Board Activities
Board Activities |
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TFG Board MinutesFriday Feb 11, 2000 In attendance were two executive directors: Will Beemer and Joel McCarty; nine board members: Rudy Christian, Chris Madigan, John Palmer, John MacFarland, Andrea Warchaizer, Sandy Bennett, Grigg Mullen, Donna Williams and Tom Southworth; and former board member Curtis Milton. Election of officers was discussed resulting in the nomination of all existing officers to continue for an additional year: Andrea Warchaizer- President, Rudy Christian-VP, Chris Madigan- Treasurer and Tom Southworth-Clerk. DECISION, by vote, unanimous to re-elect all four. Andrea praised Curtis' recent work on behalf of the TFG and requested that he stay an active, non-voting participant with BOD activities. All agreed .. . possibly including Curtis. Sandy Bennett, John MacFarland and John Palmer, all in their last year as board members were asked about their plans to run for re-election: cFarland expressed a a willingness to be renominated, Bennett gave an unqualified maybe and Palmer gave it about a 60% chance that he would not seek re-election. ACTION: A nominating committee will be named before summer, at which time the above mentioned distinguished BOD members will have decided in which direction to toss their hats. Discussion continues with the reminder that it is the responsibility of the BOD to set policy and the responsibility of the ED's to administer that policy.That being said, it is not immediately possible for new directors, or for that matter old ones with bad memories, to know about policies set in past years.There is a constant need for improved organization and for a written account of such things as scholarship policy and employee policy. It turns out that Nancy Wilkins, in fact, had once assembled a BOD Manual primarily for the purpose of helping new members quickly get up to speed. To this end... ACTION: JohnMacFarland volunteered to scan this manual and collect all of the past electronic minutes and assemble themin a PDF (portable document format). It was reported that copies of our minutes get sent to the Business Council and to the Web page. The BC has only once sent us minutes of their meetings. It later turned out that the BC had received a $30,000 bill for research done by Dick Schmidt that they were hoping we would split ... thereby reminding us of the need to remember our past offers and to keep in communication on a more regular basis with the BC. Will Beemer had prepared and handed out copies of the new TFG Bylaws. The establishment of a scholarship fund was discussed at some length. At the Lake Morey F2F the BOD had decided to start a scholarship endowment fund with an initial investment, from the treasury, of $10,000. The yield from this investment would be spent annually on scholarships that would help people (preferably members) participate in TFG conferences or projects that they otherwise couldn't afford. The principle would remain untouched and could be expected to grow over the years. We already receive a steady stream of donations to the scholarship fund from the Membership dues form. The Finance Committee made up of Chris, Rudy and Tom,recommended a bond mutual fund--PIMCO Long Term USGovt A (PFGAX) that could be added to at any time even with small deposits. All of the yield from this fund would go to a Cash Reserves Fund. Both the bond fund and the cash reserves accounts would be with the brokerage firm of PaineWebber in Boston. The following decision was moved by Rudy Christian,seconded by John MacFarland, and voted in 8-0-1 by the BoD: DECISION: ACTION: Tom Southworth will establish the account with PaineWebber, and work with Will Beemer to get the proper signatures and send in the 10K. ACTION: Sandy, John Palmer and Curtis will assist Joel as a committee to make the scholarship endowment grow through special fund raising or sponsorships. ACTION: Donna and Grigg will be members of a scholarship committee to work with the ED's on allocating the funds. It was recommended that at least one non BOD member be added to the committee. Chris Feddersohn's name came up as a possibility. Discussion of guidelines for the scholarship committee: Awards to favor, but not be necessarily limited to, TFG members. Awards generally made on a co-pay basis where recipient also put in some.Suggestion of using fixed dollar "tiers" of funding such as "full" scholarships of $300 or "half"scholarships of $150 ... rather than trying to split the cost of an event, then bogging down in the various costs of tuition, travel, meals, etc. Ask recipients to "do something" for the TFG such as help at conferences or write an article. The committee is to be guided by these thoughts but to ultimately establish their own criteria and choices ... keeping in mind the speed with which the fund can be depleted. Chris, acting appropriately as the Treasurer (or unpaid pessimist) initiated the general discussion of TFG fiscal policy with an analysis of conference budgeting. His general observation was that, without the auctions, our conferences are generally not self-supporting from registration fees. They should be. That means one or more of three things need to happen: charge more and/or choose less expensive venues and/or get more lucrative sponsors. The related topic of making conferences more affordable for family members and lower paid timberframers encouraged a return to the recent practice of finding venues with a range of accommodations that would include camping. DECISION: Plan future conferences in such a way that they are self supporting without auction subsidy...butthat are also both affordable and comfortable for the widest