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ForumPlanning - Planning Information and Tasks for the 2006 Forum

2005 Whiteboard Postings

I’ll start things off here…..On Tuesday March 22nd. Several of us reconvened following the potluck meeting to brainstorm options and to discuss the ramifications both organizing and not organizing a more formal leadership structure. Our thoughts ranged from doing nothing, to developing a “steering committee”, to a small loosely defined board, to a board of invited heavy weight members of the community. My impression of the evening was that the only thing that was really decided was that we needed more time to think on it and that we wanted everyone to be involved as much as possible and to keep any actions completely transparent.

I will add my own thoughts later, so here you go…..make it happen:

Attending Melissa, Madhuri, Roy, Ray, Eric, Noam, Martin Nix ("Solar"), Lyle

Purpose of meeting is to discuss what kind of structure the Network

would like to have. Interest from general meeting seemed to be to

form some kind of guiding body- a board, or steering committee-

various possibilities. Aaron says he is ready to have us form a

board if we decide to do that. A board implies getting non-profit

status. Do we want this, or just a steering committee for now? Discussion on board / non-profit idea:

There are two kinds of non-profits to consider: one is to register

as a non-profit with WA state which is cheaper and simpler. This is

what Shoreline Solar has done. We would need a board for this- though

size of board is up to us. Martin says that Solar WA has a large

board of committed individuals, and each person has a role. Would

need someone to handle IRS paperwork- a secretary or treasurer. Also need to consider

fiscal liability of board members. We

seem to agree that a working board would be best.

A 501c3 type non-profit is much more complicated.

A couple of asides: Martin recommends having a dual check-signing

policy, and have 2 people counting any cash proceeds.

Consensus was that we were not quite ready to form a board yet, but

want to have a steering committee type group.

Madhuri suggested building from the bottom up. Eg

Let's think about:

1) What do we want to do do for activities?

2) Then what committees do we want to form?

3) Who will head the committees?

4) Eventually maybe form a non-profit.

Some advantages to having a board- it would provide some structure

and accountability. We would need some kind of bylaws, to determine

such things as how we make decisions, voting, etc.

Would need written record of meetings.

Martin says Solar WA has bylaws, and rotating board positions (no

more than 3 years). Says it's good to have continuous flow and

diversity of people. We can have term limits for board members.

Their membership meets 4x / year- says just getting together is

time-consuming.

We decide to start by writing down the projects and committees that

we volunteered for at the last general meeting. We will have a

"point person" for each committee, but keep these positions flexible,

not hard-and-fast.

Committees:

Educational Outreach - two subgroups:

1) events, tabling

2) outreach: classes, speaker's bureau. Committee must be responsible

for the quality of the information we put out to public.- Forum

- Speakers bureau (maybe part of ed outreach?)

- Media- news (press), writing articles, outreach materials (PR)

- Development- getting $$, grants, membership dues, sponsorships (for

us or we might sponsor others sometimes)

Once we form committees and structure, what are the activities we

want to do? Do we want 2 forums a year? How much will that cost,

how will we get the money?

Perhaps there should be separate Communications committee, including: ~~newsletter~~ website (Alex) and posting of minutes

- mailing list

Point people volunteering for committees:

Melissa Media- news, ads, PR

Madhuri Forum, speaker's bureau

Noam events, tabling

Lyle classes (also interested in speaker's bureau), Aaron K also interested in classes

Eric organizational structure and growth- he offered to coordinate

the various committees and help the organization grow. Will also

look into helping with financial growth. He will talk to folks at

Sterling Savings Bank in Ballard (where the Breathable Bus Coalition

already has an account).

Roy Development and sponsorship. Will help find sponsors and money

and help with formation of non-profit. Doesn't want to actually

handle the money.

Ray Events, photography, forum preparation, website assistance

Aaron suggested having the committee leaders meet about a week before

the general meeting. Our next general meeting is April 26, so next

steering committee meeting would be April 19.

Minutes by Lyle

Ray added:

I am willing to help with planning the next forum, and a preliminary cost assessment. I think the forum is an important factor in determining whether we will need a board to help gather funding, a reasonable timeline, and what level of board. I feel we have a 'responsibility' to the community to provide a large enough space to accomodate next time.

4-14 Bank account update from Eric

After not getting a satisfactory answer from the Ballard branch of Sterling Savings I called the Northgate branch today. I got the same answer from both branches, who by the way were both very nice and helpful. It seems as though they have tightened their policy of late and we will need to file with the State as a Non-Profit. At that point we can use someone elses tax number or someone's personal social insecurity number, but I think that by then it is a moot point, and we might as well just get the bloody tax number. Sigh.

Hi All-

I'm so sorry I was absent last night. I didn't want to spread any yucky germs. Let me know what's going on with the monthly meeting next week and what ya'll assigned me since I was gone (he,he).

-Melissa