Finance & Legal minutes: 2005-09-12

Minutes:

[[FinanceAndLegalMinutes]]
Date: September 12, 2005, location: CH sitting room
----
FINANCE & LEGAL [[Meeting]] Minutes - 12 Sept 05
ATTENDING: Willie, Tracy, Bill, [[Elph]], Dale, Judith, Jim. [Kathy B, at the end.]
MINUTES BY: Jim Graham

AGENDA:
* Steering report
* [[FinOps]] and bookkeepers' report
* Monkey review
* Sharing a garage roof with TS - legal implications?
* Status on transcribing master deed and bylaws
* Master deed changes
* Info on web-based Quickbooks
* Community-wide financial report
* Pushing back the meeting time to 7:30
* ADDED: LTCRF update
* ADDED: Keeping up w/ monkeys
* ADDED: Pre-assigned jobs for next season

MONKEYS:
[[Elph]] - Check w/ JD on legal ramifications of sharing garage roof with TS.
Tracy - Serve as "monkey keeper", re-sending them to those responsible, reminding us what we have agreed to do.

RE-MONKEYS:
Bill - Upload PDF and provide links for 6 months review.
Bill - Check in w/Helen, and update manual on the wiki, on procedure for reimbursing members by means of a credit to their association fees.
Willie - Updates on Master Deed.
Bill - [[FinOps]] community-wide report.
All F&L - Typing copy of Bylaws and Master deed.

STEERING COMMITTEE: Did not meet on Sunday, the 4th. JD has reported by e-mail that he will be paying the bills from Scio Twp which had been under dispute, and will ask GO to reimburse CDC for 1/2 that amount [to be recovered from the contingency fund]. F&L agrees that we are obliged to share this bill, but recommends that we hold our payment to CDC until we have our Certificate of Occupancy.

FINOPS & BOOKKEEPER'S REPORT:
Bill needs to get together with George, to make a PDF for the 6-months-report.
Bill needs to get together with Helen, about how to make the process work, which allows the option of reimbursing members by a credit to their association fees. There had been a communication breakdown, as this procedure was being set up.

MONKEY REVIEW:
Judith - Customer satisfaction survey w/ Republic Bank - DONE
Adi - Talk w/ Helen & Kathy about their jobs - No info
Bill - Upload PDF and provide links for 6-months review - Continuing / RE-monkey.
Bill - Check-in w/ Helen, update manual on the wiki - Continuing / RE-monkey.
Willie - Will announce new options - On hold.
Willie - Updates on Master Deed - RE monkey.
Bylaws and Master deed typing - In process. RE-monkey the entire committee.
Bill - on [[FinOps]] community-wide report - RE-monkey.

SHARING A GARAGE ROOF w/ TS - [For info.] A bank of garages at TS will back up to our own southern-most bank. CDC is proposing to build a roof over both. JD says that he will draft a way of dealing with the legal implications of such shared property. MONKEY [[Elph]] to check w/ JD on this.

STATUS OF TRANSCRIBING MASTER DEED & BYLAWS - Continuing.

MASTER DEED CHANGES PACKET - Willie is still seeking time on community meeting agenda.

TEAM DESCRIPTION - MANDATE - Still up for action; lower priority for us than other items.

PUSHING BACK OUR MEETING TIME TO 7:30 - Generally OK with committee members.
We intend to devote most of our next meeting to work on cleaning up monkeys.

LTCRF update - [[Elph]] handed out a chart for next year's LTCRF charges for each unit, based purely on square footage. Other F&L members noted that there are other considerations - two small examples being whether a household has a fireplace, or skylights. The report [[Elph]] brought us is on the wiki.
There needs to be an overall 4.5% increase next year, taking into account both inflation and increased costs.
What about individual adjustments? Our Bylaws state that each unit shares equally in community-wide expenses, but must cover their own unit's particular costs. There have been ambiguities, still needing to be cleared up, about what is in an LCE, what is GCE.
While this is independent of the budget, it certainly affects people's ideas about affordability.
Tracy will run a household survey, asking who has what in their unit.
[NOTE: There has been considerable further discussion of this topic, over e-mail, since the meeting.]

KEEPING UP W/ MONKEYS
Tracey will be the "monkey-keeper", re-sending them to those responsible before the next meeting, reminding us all what we have agreed to do. Whoever takes the minutes should list them all, together, toward the top of the minutes.

PRE-ASSIGNED JOBS FOR NEXT WORK SEASON
It was noted that Work committee encourages rotation of jobs - though not all at the same time! - to make sure that each job has more than 1 person capable of performing it, to lessen the chance of burn-out, and to avoid the appearance that any job is "owned" by anyone.
Adi has volunteered to serve as convener. George will continue as general bookkeeper; and Kathy - by the end of our meeting - agreed to continue as member bookkeeper. In both these cases, we need to line up the next replacement, and provide them with training.
[[FinOps]] convener? Bill hopes to step down. A job description is on the wiki; possibly needs revision. This person convenes meetings with both bookkeepers, troubleshoots, is responsible for reporting to the organization; would be equivalent to CFO or "[[Treasurer]]" except that the latter [[title]] is reserved in our Bylaws for the F&L convener. [[FinOps]] takes care of operational details, while F&L works on policy. Tracy will be pre-assigned as [[FinOps]] convener, with 6 hours per month work credit; and will make sure that trainee ["apprentice"?] bookkeepers are indeed trained.

NEXT MEETING - 7:30 pm, Monday, Sept. 26th, at Tracy's. Judith will take minutes.