possible range of members. A bit late for Salishan. Joel believes he can come up with some low priced accommodation alternatives for the Fall Conf atMontebello. And the 2001 Western in Asilomar(Monterrey, California) should fit the plan nicely as it is a very moderately priced facility. This conference-and-money discussion, together with the lateness of the afternoon combined to draw out disparate (desperate?) personalities: Sandy didn't want less comfortable accommodations, "Let's be honest about what things cost and charge accordingly."Andrea pledged to personally go after the big bucks sponsor, "And I'm deliberately going to come up with areal dirt bag to promote future morality discussions." Donna commented that the low paid worker is not being reached, "That person feels outside." On the topic of to whom our conferences are attractive came the reasonably good guess that "all those new members" that we don't know who are, just might be owner-builder wannabees. That would suggest making "owner-builder" as a future Conf theme AND that gives andrea just the right opening for scoring Home Depot as a sponsor. The topic of Conf themes awakened Chris to his former very good suggestion of dedicating a conference to the influence of Asian influence in our designing and building. Asilomar would be perfect: "The Eastern Way at the Western Conference." Afternoon gets even later...beer arrives...Grigg demos small c-clamp as opener. Subject: Resource Guide. After losing what was to have been a victory lap from getting the Business council to do it, create it, print it, then sell it for handsome profit... it is now back in our own laps. Joel feels the need for such a Guide in order to save him a lot of time (i.e. save us a lot of money). Caller wants to know of timber framer company in illinois? Resource Guide, send ya one for $5 or free on the internet, goodbye. Caller wants to know whereto get pegs? Resource Guide. Rudy wants to know who's going to edit this thing and pull it together. SusanWitter comes to mind...she'll be joining the meeting tomorrow. Format similar to membership directory. Copy to be sent to every member and sold to people inquiring about info. Will believes a September publication date to be realistic. ACTION: Andrea to head up "work group" the would include Will Beemer, John MacFarland, Rudy Christian and, hopefully, Susan Witter. It was further unanimously agreed to authorize the finance committee to periodically review risk free money market-type investments in order to get the best return on our cash. ACTION: Chris, Tom and Rudy will review and assist will in making changes if needed. Friday Feb.11, 2000 meeting continues: The Design Workbook continues to be a best seller. One year ago, because of dwindling supply we agreed to reprint 250 copies as an interim step while the workbook was updated. The update has not been done and we now are down to only 30 copies. Numerous ideas were discussed: spiral binding, adding Jack's six articles, upgrading to book form, transfer it to digital, go to version II, edit for content, reformat all the articles to look alike. It was noted that any of these steps would take time and we're about out right now. DECISION: Print another 500 as is. Rudy handed out a letter to all of us from Andrew Waldo who is President of the Board of an organization called Old Alabama Rails. Mr Waldo is sounding us out on the possibility of having the TFG participate in a$50 million project to reconstruct a long out of service rail yard in Montgomery, Alabama. Our part would mostly involve rebuilding about ten 66 foot roof trusses and do so by working on-site in the public lime light. They don't have the cash in pocket just yet. BOD members expressed a wide range of initial reactions. The lure of publicity and profit finally solidified the agreement that we could hear more. ACTION: Rudy to take this to the next level International Memberships: Poor timing unwittingly turned a relatively small issue into an embarrassing international incident. We welcomed Bill Keir (fromCarpenter Oak Ltd in Chippenham, England) as a speakerat two conferences and pledged, over numerous beers,to promote foreign membership. We dropped "of North America" from the TFG name. Then, without warning, blind-sided our good friend by upping the membership dues for overseas members. We did it just to cover the extra postage it costs us to mail Scantlings and theJournal. Unfortunately, we failed to discuss this matter with Bill, or to break the news to him softly. Nonetheless, clear thinking board members chose to stick to the oft repeated: POLICY: Charge what things actually ACTION: Tom Southworth will write to Bill explaining our f2f deliberations, revisit the postage numbers and invite further discussions at Salishan. The final topic of discussion Friday evening was the question of whether we should sell treb blueprints.Joel reports that about 50 recent requests for same have come in. There is the liability issue, then thereis the work required to get the plans into saleable shape, then there's an expected puny profit. The answer was no. ACTION: Joel will tell inquirers to deal directly with Ed Levin, Grigg Mullen or Wayne Neal. F2F minutes, Saturday Feb 12, 2000 Susan Witter joins group The Heartwood School building with ten acres of land is currently being leased from owners Michael and Sybille Baier who now intend to sell. To buy or not to buy? The property has a tax assessment of 240K and a recent appraisal of 115K (sounds like NH). We now pay 7K per year of which about half goes to property taxes from which, as a non-profit organization, we would be exempt as owners. Many random comments and discussions followed: Some pros