Chicago Market Board Meeting
7/27/17
7 p.m. at Lakeview Pantry
Present:
Guests: Annette, Dana, Lee, Edward, Chris, Sarah, Katie
Board: Heather, Emily, Grant, Bill, Dan, Linn, Jen, Anthony, Kelly, Greg, Karen
Notes: Heather

Grant: Kudos to Emily for her hard work on the Owners meeting. And big thanks to Lee for doing a great job on IT; great use of Basecamp.
All, if you're going on vacation, please note it on the Board calendar, note how accessible you'll be and pass off critical tasks on your plate.

Bill: Presented finance report. Owner equity grew, as did cash in the bank. We're doing a good job of being sensitive to how we spend our money and price things out. Fiscal year ends June 30. Our Nationbuilder costs will rise as we keep adding emails, but the pop-up events will help generate revenue. 

Grant: Do we owe sales' tax on vendor payments?
Bill: I will research that.

Jen: Update on the MORE team. Team is having challenges because it's so large, scheduling problems. We've hit a funk, burnout, and we're working to address that. Hillary has started to take on more of a leadership role within MORE, taking minutes, scheduling meetings, etc. We're working on figuring out how to stay accountable internally while keeping workload manageable. It's still a work in progress.

Anthony: Outside consultants. As we get closer to site selection, we're going to want to engage professional marketing assistance. This will help recruit Owners. Anthony met with a prospective marketing agency that does media relations, advertising and strategic marketing (but not crisis p.r.) They're preparing a rate quote, on a graduated scale that rises as we get closer to opening. We've also asked two other marketing companies for their proposals. 
Grant: This is budgeted for in our pro forma.

Dan: Why not break up the MORE team so it's easier to handle?
Jen: It used to be siloed, but our goals all overlap, so that format didn't work well either. 
Anthony: We will likely break up into subcommittees. But it's really more efficient to have everyone in the same room (events, marketing, owner engagement, etc. )

Grant: Onboard process for new Board members. New Board members will be welcomed at the August Board meeting. Emily will need to follow up with the elected/non-elected after results are in on July 30. Grant will welcome new members to Basecamp, give them the background reading. Leadership Team will assign existing Board members to new ones to arrange a meeting with each one, to answer questions. Longer term, a buddy system/mentor relationship will be set up between veterans and newbies. 
Grant: We'd like to make the August meeting an hour longer, to include time for socializing and to give new members overview of major issues. August meeting will be on Aug. 30.
Anthony: We could give the new members modified media training, with information on our talking points and history. 
Greg: The goal for the August meeting should be that all new members leave the meeting engaged in some way, so they have a mentor and a project.
Bill: We should find out the interests of the new Board members and see where those fit on our committees.
Grant: This is also an opportunity to take a fresh look at our structure and responsibilities and see if things need to be restructured. 
Katie: You should list the open positions for each "bucket," and how many people each tasks needs. It makes it more concrete. 
Grant: The Board needs to hold officer elections, likely in September or October after new members are settled in. 
Karen: We need to immediately engage the people who did not win election. A Board member should contact them and see how they can get involved as volunteers. We often have Board seats open between elections as well. We don't want to wait a month to engage them or their enthusiasm will fizzle. 
(A bit of debate about how to notify candidates, and when, whether by email or phone or in-person, before or after election results are known.)
Emily will email all candidates ASAP, asking how they want to be notified of election results and telling them we want them to remain engaged regardless of the election outcome -- and that they should think about how they want to contribute. After the election, we'll set up face-to-face meetings with each one about volunteer opportunities. Bill is especially interested in meeting with these folks.