Split between in person at the White Wolf and zoom
Meeting started 6:08; 7 members + Tony Covelli and Greg Black in person, 11 online
Treasurer’s report: $7301.50 in general operating fund.
land purchase donations: $148,856 + Wayne’s $5k deposit. Paul suggests we put it in a CD for month and make $500.
Elections: Need to vote in the Board of Directors tonight, may have to do online vote to reach quorum.
Club Party: Need to set date for club party/meeting Dec 27? Aroma Thyme has offered but probably too small. White Wolf has started planning; need to make a definite decision between venues soon.
Fundraising: Amount realized : $154K Amount pledged: $283K
local radio is willing to run announcements for public donations. Tony Davis is making progress on institutional grant writing.
New Officers: Brian VH will be appointed insurance director, Shani will take over as secretary. Nominations are now closed. Voting was conducted in favor of the slate of officers composed of President, Veep, Treasurer, secretary, resulting in a unanimous vote of 8 people present. 13 online votes: 21 total. Motion was carried to accept the vote with continuation online to hit the required quorum of 38 votes.
Greg Black has volunteered to be camping manager (though he seems unaware of this).
Tony Covelli has volunteered to be the safety officer. Greg Black will share that with him.
Still need a site maintenance director.
Rules Committee: Shani is heading the committee, hasn’t gotten enough feedback to schedule a December meeting. Members made up of James Bradly, James Reese (South America), Paul Voight, Greg Black, Kenny. Will find one more PG.
Newsletter: Cathleen has volunteered to do the newsletter which will be hosted via the website. Shawangunk journal would love to share the newsletters.
The Purchase Contract: Bob Boolukos and Wayne have found some complications, suggests streamlining by extending terms from 5 years to 10 years. Will purchase launch immediately so we can put deed restrictions on it. Whoever owns the lands in the future will have to allow free flight. This has the advantage of dropping the property value, which helps in the tax assessment. Helps with insurance as well. Need to craft a management agreement for the LZ, will help with insurance. Needed especially until the title is transferred. Cost of launch to be determined, but will have ~$300K by start of January.
In conversation with accountant Ross Wisdom it turns out the $200K => implied audit assumption was greatly exaggerated. Actually requires $250K to force an audit for a 501.3c. So Jimmy can keep fund raising.
Club Membership Management: Club management of sign-ins will be done mainly electronically. The club is also working on how to monitor pilots who are flying; the Rules committee will be working on this. Online memberships will give us faces, etc. May work on something more electronically advanced than stickers.
Foundation for Free Flight: Wayne and Tony put together and sent the deed restrictions and tax documents. The only thing lacking is the final sales agreement.
Insurance: Randy Legget has said RRG has problem registering in NY state. Wayne would talk to our state assemblyman, but Randy said don’t bring it up due to the assembly having internal issues, not with RRG. Rochester was actually getting insured without certification. Steve Rohrbaugh says commercial insurance is not certified, but non commercial should be fine. So do we want commercial? Would make it more expensive. Only a commercial entity can do day passes etc.; gives us more freedom but costs more. This deserves deeper investigation. Wayne prefers commercial. Will come up with list of questions for Brian to ask Steve R. What type of liability do the officers incur giving a change to commercial?
NASA launch: many pilots have asked Greg if they can use his launch because of dues going up for main launch. Though he liked the money, he refrained to avoid interfering with the launch purchase efforts. We are having a conversation about buying Greg’s launch. Greg is not using it now due to insurance; HVFF could cover his insurance. With new purchase terms changing from 5 years to 10 years we may be able to get annual membership down to $300, which may blunt that threat. Conversations about Greg’s launch will be held going forward.
Club T-shirts: Jane has developed color T-shirt designs, will do limited orders until website store opens up in early January. She also has HG/PG stickers. Maybe turn the HG/PG into a ying/yang type design.
Open Discussion:
- Jimmy – people want to sign Romano’s card remotely: Jimmy, Shani, Kenny, Martin. The card and an edible arrangement will be sent to Romano.
- Greg needs reimbursement for mowing. Can it be applied to his membership? Next year the club will pay for gas, but this year his membership will be covered.
- The Directors will discuss complimentary membership for local instructors.