expressed were ... one place to store stuff; good for archives/ f2f meetings/ library; a living history museum (of the TFG) for tourists and new members; a relatively central location; provides theorganization with a sence of place; possibly a wise investment; would cost us about 7.5% of budget which seems cheap...financially viable; current home to summer apprentice/workshop program that would take an effort to relocate. Some of the cons...not relatively central to a membership that doesn't really have a center; a singlelocation may be bad; difficult property to expand for new buildings or more parking; not physically big enough to have a really large project; need to "staff" the building (more than currently); not seen as a permanent solution to our perceived need for a larger "campus"; we haven't done "due diligence" with informing our membership. One interesting idea emerged: generate some incomefrom the building by renting it out to members during times when it is not being used. Library, TFG history and videos thought to be attractive especially to newmembers. After visiting all the different inventions of the"lease-with-intent-to buy" or let's just buy itscenarios, the concensus was to investigate the purchase option with the Baiers. ACTION: Will is to express our interest to the Baiers,get some solid information to report by Salishan where it will be evaluated. Hope for a decision by Oct f2f. ACTION: Negotiating committee of Chris, Sandy, Rudy and Tom. It will be necessary for at least some members of the committee to meet with Michael Baier if he comes to Heartwood (from Florida) for the purpose of discussing a possible deal. ACTION: Membership to be formally informed of thesesteps. On to Salishan... It was agreed to hold a joint meeting with the BC board after the conference Sunday from 2 to 4. ThenBOD members are to stay over for a f2f Monday from 9 to 4:30. Sandy had attended last week's BC meeting and reportedthat we may be called upon to share in some of thecosts of research that has been completed by DickSchmidt. ACTION: Sandy to track down particulars and report. After lunch...Scantlings. Susan Witter described the new look over the last twoyears. With higher resolution printing there now is aneed for higher quality photos. Susan delicately discussed the ongoing problem of slipping deadlines. Late stuff leads to hasty turnaround which sometimes leads to mistakes. What todo? ACTION: BOD to shape up. Meet deadlines. ACTION: SW to get tougher! So saying, the next Scantlings deadline is March 15.And in all fairness there are occasionally someforgiveable reasons for deadline slip such as electionresults or last minute changes to the conference (suchas speakers). Scantlings content was complimented. Some members takea little advantage of the ads vs. notices sections. Tend to be repeat offenders. Again a BOD directive forSW to be tough! The State of the Guild Address by President Warchaizerwill now be published in Scantlings since theconference proceedings book will no longer be sent toevery member. Kudos to the looks of the new membership directory! Discussed increasing Scantlings issues from 8 to 12. Some material can be delayed to a later issue ... some cannot. The subject of paying for incremental costsfor more issues per year led to a review of ad costs. BOD members expressed shock and astonishment at theseemingly low cost of running ads. DECISION: The Board is giving Susan flexibility inchoosing issue dates and pre approves the addition of an extra issue if the need arises. TIMBER FRAMING JOURNAL Ken Rower, recuperating froma wrenched back, was not present. Andrea repeated her annual admonishment for directors to take responsibility for one article per year. Write it or cause it to be written. Brainstorming possible article content came up with: engineering papers, things specifically interesting to new members ... such as owner/builder pieces, craneraising safety, timber finishes, knuckle joints, useof housings, German layout systems, square rule vs. scribe vs. mapping, tools, steel square, timber dryingtechnology, new shop design, back page, learning from our mistakes, funny stories.The observation that Journal ads are kept together rather than distributed throughout the articles was discussed. No specific conclusion was reached other than the belief that the advertisers might place more value (ie be willing to spend more money) on ads that are interspersed. WEB SITE The Wormingtons were not at the meeting buthad distributed a letter announcing that they will be stepping down as webmasters on August 1st. Many examples of the benefits that have come to the TFG in recent years as a direct result of the web page poured forth...not least being the surge in memberships and a steady flow of cash coming from sales (referred to by Joel as seeming like free money). The value of Janice and Brian's continuing contribution has set a new standard for an already generous membership. THANK YOU JANICE. THANK YOU BRIAN. Now, how to organize Web-Life-After-Wormingtons? DECISION: Joel is to take responsibility for Webcontent and see to advertising for and hiring a personto handle the technical support. Brainstorming web content: continue follow-up on TFG projects, provide member services, acknowledgment thatthe web is becoming our historical archives, be sensitive to the distinction between TFG organized projects and non-sanctioned (but of interest to members) projects that involve TFG members, photos and articles of interest to owner builders, ads as asource of revenue. CONFERENCE: General agreement with providing conferenceproceedings only for those attending the conference.Some extras will be printed and made available forsale for $6 