ALBG Business Meeting November 17, 2006

Transcription

1 ALBG Business Meeting November 17, 2006 The monthly meeting of the Association of Licensed Battlefield Guides was called to order at 6:30 PM by President Sue Boardman at the GAR Post Home on East Middle Street, Gettysburg. Chaplain Frampton opened the business meeting with a prayer. There were 49 members - 48 LBG's and 1 Associate - in attendance. President Boardman dispensed with the reading of the September Business meeting minutes. September s Acting Secretary, Wayne Motts, was responsible for taking those minutes and despite being asked numerous times to produce them - did not. The Secretary will attempt to coerce Wayne into producing said missing document! The Treasurer's report for the third quarter was distributed. (See attached) The ALBG still continues to show an excess of revenues over expenditures. There was a question brought up about the large amount of money remaining in a relatively low interest checking account ($15,009.36). After some discussion and explanation John Fuss was instructed to assist the Treasurer in moving some or all of the excess into our higher interest checking account. The Treasurer pointed out that with the forthcoming reprint of the Monument book we will have to transfer money back in to pay the bill. Committee Reports: Membership: Committee chair Phil Lechak reported that at the present time there are a total of 157 Licensed Guides. Of this number 121 (77%) are members with 36 nonmembers. Thirty of these are habitual non-members while six did not renew their membership from last year. At present there are 181 Associate members with an additional 23 complimentary memberships. Total ALBG membership stands at 325. Web Site: Chair Fred Hawthorne reported that the website continues to evolve. Any members wishing to have material placed on the website is asked to it to Fred. This includes information, press releases, old photos, guide experiences, etc. The historic guide list is now up on the Member s Only Area in its entirety. All 539 LBG's who completed the licensing process are listed. Fred is now in the process of researching the death dates of past guides. This information will go in the last column. At the present time all meeting minutes, recent issues of the Battlefield Dispatch and timely information are the main items on the private site. Eighty of our membership have registered for admission to the member-area.

2 Seminar Committee: Chair Rick Hohmann reported that the fall seminar netted the ALBG some $4,100. We had a problem with a check which the Hotel Gettysburg claimed to have not received for which a stop payment charge was required. Total Revenue: $14, Expenses: Gettysburg Hotel $5, Bus Rental $1, Bus Driver Gratuity $ Guide Presenters $2, Handouts $ Ice: $ Promotional Flier $ Name Tags $ Water $ Framing by Gallon $ Postcards $ 2.60 Stop Payment Check $ Total: $ 9, Net Profit: $ 4, The 2007 Seminar will be moved to the Wyndham Hotel at the Gateway Gettysburg complex but we do not yet have a topic, It will be the weekend after Labor Day. Rick is anxious for any suggestions as to the topic for this seminar and he expresses his thanks to everyone help make the last one the success that it was. Guide Stats: Chair John Fuss gave a report of the guide statistics for the last of for the first ten months of the year. He noted that total visitation is down over 45,000 visitors from 2005 as are total guided tours. Visitors at the Visitors Center: 899,749-45, % Car Tours 14, % Bus Tours 5, % Van Tours 1, % Cemetery Walks % Total Tours 21, % Guides Available 10, % Guided Car Tours Compared to Available Visitors: Mar to Sep guided tours per 100 visitors Mar to Sep guided tours per 100 visitors Guide Board Committee: Chairman Fuss reported that the schedule for the winter season has been put out.

3 Gateway Gettysburg Committee: Chair Fred Hawthorne gave a brief update on the status of negotiations with Gateway Gettysburg and its ticketing agent: ParkTrek. A Memorandum of Understanding is presently being negotiated and availability forms will be distributed to those guides interested in working from the system. Once the agreement is established it will be signed by all parties and copies will be made available to the membership. Health and Welfare Committee: Chair Ed Suplee reports that there were a total of twenty-nine (29) notifications last year. He sent a total of 24 get well or sympathy cards and 8 flower arrangements. Ed noted that this seems kind of heavy but reminded us that we are kind of an old group. Transition Committee: In the absence of the committee chair, Rich Kohr, committee member Fred Hawthorne gave a brief synopsis of the key aspects of the November 9th meeting with park and Foundation representatives to develop rules under which the Ticketing and Reservation system will operate. Several issues of interest to guides specifically the required rest time between tours and the issue of willingness to staff a guide board at the new facility will be decided under New Business to provide direction for the committee to take back to the next meeting on November 29. Picnic Committee: No report. Visiting Scholars Committee: No report. Continuing Education Committee: No report. Old Business: Ellen Pratt moved and Phil Lechak seconded, that the ALBG Treasurer be authorized to expend up to $100 as a donation to the group working to provide a duplicate of Lt. Charles Hazlett s original tombstone in Zanesville, Ohio. The motion passed on a voice vote with one nay vote. New Business: Fred Hawthorne moved on behalf of the ALBG Transition Committee that it be instructed that Guides will not accept any mandatory restriction on the amount of time they must allow for each trip beyond the traditionally accepted 15 minutes. Any attempt to regulate this further impinges upon our rights as individual contractors to determine our own working conditions. This does not preclude

