Mendocino County Lodging Association
Board Meeting
September 13, 2006
Stanford Inn


CALL TO ORDER: President Jo Bradley called the meeting to order at 1:10 pm. Board members present were Pam, Jeff, Ted, Mike, Phil, Steven, Rich, Kevin, Stuart and Jan. Scott was present as the administrator. Absent were Richard, Michael, Kerrie, Dushyant, and Jitu.

PRIVILEDGE OF THE FLOOR: To better facilitate our meetings and assure a quorum, Jeff encouraged the use of proxies. Proxies should be encouraged by a letter from the President.

It was suggested that our meetings follow more closely the guidelines of a non profit board with our minutes sent out at least one week prior to the next meeting.
At our meeting, after the minutes have been formally approved by the board, then the minutes are posted on the website. Business items need to be discussed first on the agenda.


REPORT FROM ADMINISTRATOR: The Board of Supervisors accepted and signed the BID Contract with MCLA on September 12, 2006. The first funds should be available within 10 days.

Annual Meeting Update: To date, 65 RSVPs have been received, saying they will attend. About half of these from lodging. Scott will send emails to board members to call lodging in their area and see if they will be attending.

8 Vendors have been confirmed.

Annual Meeting Agenda:

• Welcome, introductions, status of the BID – what has been happening and how we hired Ozone.
• Ozone Presentation – 15 minutes
• Consent Calendar – one page treasurer’s report, minutes from this meeting, contract from Scott – to be approved.
• MCPA Report – discuss upcoming agenda.
• Winegrape and Wine Commission presentation.
• Q & A period for innkeepers. We will provide paper people can fill out prior to Q & A.


Fiduciary Insurance;
Progress is being made and appropriate agents contacted to get this needed insurance.

Administrators Contract:
A discussion arose as to changing the contract to include mileage anywhere, whether within or out of the county, for trips more than 30 miles one way at .445 cents per mile.

This led to a discussion as to who has authority to authorize expenses that the administrator may occur in normal business.

A MOTION was made by Jeff Stanford that a $5000 fund be made available to the Marketing Committee to cover expenses for administrator’s marketing efforts. The MOTION also approved reimbursement of mileage for more than 30 miles one way whether inside or outside the county at the IRS rate of .445 cents per mile. Ted Kidwell seconded the motion and it was unanimously approved.

It was determined that the title for this person be kept as “Administrator.”

BY-LAWS
The By-Laws have been approved. Charles Reinhardt, from the Joshua Grindle Inn, raised the question as to whether there should be something included in the by-laws if a city chooses to opt out. The board determined that we would cross that bridge if it happens.

THE POSSIBILITY OF CITY PRESENTATIONS:
A discussion arose as to whether our marketing firm, Ozone, would be available to make presentations to various cities. It was determined that at our annual meeting Ozone will be giving a presentation and since all cities were invited to the annual meeting, this would be sufficient. If there was further request from cities or groups, etc, the MCLA Administrator would be used to present information. It was further decided that Ozone should record their September 20, 2006 presentation with the possibility that this could be used for future information.

OZONE UPDATE:
The Executive Board met to go over the Ozone contract. There were several items which will be negotiated, lower travel costs being one of these items.

WEBSITE COMMUNICATION:
The board discussed the mcla.info site and determined that several things could be done which would make it more user friendly. Board of director information needs to be on the site. Minutes and agendas should be archived. A hot link to each board member.

A MOTION was made by Ted Kidwell that in order to get feedback from lodging, a button should be available to email the board. All board members to have their own hotlink. All minutes and agendas archived on the site. Jeff Stanford seconded the motion and it was unanimously approved.


WEBSITE COMMUNICATIONS:
The board had questions on the go.mendo.com website. Is anyone working on it? Anything updated? Stuart updated the board as to what has been happening with the site. The data base had to be fixed first and this is pretty much completed. The exception has been the lodging section because MCLA had not determined what they wish to do with it. Now that we have hired a marketing firm we will come to a definite decision.
Stuart gave some statistics on how many clicks and how many minutes on average were being spent on the go.mendo.com site.
The board determined that we need an actionable item to update the website from MCPA at their next meeting.

Jeff Stanford made a MOTION that at our next MCLA board meeting on September 20, 2006, we have a 15 minute session to discuss the upcoming agenda of the MCPA board meeting on 9/21/06. The purpose is to make sure it is on their agenda to discuss the gomendo website and the lodging position on that website. Steven Musser seconded the motion and it was unanimously approved.


Kevin Gallagher made a MOTION that the gomendo.com site be put on the
MCPA agenda and dealt with as top priority and an actionable item. Steven
Musser seconded the motion and it was unanimously approved.


The board determined that we need to have a committees report on our monthly agenda. We need to develop protocol on how communications flow. The administrator is to take notes in meetings and send to the secretary to develop into minutes and send to committee members within 2 days of meeting.


ELECTIONS OF OFFICERS:
It was strongly felt that continuity at this time was important. As a result the board nominated and elected the following board members as officers:

Jan Rodriguez – Secretary
Richard Strom - Treasurer
Steven Musser – Vice President
Jo Bradley – President

The board also nominated the elected the following lodging members as members of the marketing committee:

Richard Steven
Jan Stuart
Pam Kathy
Kevin Jitu
Mike Josie
Jeff

At the Board’s request Jo named Richard the chairman of the Marketing Committee.

The meeting was adjourned at 5:00.

Respectfully submitted:
Jan Rodriguez, Secretary