Due to horrific snow and ice storms, the January 10 board meeting was rescheduled to the 17th and the rescheduled again to the 19th.
We kicked off the meeting with a bylaws discussion. Neil from Venture Portland presented our proposed changes. The 2 term limit will become 3 terms and allow the board to vote by email under certain circumstances. Quorum will be set at 33%. The board felt that these were all good changes. The final vote will come in February.
Then our guests from Cogan, Owens Green then presented on their 82nd Ave improvement project. They wanted to know what the barriers to development are, what we see as being the current use for the avenue, and what we thought would be the future of 82nd. Vice President Steve from the Carts on Foster told our visitors “This country runs on small business owners. We need more creative and small business space.” President Matthew of Red Castle Games noted that the avenue’s current status as a state highway has made it difficult for the city of Portland to make changes to the area. Radcliff from Cogan Owens Green agreed and elaborated that although Portland would like to take over administration of the street, it needs several million dollars worth of repairs before the city can afford it. Our guests requested that any feedback about 82nd be directed to our staffer Marina at marina@ventureportland.org to be delivered to them.
Our treasurer Laura from Steve Turmell Visual Communications reported that we sold more ads in the Winter Activity Book than we had expected, so we were able to spend more money on Tree Lighting.
Allen from Gray Dog Digital reported that there are sponsorship opportunities available for Movie in the Park this summer, and that the Foster Powell Community Garden will be adding more fruit trees.
Our staff person Marina gave the mid-year report, which was approved and voted on by the board.
Since August, 1, 2016:
- We had 300 attendees at Tree Lighting
- 15 volunteers donated 40.5 hours to Tree Lighting
- 13 businesses contributed content for the Winter Activity Book
- Tree Lighting posts generated 5,497 Facebook views
- Our website has had 3004 views since the beginning of the fiscal year on August 1, 2016
- We increased our Facebook likes by 34.7%
- Our staffer visited 128 businesses 320 times
- Applied for and were awarded $2500 branding grant
After that, Marina and Neil presented our Strong Membership strategy. Housing prices in Foster are rising, and it is important to preserve our historic and minority-owned businesses during this time. The board voted to continue the goal of increasing minority-owned business membership and board representation, and to add the goal of increasing historic business membership and board representation in order to better serve our district.
President Matthew announced that the quarterly Pilot Project Quad Talk, which had been postponed due to snow will go ahead in our district in late February and will be hosted by our new pub, Futpool Portland.