4/5/2016 Board Meeting

Date: April 5, 2016 
Place: Thomaston, David’s House 
In Attendance: Don, Brad, David, Ian, Charlie, Carl, Jim 
Minutes submitted by: David 

1. Check In 

2. Minutes from 2/23/2016 were reviewed and accepted 

3. Treasure’s Report $2747.71 is current balance 

4. Tanglewood Contract — MCM is grandfathered in on several aspects. Current rental price for Kitchen Dining Hall is $800. MCM gets charged $600 plus $20 per person per night in cabins and $10 per person/night in tents (which includes sleeping in vehicles). MCM does not have to send in a $100 deposit to reserve date nor a $250 damage deposit. MCM does not need to provide the first half of the cost of the weekend 30 days prior to the event. MCM has and will continue to pay for the weekend as soon as possible after the weekend. MCM sends the total amount of men that were present and where they slept and the University bills us. Contract requires comprehensive auto insurance – Ian will check with our agent to see if we are covered. 
a. Swimming is not allowed 
b. Quiet times are between 9PM and 7AM 
c. Smoking is allowed in designated outdoor areas only. (This has been at the outside fireplace located on the right side of the field when viewed from the lodge porch). All evidence of smoking must be destroyed or removed. 
d. Fires at designated spots only. Approval must be asked for from camp host for any fires. 
e. Other rules are available by asking MCM board. 

5. Brochure and Mailings update: 172 were mailed on March 20. After additional work by Bob to reinstate the 108 that had been deleted, he did a second mailing on April 4. We thank you Bob for this work. As of April 5 we had 10 people enrolled. 

6. Posters for the weekend. We will use the brochure as a poster to post in places in our towns. Board members are asked to post these where appropriate. We will seek to have a poster made in the future to advertise the weekend. 

7. Sweats at weekends. John B will think about this and is willing to work MCM to plan sweats in the future. The board felt it is important to find out from the men at the next weekend how much interest there is in having a sweat. This is a time consuming workshop that is labor intensive. This will be discussed at the business meeting. Brad is willing to lead this discussion. 

8. 501-C3/ Insurance/non-profit information and recommendations from Gregg who is a lawyer: Gregg read the contract and strongly encouraged us to speak to our insurance agent to see if we are covered in the event of an incident. Ian met with our agent and our current policy did not meet the requirements of the University. Ian was able to up the amount of our policy to make it comply without any additional costs. If our main concern is protecting individuals on the board or MCM from being sued we should strongly consider becoming incorporated as a non-profit. There is a cost to this process with annual reports to be filed. The board will further discuss this at the next regular board meeting as well as inform the general membership this is the direction in which we are heading. (additional information came from a follow up e-mail to the board from Ian after he checked with the insurance agent.) 

9. Curator and items to be saved for the future of MCM. It was decided that minutes that we have from Aug 28, 2014 to the present and minutes from all future meetings would be archived. If anyone has any minutes from past meeting that are in digital form these can also be saved. Photos and programs should also be kept safe. Costs for the weekends should be in the minutes to be saved. A procedure manual is being developed. This information has been written up before and has been lost. For this reason this information will be kept in a hard copy form by the curator as well as a copy on a cloud account. Charlie offered to look into setting up this account. David will contact Charles G our current curator and discuss this information. It was decided that board members and the curator will have access to the cloud account. The Board will approve all items that will be stored on the cloud. Names of participants will not be on the cloud but held by the registrar and the computer person working with the lists. 

10. Facebook Account: We need to find out who has administrator rights to this account and determine who from the board will manage this tool. Moved to next regular board meeting. 

11. MCM weekend: 
a. Board member will do a general welcome and reminder of “check in” parameters 
i. Charlie will work with Dan to do a short write up for the men to read
when signing in that will inform men of the theme and possible
check in topic 
b. Medical presentation will be Saturday morning after breakfast. Defibrillator, Heimlich maneuver and First aid kit will be discussed. 
Constant bell ringing will occur should there is an emergency to alert the medical personnel on the grounds. If necessary 911 will be called without delay. 
c. New Men’s meeting will be held in the kitchen/office run by Brad after supper. Any man is welcomed to attend. 
d. Workshop to discuss ideas on how to bring in new men. This topic will be discussed at the business meeting on Sunday. Brad will address this at the closing circle and have men visualize who they will attempt to bring to the next weekend. 
e. Napkins will not be provided but we will continue to use the paper towel roll provided by Tanglewood. 

12. Weekend Facilitator: Charlie volunteered to facilitate the weekend with David as a backup. The description of this position located in the Policy and Procedure Manual was discussed. David, the Board Facilitator, will run the business meeting. 

13. Phone a Thon — we will continue to work toward having a phone-a-thon in the future. 

14. Website Update: Charlie contacted Vincent to get the keys to the DNS name server. Tom Beal has offered to host the website and donate it annually. Renovations on the website will be made by Tom and Charlie and presented to the board. Contact information will be on the site of board members and we will need to decide if a “General Contact” person should be selected. 

15. Procedure Manual Update: This is a work in progress. The goal is to have a manual in place that will address the needs of the group and have them used and saved so items do not have to be re hashed out each time the board changes or decisions had been forgotten. Any item in the manual can be up for review by the board or the membership. David has put this together and will present it to the group. He will ask for 3-4 readers to go though the manual and offer suggestion as to additional items to be added that have been important in the past and are not addressed. If we decide to apply for non-profit status we will need to write up by-laws. 

16. Item for business meeting. A reminder that men can request funds to buy materials for a workshop. The treasurer can grant amounts up to $25 without board approval. 

17. Picture statement from Board Meeting Dec. 9, 2014 item 3. The statement “If men decide to share (pictures, stories etc,) discretion is encouraged as always.” This will be changed as Confidentiality will be discussed at the business meeting that address this issue. The Confidentiality statement will be shared and discussed at the weekend. 

18. Other: 
a. Bocce Balls: Have been painted with stripes for better identification 
b. A request was made to allow two 16 year olds to attend without accompanying adults (One has been at the weekend twice before). It was reiterated that an adolescent (14-17) must have an accompanying adult to monitor them and the youth can attend at no cost. It was decided that if a man brings a young man who is not their legal guardian a note from a parent or guardian must accompany the adolescent allowing them to attend. Men 18 and older pay full price unless they request money from the scholarship fund. 

19. Next meetings: 
a. General Business meeting on May 1 at the weekend 
b. Board Meeting will be on May 10, 2016 Place: TBA 

Minutes accepted by E-mail responses on April 28, 2016