Board of Directors Meeting

Wednesday, February 10, 2016

7:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m.

Drake Public Safety Office, Drake University

Board Members Present (X); term expires as noted
X / Ibrahim Ali (12/31/16) / X / Laurie Calhoun (12/31/17) / X / David Courard-Hauri (12/31/17)
Patty Daniels (12/31/16) / X / Brian Dooley (12/31/17) / X / Deric Gourd (12/31/16)
X / Kristina Johnson (12/31/16) / X / Michael Christl(12/31/17) / X / Sean Haire (12/31/2016)
X / Eldon McAfee (12/31/17) / X / Eddie Robinson (12/31/17) / X / Jen Sayers (12/31/17)
X / Mark Schneider (12/31/17) / X / Todd Slaymaker (12/31/16) / Daniel Creese (Student Senate Liaison)
X / Mark McKinney (NBSD) / X / Chris Reindl (NBSD) / X / Renee Sedlacek (Drake)

Introductions (5 Min.)Visitors:The meeting was moved due to Ash Wednesday.

Consent Agenda (5 Min.)

  • Approval of MinutesDecember, January: Minutes approved upon condition. Deric moves, Chris seconds, motion passes.
  • Monthly Financials:Mark gave financials. There was some discussion of the need to have a better system for reminding people to renew their membership.

Reports (15 Min.)

  • NBSD. Mark: It was relatively quiet, except for an armed bank robbery on the 29th. 4125 University had two robberies as well, one armed, one not. There has been an influx of stolen cars in the city recently, though not in our neighborhood. Most of these cars get taken temporarily, and tend to be cars that are running (to warm up the engine, for example). The thieves usually abandon them without doing much. President Martin at Drake will have a uniformed police officer patrolling the neighborhood during the semester. Chris: They are down an inspector, so they won’t be doing any proactive junk and debris. So if you see anything, give them a call. For landlords, if you miss a deadline, you’re going to get fined. If you have a violation, it is going to be fixed—they won’t be letting things by even if they know you’re generally a stand-up landlord.
  • Drake University.Renee: Bill Nye will be coming to Drake to give the Buxbaum Lecture. The President’s inauguration will be associated with relays. There will be streetpainting as well. For more info, see drake.edu/downtownstreetpainting. If you want t-shirts for your team, you have to let them know by March. They are looking for agencies interesting in taking on an Americorps member for a half-time position related to health and wellness. The member would be working full-time, with a cost-share of $3500. For more info, contact . Late May to August, when the cost share will only be $300, with members serving 32-hour weeks. Drake will also have students working through the Engaged Citizen Corps with 10 agencies, with a cost-share of $3500 (students get $6500 scholarship). The President’s Office will be restructuring, and in April there will be someone who will be Community Relations Manager, so Renee will not be doing that work anymore (she’ll be Director of Service Learning). Student Senate had some confusion about the role of the neighborhood liaison, and they are looking into what to do with that position. It may be that the student organization CAB (Community Action Board) takes over the official liaison position. Renee had a conversation with the new staff people overseeing the Alumni Association. They have an interest in service and giving back, so Renee has suggested perhaps service to the neighborhood would be the best way to do that.
  • President. Thanks to all who attended the annual planning meeting. We’ll need to set a secondary date to set up things like marketing goals. Dates are set for quarterly meetings.
  • Old Business. None.

New Business:

  1. Elections.Thursday, February 25th at the Thoreau Center at 7. There will also be a presentation on the 42nd Street Streetscape. Scott and Dennis (owners of the Thoreau Center) are members of the DNA, and are offering the facility for free, so be sure to thank them!
  2. Newsletter. Scott can’t do it anymore, so we need someone who can use publishing software to take that over.
  3. The Cottage Grove mission is the church that was taken over at 24th and Cottage Grove. They are using it to serve a large Sudanese population who are using it as a place of worship and a community center. They would like to offer us space to use there. They have started rehabbing a lot of it, but it ought to be ready soon. They are planning a retreat in March to have a focus group look at what they will be doing with more of the space, which might impact Cross Ministries and the food pantry, but that remains to be seen.
  4. Website update. Jen and Todd met with a friend of Todd’s, and all of the good stuff that we thought the website could do can be done. They think that we just need a person to make sure it’s all working. We essentially need to go through the list and update it. There is a lot of very old data in there. Todd thinks that the first step is to boil the list down to the current members. Remove duplicates, send everyone an e-mail, and then we’ll have a valid list of members. Todd will be willing to take that on. He will work with Jen to get it all started.
  5. Sean: We have turned in the information for Free Flicks to the City. They haven’t gotten anything back yet.

Adjourn Business Meeting