[Imc-newsroom] General Membership Meeting Minutes 10/3/2002

[Zachary C. Miller]

IMC General Membership Meeting
10/3/2002
7:05pm

Paul Riismandel Facilitating
Zach Miller taking Minutes.

Summary of Proposals Adopted (massive details to follow):

1) The general membership agreed to moving forward with buying a
building and empowered the finance and steering groups to move forward
with starting a capital campaign. A specially called General
Membership Meeting will be called to give final OK on a specific plan
to buy a specific building. Steering will decide when the membership
meeting will be and the steering group can authorize earnest money be
put up before this at a well publicized steering meeting. Finance and
Steering will publicly announce via email, website, and bulliten board
all meetings on this topic where major decisions will be
made. Concerns can and should be addressed at any of these open
meetings.

2) At next regularly scheduled membership meeting we will consense
upon language defining membership and incorporating it into
structure. Paul R. will draft some language on his own if no other
caucus or group has drafted any by then.

Intro

The IMC is accountable to the larger community and this is how we make
good on that.

We aren't under a time pressure, there are other meetings where we can
pursue these things.

Attending: Paul R, Clint, Sascha, Kate, Charlotte, Zach, Mike, Ron,
Emily, Danielle, Will, Nancy, Jason, Sara, Alex, Darrin, Sandra, Jay,
Russ, Paul M, Cope, possibly some others showed up late and didn't get
added to this list.

Next General Meeting: Saturday April 5, 2003

Old business

Concerns about anti-discrimination. Caucus was formed. The Caucus
published some minutes after a single meeting. Those minutes were read
by Zach. The people with concerns didn't actually show up to the first
meeting. We have a conflict resolution system now. Training women in
audio production has happened. 

Need a volunteer to coordinate consensus procedures formalization. 

Anti-discrimination language was delegated to the steering group. The
steering group passed something. Clint will find the language from the
notes and help communicate it to everyone. 

Zach found and read the non discrimination statement.
  "The IMC is committed to creating and maintaining an open and fair
   community.  Meetings are open to all without regard to age, gender, 
   race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, disability, citizenship, or
   any other applicable basis proscribed by law.  Every participant
   will be treated fairly and equitably."  

The structure document lives until April. 

A brief overview of customary consensus procedures was given by Paul R. 

Financial report

We are now formal fiscal sponsors for a lot of organizations. We
manage their money. Foundations will only deal with non-profits so we
can function as a conduit for these kind of organizations. Foundations
are using us as a conduit for dispersing grant funds. 

We've been applying for grants. We got $7000 from Robeson
Foundation. This is the first big grant that we've gotten for our
specific kind of work.

We've been running a deficit, we are now breaking even. Our operations
were not affected but this was a warning. The financial health of the
organization is currently good. We have a $4000 endowment. We have
enough money in our accounts to cover our expenses. We have no
co-mingling of funds so we know when we're broke vs. borrowing from
other organizations that we fund. 

"It is really wonderful that we've got this set up the way we do. Are
the people who signed the 501c3 sheet legally responsible? Should we
get bonded?" As far as Sascha knows the responsible people if someone
else got sued would be _that_ organization. The contract was written
by a collective of progressive lawyers. If the IMC gets sued the
people who are liable are the board of directors. The Board's assets
are at risk. We should visit getting board of directors
insurance. Zach says this thing about board liability may not be true,
talk to WEFT BOD (Paul M was there).

Most groups cost money. Rent is our major expense. The shows group is
keeping us alive.

Why are we breaking even? Re-upped memberships and shows. 

We've made about $2500 on fiscal sponsorship fees. Sascha has donated
his entire cut back to the IMC. Sascha negotiates this after finance
agrees to sponsorship. Steering does not interact with this process
because steering empowered us. 

Sascha supplies an annual financial report which gets posted on the
bulliten board. 

Send questions to finance at ucimc.org or come to the finance meeting. 

Paul R talks about membership. Membership should become/remain a major
portion of our budget. We must be able to say we have a community that
supports us. Paul is putting in work to make sure the membership
records are up to date and good. Paul needs someone to take over the
membership management and more people to think about expanding
membership. We need to keep in touch with our membership. 

Danielle says: We should have official membership signup things at all
our events. People should come Tuesday at noon at University Y to help
danielle sign people up.

New Business

Discussion on buying the building. 

Rationale - 2/3s of the money we raise goes into rent. That money
disappears. That is huge. What WEFT did was very smart, they own their
building now. This building will be sold starting next spring. If we
can put a down payment down they will sell for us first. Current price
is $300k. We need to raise $60k for down plus $40k for incidentals if
something goes wrong we could fix it. We need to raise $100k. Sascha
has run the numbers about cost to operate the building, with laser's
edge and apartments rented we would pay less per month than we are
paying now. Overhead of overseeing the property, paying a manager,
giving space or reduced rent for being a manager. Post office is only
asking $250k we should compare cost. One thing this building has that
postoffice doesn't is that this provides income, the postoffice does
not provide income, there are no apartments there. Paul M wonders what
we'll do with that $40k, keep it as cash or pay down the mortgage and
then take equity? Mike L says we may have to work on accessibility
issues. We may have to get some insurance. Bringing the building up to
code. So we wouldn't just bank all the money, we'd spend it. The
details we'll work out in other groups.

Jason, one reason to keep this space involves PR. We'd have to restart
our PR from zero if we moved. Since our major income is shows we'd
lose that for a while if we moved. Sandra says Kevin is amazed at the
high price of this building. The buildings on the street by WEFT are
only $150k. Mike L says those buildings have major problems. As we
explore we shouldn't be married to staying in Urbana. When talking
about a 30 year investment you don't go by what you've done for the
last year.

