June 2009 River Meeting Notes

Bill, Harold, Margery, Shad, Lance, Lam, Alyssa, Chris, Laura, Caroline, Mai, Vinny, Nat, Ayush, Jim, Jared, Anthony, Mel

- May / June trip reports

CALS High School on the Kings - a charter school from Los Angeles.  Great advisors/ teachers and kids.  A couple of brief swims, two lost hats, and a dump truck.

- July 4th Fundraiser Update and planning.

11 registered participants for Saturday, July 4

2 registered participants for Friday, July 3

0 registered participants for Sunday, July 5

Friday and Sunday are in jeopardy -- now is the time to book up participants.  Without more signups, we may cancel those trips.

We need more more experienced G guides to sign up!  The guides need to be approved by Bill W- only Mel is signed up and eligible to guide the DS-USA boats so far.

It's been advertised on the online Sierra Club events calendar.

It's likely worthwhile to advertise it on Craigslist as well. - Ayush will post this.

The participant sign-ups are needed by the Wednesday prior to the trip - July 1st.

We will likely need at least 20 people total to break even on the DS-USA permit (Bill W has the actual number).  If we don't sufficiently fill the trips, we may have the option to shift the participants to an AO trip and take the donation.

Vinny will print the flyers on nice paper: Ayush, Harold, & Laura (Wilderness Exchange, REI, Whole Foods), Carolyn (school) will distribute them.  The flyer's available on the PR website.  Bill will try to update the flyer.

Send emails to co-workers folks!

Ayush- treasurer

Erin - reservations

??- logistics -- we need someone for this position!

- AO Fundraiser - September

Scott welcomes any time - we just need to pick some dates.  We prefer the 12-13th September, the American River festival is running that weekend, as is the 7 Trees trip.  If we can get staff and camping for both trips, we'd prefer that weekend.  Otherwise, we're considering the next weekend for an AO - permitted trip.  The more ICO guides we can have to run the trips, the more money we make.  For Middle Fork trips, the guides need to have seen the river before to guide on the trip.

- Oakland School District / Next Trip

The trip will go out, even though there were some legal issues regarding a contract.  We will need to pay Sierra Club lawyer, approximately $1000, to write a contract with the school district.

- Swiftwater Rescue Recap.

A few overheatings in the dry suits, but cold dips in the water helped.  We overspent our budget due to issues with sign-ups.  We'll do this again in 3 years.  Shad will coach the next person to take on the organization of SWR next time.

- Harold announcement

The t-shirt has been claimed!

- Apprentice training '09

More discussion on the option to include extra training for apprentices (in a separate boat, with or without a trainer) on participant trips.

Issues in favor of including this extra training include:

- we get more apprentices on trips that might be full otherwise

- we didn't have extra opportunities for training earlier this year (Beyond Basics, Advanced Training)

-

Issues of concern for the extra training include:

- it may be more of a priority to have apprentices incur their additional training in boats w/ participants

- Apprentice-only ("suicide") boats can change the tenor of the trip and shift the emphasis from participants

- The budget for training has been spent already.  We are short of income this year.  The $300 trip funds should prioritize the participant trip (including getting apprentices on trips) but not training.

The group supported the following findings -

We support the current policy to let the trip leader to decide -

- suicide boats or not - how many apprentices and how to arrange them in boats on the trip

- trainers for apprentice training will have to pay the costs to come on the trip

- no modifications to the $300/ $450 trip funds

- Review of money request policy

Sierra Club Foundation rules require receipts for reimbursement of the $300 or up to $450 (with pre-approval from the finance team) for each trip.

Money can be requested prior to the trip, but receipts must be submitted after the trip to document the expenditures.

- Finance news

Jon submitted a Stewardship Council grant request for $15,000 this week.  He also noted that Shane Doong donated $2500, which will be matched by his employer, for a total of $5000. 

So far we haven't processed requests for reimbursement - send in your requests if you have them, so we can properly account for them.

We have an account with Rafter's Tow for $12.50 per boat, billed 2 weeks after the trip. These costs can be deducted from the $300 per trip funds.

- Leader certification cards

We have 35 fully compliant guides!!! 30 excluding this year's class.  Bravo to the culture change - and Ryan's efforts to update card compliance.

- ICO Finance update: new policies, budget update, expense reimbursements, trip costs.

- Open floor: Q&A, new concerns/comments, etc.