10-17-2007 Planning Meeting Minutes
SKI BUDDIES Planning Meeting Minutes: 17 October 2007
Address: Ski Buddies; P.O. BOX 20003; Seattle, WA 98102
Attendees
Mark Pollock, Chris Turcotte, Stuart Stoddard, Vincent Chau, Ray Blocknia, Cathy Jessup, Carl Wilson, Shilpen Patel, Fred Grant & Greg Snider met at Stuart’s & Vince’s place for our second planning meeting of the 2007-2008 winter sport season. Thanks for hosting us, gentlemen.
Agenda
- Publicity
- Potlucks
- Website & Membership
- Newsletter
- Treasurer: PayPal in our Future?
- 2007-08 Planned Trips
- Next Planning Meeting
Publicity:
The Ski Buddies publicity provided at the Gay & Lesbian Film Festival was great - and the Cinerama was full! This appears to be the correct demographic for the ski club so we’ll likely sponsor again next year, and next year have our club graphics ready. Working with the art the Stranger did, Cathy hired a designer to convert the file format from PDF to something more usable. We can subsequently use Kinko’s to print stuff from the ad art to any type of handout we desire.
The film festival tickets were great door prizes at the last potluck – and we should continue to look for give-away prizes at our potlucks.
Fred took care of advertising for the first 2 months (2 October ads; 2 more ads for November): 4 ads (@ $315 each) for The Stranger and 4 ads in the SGN ($420 for all 4).
Last Pub Night at the Madison Pub didn’t work too well – since Lee had to work that night. A few folks showed up but no one stuck around for long. Decide to try another Pub Night out on 11/8 (Thursday before next potluck) – this time at “Purr”. Ray will call “Purr” and let them know we’re having a happy hour social, put a sign out front, and Ray will be there to host it at 11/8. Fred will contact the Stranger and change the ad to show 7-10pm and the new location. Both are to report status back to make sure we’re ready this month. We should also post this event to the website.
Maybe look into creating a new t-shirt or sweatshirt design for the club sometime this season.
Potlucks:
The first potluck (10/14) was well-attended at the Mt. Baker Community Center. Tom has booked the same location for the next two potlucks (10/ 11 & 12/9). Tom has to ask for an MC, and we suggest Mary Douglas.
Current plan is to rent the Washington State Garden Club on Beacon Hill again for $125 each for 1/13/08 & 2/10/08 potlucks.
Website:
Things are going well on the website.
Members can download a club membership list through the site. Folks can opt to not have their information shared.
Since Ray does our web content, he needs updates on all trips from the coordinators for the website.
We should all begin using the website to communicate to membership. Post items to the forum or send it to Ray to post on the calendar (as content mgr) … either action prompts the system to send out a notice to everyone. The once a day listing of postings seems to be working well. Only one problem with “Bent Events” sending us unrequested event notices, so they have been restricted from doing so.
Membership:
Vince as taken over membership from Roy Vermillion, and it’s going well.
Need to verify that all trip coordinators are members; some past coordinators haven’t joined since 2005.
Need to work on the duplicate newsletter mailings that went to couples this time around.
Since we gather emergency contact information, Vince suggests that we begin sending it along to trip coordinators in the unlikely event they may actually have a need for it. Good idea, Vince!
Coordinators can email Vince to find out if folks signing up are members.
Encourage members to use the website more --- verify the address stuff there, etc. Include something in the newsletter on all the new capabilities.
Vince won’t be at next potluck since he’ll be in Africa, but Mark agrees to fill in for membership for him.
Newsletter:
Carl Wilson (victorspaw@comcast.net) produced the first newsletter of the season, and is now looking to start the next one. Inputs are due to Carl Friday, 10/26, for the November issue – so it can go out by 11/2.
Trip reports are now moved to the website – and newsletter will be only trip stuff.
Current plan is to send out the normal paper newsletters at the beginning of the season, then switch to electronic-only issues for Jan-Feb-March. During those months we’ll send out a postcard reminder that the newsletter is available on the website.
This seems to be a good compromise between publishing the newsletter electronically – (saving $500-$800 per newsletter) and providing members with the paper copy most members still prefer. This should make for a smooth transition.
Treasurer Report
Chris reports it will be a couple more weeks before he can send the Leadership planning team with an Excel spreadsheet in a Quick-books format. We all need to understand where club finances are, but will be patient since it appears things arebetter than initially thought.
2 more deposits to get the checks from, but the Profit & Loss isn’t accurate until he gets the rest of them. Most of trips made money.
Fred & Mark are willing to look at Chris’ work in progress if he has questions.
