2015/05/15 VIMS Council Minutes

VIMS Council Meeting Minutes

Thursday, May 15th, 2014 at 7:15 pm

Brian’s home

Present:

Brock, Bruce, Grant, Theresa, Brian, June, Lawrie

Absent with Regrets:

None

Agenda Items:

  1. Review and Approve Agenda

    Motion from June to approve with amendments to date of previous meeting.
    Carried.

  2. Approve Minutes of April 17th, 2014

    Motion from Lawrie to approve.
    Carried.

  3. Business Arising from the Minutes and Updates

    The May beginner drop-in had four participants.

    Kate Dresher was reimbursed $50 for travel costs. That was less than the $100 authorized by council in an email exchange subsequent to the April council meeting.

    Pascal Auclair’s retreat was very well received. 75 attended on the first day and 64 people on the second. Council extends gratitude to Margo (co-manager), Patricia (co-manager), Brian (registrar), Lawrie (sound, driving Pascal), June (hosting Pascal).

  4. Financial Update – Numbers from Grant

    Account balances as of 2014-04-30:

    Chequing  5,603.04
Savings   1,217.02

    That’s better than what we budgeted for. One $100 scholarship was disbursed.

    Motion from Lawrie that April financial statements have been received.
    Carried.

  5. Communications – Bruce, June

    The Constant Contact annual payment of $518.01 was made on Rod’s credit card. He has been reimbursed. Grant has offered to monitor the balance on CC to track when payment has to be made next year. Payment was higher than in the previous year because of the larger number of people on the circulation list. The number on the CC list has exceeded 500. It was 510 on May 8, 2014.

    June is doing a cull of the email addresses. 17 people were sent an email. So far there are 15 possible names to be removed at the end of the month if we don’t hear back from those subscribers.

    Council extends gratitude to Carol for producing VIMS business cards and index-card size mini-posters. June will put up one of the latter at the yoga studio and will put out some of the business cards at our upcoming events.

  6. Upcoming Retreat Details

    Eve Decker Concert on May 23 at 7:00 pm in the Garry Oak room
    Eve Decker Retreat on May 24/25 with: Managers – Isy/Naseem, Registrar – Rod, Sound – Rod

    Ajahn Sona is confirmed for July 12/13.
    Accommodation for Ajahn Sona will be in either Brock and June’s Kuti or in their suite.

    Taan Geoff is confirmed for Aug 16/17.
    June made a deposit to UVic Housing to book a quad residence.

  7. Ven. Pannavati has been invited to give a talk on May 28th.

    The Garry Oak room has been booked for 7:15 pm to 9:15 pm.
    VIMS will reimburse travel on the Clipper for Ven. Pannavati and Tuere.
    Two dana baskets will be put out.
    Both visitors will stay at Brock and June’s on the evening of May 28th.

  8. Vimalasara has been invited to lead the Sunday Night sit on July 6th.
  9. Study Group Update

    Bruce will contact John about dates and location.

  10. Goward House Update

    Brock has been in contact with Elaine. They would like to start renting to a church group on Sundays starting in 2016 but are looking for ways to accomodate us. We are tentatively booked for the third weekends of January, March, May, September, October.

  11. 2015 Retreats – Brock

    Teachers are confirmed for five weekends at Goward House:

      Jan 24-25 Heather Martin
  Mar 14-15 Christina Feldman
  May 23-24 Brock Brown
  Sep 26-27 Margo McLoughlin
  Nov  7- 8 Howie Cohn

    The date error reported last month has been corrected.

  12. Checking in with VIMS volunteers

    Discussion about how to gather input from people who do a lot of volunteering for VIMS but who have never been on council.

    June shared statistics from the first 3 retreats in 2014 showing how many people VIMS serves:

    • Heather’s Feb 2014 retreat – 70 names.
    • Brock’s Mar 2014 retreat – 29 names that did not attend Heather’s retreat; 9 the same as from Heather’s retreat.
    • Pascal’s Apr 2014 retreat – 60 new names – not registered for Heather’s retreat and did not attend Brock’s retreat. 16 were either at Heather or Brock’s retreats.
    • For the last 3 retreats in 2014, 159 sangha members have registered/attended.
    • Three people attended all 3 retreats.
  13. Adjournment

    10:00 pm

Next Meeting

June 19th, 2014
7:00-9:30
Grant and Theresa’s home