something for the Anniversary Party that we can work with.
- Voluntary Donations: There have been some concerns voiced by people who attend events frequently that it's costing them a lot of money to participate. The group decided that we would add info to the web site, and also announce when requesting donations, that once a person has paid $20 for the year, we do not expect them to donate anymore for the rest of the year. We are going to continue pursuing some kind of corporate sponsorship and other opportunities to eliminate voluntary donations, which we rely heavily on to pay for club expenses. Rob is going to follow up with Kilkenny to see if they will give us sponsorship.
Events - Many of the officers have ideas brewing for events over the coming months. Following are a few of the ideas floating around:
- Rob: A "Stuff Your Sack" event in which people will prepare as though going out for a specific type of comprehensive event, and then get together to dissect and discuss the contents of their packs. This session will be educational for people, and a deliverable will be to update our checklist with any great new ideas discovered during the process.
- Rob: A "Mountain Biking Confidence Building" event in which some training will be provided for people to improve their technical skills on mountain bike. This event will possibly be held at COP.
- Rob: Also planning some canoeing, camping and hiking events.
- Holly: Has had suggestions to hire an instructor to teach cross-country skiing. The group decided that if/when possible, club members will provide some basic instruction on activities, but otherwise, we will refer people to the OPC, who run fine instructional programs. This type of information can also be included in newsletters.
- Holly: Backpacking trip in July or August; a Fernie weekend including Mountain Biking, and more hikes in planning stages.
- Jerry: Would like to do a beginner rock climbing event if a suitable co-lead can be found.
- Jerry: More disc golf and scrambles in planning stages.
- Jerry: Thinking about doing some kind of "mixed doubles" tournament or something, as a membership drive.
- Steve: Lots of hikes and some urban biking in the works.
- Steve: Idea for a two-day, one way hike in which two groups will start out from opposite ends of the hike. They'd meet up in the middle overnight, and then continue on, joining back up using the other group's vehicles. Cool idea!
- Scott: Lots of hikes and biking trips in the works.
- Rhonda: The usual offerings of inline skating and easy hikes (weekday hikes) coming up.
- Checklist/Rules: Rhonda reviewed the Leader Checklist with the group as many of the team are quite new to leading events and she wanted to ensure that everyone was familiar with all the processes and requirements. She also gave everyone a copy of the club Rules to review on their own time rather than walking through the whole thing during the meeting.
- River Clean-Up: We have the CAOC River Clean-Up volunteer drive in May posted as a COC event. We'd like to get 20+ COC members out to help with the river clean-up.
- Stampede Breakfast and Stampede Escape: Jerry and Rhonda had briefly discussed doing some kind of thing for the Stampede... perhaps a COC Stampede Breakfast in partnership with a Calgary store or something... or maybe an "Escape the Stampede" thing. We did not have an opportunity to discuss it further at this meeting, but will follow up soon.
- Swap Meet: We have had some suggestions to do a COC Swap Meet. We're going to aim for doing something at the end of the coming summer season, and if it's a success, we'd like to do them in spring and fall on a regular basis.
Stuff - Rhonda had some extra waivers to give to the folks who will be leading events, as well as first aid supplies for Steve and Jerry. Need to get a basic kit for Cheryl.
- Rhonda offered to get event leaders floats for voluntary donations. Scott and Rhonda both have small floats; other leaders declined.
Web Site - Rhonda added a new feature to the web site today whereby member bulletin board postings which are things they're doing on a specific date show up on the club calendar. The group was quite excited about this addition, which was suggested by Philip Walters.
- The group requested enhanced "waiting list" functionality to be added to the web site which Rhonda will be working on asap.
- The Treasurer requested additional financial reports which Rhonda will be working on asap.
Other - We'd like to include a "Bear Safety" article in Jerry's magazine. Rhonda and Rob will co-write this article.
- Cheryl will be organizing and leading regular Ethnic Dinner events on the third Wednesday of each month.
- Jerry will lead a Dim Sum event for the club.
- Cheryl suggested that the club pay Rhonda back for the club start-up costs, which cost her approximately $300 out of pocket. Rhonda will be taking this money back in $100 installments as funds are available.
- Cheryl to look into getting bumper stickers printed up for the club that we can sell.
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