General Meeting Notes - 3 Feb 2007

Submitted by bi_admin on Wed, 2007-02-07 08:56

Site: Berkeley Iceland

The second meeting of the Save Berkeley Iceland organization was held on Saturday, 3 February, at Berkeley Iceland. The meeting reviewed the previous week's actions which came out of the initial meeting, brought up new items, including introduction of business plans and formation of smaller groups to focus on different aspects of the organization. On issue that needs to be resolved is the location of future meetings - Iceland management is concerned about giving mixed messages to the public and has asked us to relocate (keep an eye on this space for the next meeting location). Details are after the break.

Started the meeting with the review of the past weeks actions:

1> Tom K - On the legal front, St. Moritz ISC introduced us to their new nonprofit lawyer. Basically it MAY (stress MAY) be possible to modify the Bay Area Blades articles of incorporation so that it may be used to collect funds and operate the rink. Further paperwork needs to be reviewed before anything definitive can be said. IF it can be used, the modifications would take 10 days or so. If not, a new nonprofit would need to be started which would take 2 - 12 months (unless we had a donor hot to provide us funding, in which case an expedited application could be put through in 10 days or so). More to follow

2> Kid's Campaign - Jimmy, a student from King Middle School, turned in a large pile of both kids and adults petitions. He got them at his school and from soliciting in front of Solano Peets. JoAnne says that her count before Jimmy's contribution was over 600 kids' signatures with more coming in.

3> Marketing Plan - Caroline has prepared and passed out a marketing plan for Save Berkeley Iceland. One of the primary ideas is to always represent us as "Save Berkeley Iceland" and to use this in all communications about the project. Other points are to keep up with the SBI website and pass ideas on to Caroline through her email address "caroline@saveberkeleyiceland.org".

The marketing focus for the different channels were divided up by those who have the interest in those areas:

Traditional Media (Papers, Radio, TV) - Caroline
Internet Route - Tom K.
Online Communities - Jimmy to work on MySpace as will some of the Cal students including Allan F.
Video/Filming - YouTube was raised as a vehicle. We have one dedicated videographer in the group - Rich - but all parents/skaters are encouraged to put their stories on YouTube and link them to the SaveBI site.
Blogging on SaveBI - Everyone is encouraged to become active on the site and to link to it where possible.

During this discussion period one of the directors of the Berkeley YMCA (Tom ?) let us know that the Y thinks we have a valuable asset with a demographic that fits in with the Y. They had looked at the posiblilty of running it as part of the Y, but decided it was too focused on skating for them to justify the purchase. He says that they are very supportive of the action we are taking and think there should be both a business (nonprofit) and a way to work with the Y, which has been turning folks away from their programs due to lack of space.

4> Funding/Business Planning - We are very luck to have Cyril Allen, Cal and Berkeley Bulldogs hockey coach, join us. He has been actively working on the plans "under the radar" for some time having discussions with the City. He believes that the money is there and that we are appealing to private organizations for funding. He has been working with Dave Morris, who was meeting with some prospects that morning and may have more news soon.

Cyril has prepared a preliminary outline of a business plan with an accompanying worksheet (these will be put up on the website later this week). This is very similar to the plan put together by Tom K., meaning we're all pretty much on the same page.

New Business:

1> Change of Venue - The current management has made it known that they do not want SaveBI meetings in the rink. They are not against us, but they do not want to send a "mixed message" to the public (i.e., they want people to think they are serious about the shutdown and that some people might think SaveBI is a shell group for them to get better negotiating position). Keep an eye on the site and mailing list for the location of the next meeting.

2> It was generally agreed that we need a core group to represent the organization when talking with different entities (City, owners, funders, etc.). The main criterion was that they have flexible schedules and be willing to pass on reports to the larger group. First core suggested is made up of Tom, Caroline, and Cyril with others as they request and needs arise.

3> Business Plan - As mentioned above, both Cyril and Tom created business plan outlines, which turned out very similar. A combined document will be posted to the SaveBI site later this week and passed out at the next meeting.

4> The next major event will be the 13 February City Council meeting where we plan on making a significant showing. An attempt was made to outline the goals of the meeting. Pradeep attempted to identify five things we want/expect from the City (money, cooperation/help in permits, future use of the revamped facility, etc). It was decided that we need to have speakers from the different constituencies of the rink - figure skaters, ice dancers, hockey, community, Cal, etc. - with a review of the history and outline of future plans. More detail plans will be decided at the next meeting and online.

Meeting was adjourned.