Mortgage on a monthly basis would be about $2700 to $3000 in
total. Laser's Edge is thinking of signing a 5 year lease. We aren't
just buying the building but buying the infrastructure and
history. This is for a 30 year mortgage. But this is all guestimates,
we may be able to get a 15 year mortgage. 

Alex - is it reasonable to think we can raise $100k in less than a year. 

Sascha's proposal - This meeting should be about deciding whether we
want to try to buy a building. We can't wait until the next membership
meeting to decide this. 

Proposal - Empowering the finance group to make a decision which will
be finally approved by steering.

Concerns - 

Sandra believes that this should come back to the full group. Danielle
says there should be a special meeting. The meeting should be
announced the way we announce a general membership meeting. 

Danielle wants a special membership meeting be called by steering. 

Sascha accepts Danielle's recomendation.  

Dan wants people who can't make the meeting to be able to proxy. 

Others think this won't work with consensus. 

Dan is concerned because we are not a majority of membership. 

Paul R shares Dan's concern. One meeting can be missed. 

Jason P - what if someone gets a flat tire, do we reverse the decision?

Paul R. perhaps we could have 2 meetings. 

Clint - the logistics of having a meeting where everyone can attend is
hard. the meeting has to be had at some point. if we let a decision
not happen that is scary.

Mike - this is a process, not a single meeting. If someone makes it
clear that they have some strong issues with this they shouldn't wait
until the end of the process to block. There will be plenty of
opportunity for input. Trying to get consensus from the membership is
a lengthy process. 

Sascha - the proposal we have here is to have the meeting early next
year, between now and then we'll have biweekly open meetings of
finance, after that there'll be a steering group meeting to set up the
membership meeting, the final step is going back to the membership to
look for overarching concerns. But this meeting is the last component
of a very long process with dozens of meetings.

Paul M - The membership meeting should be the kick off of the capital
campaign rather than the end of the process. We can make that meeting
large.

Danielle - Both Paul's raise a good issue, a new proposal brewing. The
issue is how do we go about buying a building. How do we transform the
IMC by buying a building? Danielle supports having 2 meetings. 1 kick
off/celebration/press conference meeting and 1 final meeting to sign
off on all the details, buy in and sign off.

Clint - Agrees with kick-off. The initial response wasn't "if we can
buy it we should" but rather "the IMC shouldn't be landlords, it is a
contradiction".

Mike L - If this meeting authorizes going forward then it authorizes
going forward with fundraising. Don't call the kick off a meeting, we
should have a kick off though. The kick off is a party. 

Paul R. - convinced by Mike and following, view this as a process, we
must keep the process open. As long as there are a lot of other venues
rolling up to a big meeting this could be fine. 

Proposals - 

Empower finance and then steering to fundraise and authorize buying
the building. 

Danielle - Final meeting, and kick off party, send things out to the
entire IMC list any time you are going to have concrete proposals to
discuss. Final meeting is the only actual "meeting". 

Sascha - I can't fundraise unless he has permission for targetted
fundraising.

Clint - Do we need a unresolvable block resolution mechanism for the
final meeting? 

Zach - If we pass today's proposal are we guaranteed to buy a building
IF we raise the money and the final meeting will decide which building?

Synthesized proposal: The membership gives its ok to buy some
building, begin fundraising, authorize fundraising/finance group and
steering to negotiate and raise funds, final OK at membership
meeting. We will publicly announce via email, website, and bulliten
board all meetings on this topic where major decisions will be
made. Concerns can be addressed at any of these open meetings. Final
signoff on the plan will be at a specially called membership meeting. 

Danielle - are we making it impossible to buy this building. 
Sascha - as long as concerns are raised in time. 
Mike - define that last meeting
Zach - is the final meeting before we negotiate or before we close
Sandra - as long as it is completely publicized, wouldn't have a problem with the final meeting being a steering rather than meeting
Zach - Allow steering to decide when it is ok to have the final OK meeting. 
Paul - The steering group will call a meeting before we make a commitment of X dollars. 
Sascha - we have to trust that the process will be done well.
Zach and Danielle - Steering will decide when the membership meeting will be and the steering group can authorize earnest money be put up at a well publicized steering meeting.  - This was added to the whole proposal. 
 
yay consensus

Fix the structure document - Paul K's proposal submitted. 

Mike - right now we don't let money get in the way of people becoming
a member, finance has let people in who could not pay. Quantifying
like this makes money _more_ of an issue rather than less. The issue
of members being revoked is pretty weird, membership should be more
explicit. We've got policies to deal with conflicts and
anti-discrimination. Waiting 6 months to straighten out a membership
question is a little problematic. 

Jason - This document is so broad as to be almost completely
meaningless. 

Sandra - It takes getting used to the idea that to be a member you
have to pay but you do get used to it. The fact that we have a
hardship procedure already addresses this. 

What is the difference between being a member and a non-member. 

Paul - the only difference is who can be in the steering group. 
Sascha - non members get rental benefits and can borrow from the production room. 
Paul - I would like to see some definition in the document. Membership should be defined. 
Mike - We should put the current membership definition. 

Zach - withdraws proposal

Paul R - At next regularly scheduled membership meeting we will
consent upon language defining membership and encorporating it into
structure. Paul R. will draft some language if no one else has drafted
any by then. 

consensed.

-- 
Zachary C. Miller - @= - http://wolfgang.groogroo.com/
IMSA 1995 - UIUC 2000 - Just Another Leftist Muppet - Ya Basta!
 Social Justice, Community, Nonviolence, Decentralization, Feminism,
 Sustainability, Responsibility, Diversity, Democracy, Ecology