2007-08 Planned Trips/Trip Ideas:
All non-members who want to go on trips need to sign a liability waiver and pay a non-member fee of $10 per trip.
All members are reminded that they need to sign the liability waiver on-line at the website.
December 2007:
12/13-16: Manning Provincial Park, B.C. (Craig Mabie, Mark Pollock) - GOING GREAT! After October potluck, Craig added 2 additional 3-bdrm cabins (higher price of $199 for those); 16 people are now waitlisted.
January
1/12: Member Appreciation at Crystal (Bud Wright, Elaine Field) – $20 for new members; $45 deal members; we’ll still lose $ per person.
1/12-20: Aspen Gay SkiWeek (Shilpen Patel): Probably ~ $100/day for accommodations & tickets only; stay 5 days, 4 days skiing. $600-800 airfare (probably let folks do their own). Greg to forward Darren’s email from Dallas (Oak Lawn) ski club. If they’re amenable we could link up with them – or maybe San Diego, LA. shilpenp@yahoo.com. 4 folks from SFO are willing to go – thru SAGA; Shilpen is sorting out how much space we actually have.
1/19-26 Austria (Gil) -- Total hotel, half-pension (breakfast and dinner) and ski lift for 7 days should be about ~$1200 per person. Flight and train from Zurich to Lech is not included (another $800-$1000 depending on flights). Joint trip with SAGA North, and he’s got ~4 folks interested.
February
2/3-10: Gay Ski Week, Whistler (Lee Johnson) – standard trip; same place. Might do a snowmobile add-on one day. Lots of interest-he has pricing ready. Shilpen has agreed he will take over from Lee for 2008-9 ski season since Lee isn’t doing it anymore.
2/15-18: Methow Valley (Cathy Jessup) -- Presidents Day Weekend, Westar is now “A Bend in the River Lodge”; newly renovated albeit prices are approximately 10% higher. 23 signed up; 5-6 paid, a waiting list already. Decided to make it dog-free since they only allow 3 dogs.
2/21-24: Steven’s Pass Lodge 25th annual trip (Ray Blocknia, Chris Turcotte): 18 paid, 4 in the mail, space for 2 left.
March:
2/29-3/2: Mt. Hood Meadows (Jan Bennett & Scott Feest) - stay in Hood River, OR. Downhill & cross-country. Jan provided a pile of stuff to Ray at the first potluck, but he needs to have Jan put the package together for him to post.
3/6-10: Red Mountain (Bud Wright) – stay at new hotel on the mountain. G&L Ski Week there that week, but no details. (Thurs-Mon). Have added a new quad and made more improvements. 4 days. ~$600.
3/15: Mission Ridge (Jeff Roberts) – looking at this option as a low-impact trip. Same as Mark did it; everyone pay their own way; get a good deal through hotels.
3/21-22: Heavenly, Lake Tahoe, CA (joint trip with SAGA North) – new trip added as reciprocal for Austria; Mark will contact by Irvin at SAGA – and will let him know this is the one that works best for us to attend.
3/28-30: Scottish Lakes (Lisa & Elaine) - The trip will be $240, limited to 36 people, and only 1 slot currently not spoken for, assuming everyone signed up actually pays. Expect this one to sell out.
April:
4/5-6: Mt. Bachelor (Shane Balleweg) , checking out houses on Bitter Lane, setting the dates.
Next Planning Meeting
The next planning meeting is scheduled for 7pm Tuesday, November 13 at Fred & Greg’s; 3521 SW Myrtle St, Seattle, WA. Phone: (206) 937-7491. From I-5, take the West Seattle Bridge exit. After crossing the high-rise bridge, head up the hill toward Fauntleroy. Make the first left turn onto 35th Avenue SW. At the 7th traffic light (water towers on the right) make a right turn onto SW Myrtle Street. 3521 is the brick house on the left – opposite the water towers.
Greg takes the action to send out a reminder email via YahooGroups around November 6 - reminding folks it’s meeting time again. See you all then - when we start looking at trip proposals!
2007-8 Ski Buddies Officers and Volunteers:
- President: Mark Pollock
- Vice President: Cathy Jessup
- Secretary: Greg Snider
- Treasurer: Chris Turcotte
- Membership: Vincent Chau
- Newsletter: Carl Wilson
- Publicity: Fred Grant
- Web Master: Stuart Stoddard
- Potluck Coordinator: Tom Rowan
- Trip Leader Coordinator: open
- Banquet Coordinator: Lisa Sokanoff & Bud Wright
- Pride Coordinator: Gil Price