or so. Look into perhaps a less expensiveforemat, such as the Journal, without the heavy cover. Conference survey to be handed out (not put in conf packet) at Sunday AM breakfast and collected at the door on the way out. Reminder of responsibility of BOD members to introduce conf speakers, then kindly make sure sessions come toa timely close. CALENDARS Curtis was thanked for the great effort he put intogetting photos and making the TFG Calendarhappen ... along with Ken Rower. We got started a littlelate and they didn't get a lot of help. And now it'sall over but the crying. Sales have stopped afterbringing in $3,500 (break-even was 9K!). Lots of Monday morning quarterbacking. This or that could have beendone another way or quicker or marketed better. The nature of the product is that it has an extremely short shelf life ... won't sell until just before Christmas and won't sell hardly at all after New Years. Pointed out that this was not a near miss. DECISIONS: Send leftovers out with new memberships.Sell for cheap or give away at the Conference. Don'tmake another for 2001. Minutes from Heartwood F2F Sunday Feb 13, 2000 Question of Michele's availability if future demandof clerical work increases. Her answer: "Twenty hoursper week is OK, but with running Heartwood from Juneto September, really can't put in 30 hours per week".The work mostly rerquires processing registrations,making bank deposits and handling web sales. Keepingup is not currently a problem and should the need formore help arise, there is a local woman, Alison, withwhom Michelle has worked in the town office who couldassist. BOD decides that Michelle should get anytechnical backup that could help make her job easier. She was informed that the proper procedure for getting tech assistance was to dial 1-800-RUDY. General discussion of using Michele and Susan at the desk during conferences. Because the desk needs to be covered all the time it prevents them from attending lectures. Problem diluted by covering for one another and by getting help from other spouses, which doubly helps by involving them with the group. The Project Notebook of the TFG -- How to organize and successfully run a community based timber framing project: Will handed out an 118 page draft copy to everyone with the universal response of "great job!" Chris suggested more photos. Susan made suggestions to rearrange the order: put the criteria for TFG projects ahead of the past project reports and checklists. Andrea agrees to advance the position of project coordinating but leave samples of tool lists (etc.) in the back. John MacFarland suggests updating to include all TFG projects. Chris noted that this document will be the first step toward a complete history of the Guild. Who is to get and use this document? Potential clients such as Gould Farm and TFG members organizing a newproject. DECISION: Go with this. Add photos. Coordinate with Susan regarding the use of columns. Print as needed, keeping in mind having a supply available for sale at conferences. EVENTS / POLICY: An updated list of TFG events is available on the Website and will not be duplicated here. Attention was given to the continuing question of what constitutes a Guild Project. Our five criteria hold: How the BOD can account for ED time going into any individual project is a question seemingly without answer. In order for a project to gel, it needs a champion as well as a cogent concept statement. These two things seem to be lacking in the stalled Golden(BC) proposal despite quite a lot of ED and BOD discussion. Grigg notes that, "It's really not possible to have arigid policy because potential projects vary too greatly. We need to rely on judgment calls". Nonetheless, a general procedural plan emerged in which the EDs act as the first filter then inform BODmembers via email well in advance of a conference call. It was noted by Joel that the conference calls provide the most painful and least productive setting for project planning. At the very least BOD members should not hear of a projerct for the first time on a conference call. How much are we spending on administrative time for projects? Are people coming to us just to get thingsbuilt for cheap? DECISION: The Executive Committee, every six months, is to determine how much Will and/or Joel time has gone into projects in order to keep tabs on how mucheach project has cost us for administration. ASILOMAR revisited: After discussion of the advantages of this venue andthe difficulty of finding an opening in their schedule. And after some internet evaluation of airfares: DECISION: Go for the Western Conference (at Asilomar near Monterey, CA) over Easter weekend April 12 to 15, 2001. The next conference call, for at least the executivecommittee--possibly for everyone--set for WednesdayMarch 29 at 7:30. As the minutes were circulated for approval electronically, Sandy Bennett offered the following amplifications:Tom Southworth Tom, a couple of corrections/clarifications. The BC has said nothing about the Dick Schmidt bill. I brought it up only because I was aware it had been received and I was also aware the board had made a commitment to support this work. Also I feel that we need to charge the appropriate amount for whatever venue we choose for a conference. I also am concerned that we may lose valuable attendees if we downscale too much, particularly at the Western, which has almost always been held at an attractive site. Some of our worst-attended conferences have been at college campuses. I think those days are over. As for me personally I would be perfectly happy at a clean Super 8. Revised by Joel McCarty on behalf of Sandy Bennett
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