4 individual guides utilizing longer break periods. This was seconded by many in attendance and passed without discussion by an enthusiastic unanimous voice vote. Fred Hawthorne moved on behalf of the ALBG Transition Committee that it be instructed and is hereby authorized to approach the National Park Service / Museum Foundation with the idea that guides will continue to work a guide board schedule and desire to handle our own walk up reservations. This motion was again seconded by many and passed without discussion by a unanimous voice vote. Tony Nicastro moved, seconded by Phil Cole, that all newly elected officers be invited to sit in on all committee and executive meetings from tonight until they take office January 1, 2007 in order to help smooth the transition at this critical time. This was passed unanimously without further discussion. Dale Brister moved, seconded by David Eisenhart, to authorize the Transition Committee to make Bus Only Reservations an option under the new reservation system. At present the only options available to guides are Cars Only and Buses and Cars. This led to considerable discussion: o Chris Rebmann said did not believe it to be a viable position and would actually undercut the viability of our committee to be saddled with that. o Jim Cole spoke in favor of the motion feeling all should have the option of deciding whether to do random cars or not. He felt requiring this was continuing to place unfair requirements on the backs of the guides. o Rich Hohmann felt that Dale s position was not correct in this matter and asked is this one of the things we really want? He felt we should determine those items most important to us and concentrate on those,. o Dave Eisenhart indicated he felt it is a change that we wish to oppose and that is all. The park clearly wishes to impose changes and the fewer changes we accept the better off it will be for us all. He thinks it should be one of the things that should remain the same. o Mike Vallone stated that he doesn t think anyone should have the right to just do buses. o Dale Brister stated that he was concerned there are simply too many changes going on. Paul Marhevka called the question and there being no objections, discussion was closed and a hand vote taken. The motion failed by a vote of 9 yeas, 23 nays and 5 abstentions. Rick Hohmann reported that one of our colleagues has an injury that requires medical treatment costing approximately $1,500 and has no money - or health insurance. Rick has replica Remington pistol he is offering for the purposes of raffling it off to raise money at $10 a chance for that fund. This will be done with notices placed in the guide room and in the upcoming Battlefield Dispatch.

5 Election of Officers: As is tradition and practice the three junior members of the ALBG Executive Council (Ellen Pratt, Ed Guy and John Fitzpatrick) are assigned the task of serving as a Nominating Committee. Chair Ellen Pratt distributed the ballots and asked the floor for additional nominations. There being none, ballots were distributed. It was mistakenly announced that the membership were to vote for four of the eight nominees for Executive Council. This error was recognized during the course balloting and a decision made to accept the nominees with the three highest numbers of votes. Ballots were tallied by Ellen Pratt, John Fuss and Joanne Lewis with the following results: President - Vice President - Secretary - Treasurer - Parliamentarian - Rick Hohmann Paul Marhevka Fred Hawthorne Deb Novotny Howie Frankenfield Executive Council: ** Chris Rebmann 36 Richard Bellamy 29 ** Guillermo Bosch 30 ** Hans Henzel 43 Phil Lechak 20 George Newton 21 Gary Vezza 5 Ethics Committee: Richard Goedkoop These officers will join the existing, now senior, Executive Council : Ellen Pratt Ed Guy John Fitzpatrick Outgoing President Boardman will fill the position on the Executive Council of President Emeritus for the coming year. Good of the Order: Don Walters reported that the monument book is being reprinted and should be ready for pickup somewhere about one or two months from now. They will need to be stored in our facility on Route 30 and he needs help doing so. Please leave a message in his mailbox indicating your willingness to do so.

6 The meeting was adjourned in a near chaotic riot at 8:22 PM followed by a Continuing Education program put on by Deb McCauslin Underground Railroad in Adams County, Yellow Hill, Menallen Quakers.

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10 Minutes of Meeting with NPS / Foundation re: Ticketing and Reservation System Date: November 9, 2006 Time: 0830 to 1130 Location: Visitor Center Conference Room Present: Brion Fitzgerald Gettysburg National Military Park Elliot Gruber - Gettysburg National Battlefield Museum Foundation Cheryl Kline Reservations Manager, Foundation Rich Simmons Information Technology Specialist - Foundation Sue Boardman President, ALBG Rich Kohn Vice President, ALBG, Chair, Transition Committee Fred Hawthorne Secretary, ALBG, Transition Committee Member Chris Rebmann Transition Committee Member Guillermo Bosch Transition Committee Member Brion led off by describing the purpose of this meeting: to develop the business rules for the Licensed Battlefield Guides. The interim system that they have access to right now will allow for the Foundation to take reservations, assign LBG s manually, look for conflicts and generate reports. Cheryl felt it actually is a more versatile system than the old Eastern system and they are continuing to learn more about its capabilities. Elliot stated that this will go live for the first time on November 15 th. Representatives from Blackbaud will be on location all next week to help with the implementation and installation. Blackbaud the vendor who received the contract for developing the Ticketing and Reservation system hopes to have the complete package on line and ready to use by January 15, This complete system will allow for the auto-assignment of LBG s based on the availability information provided by participating guides in a few weeks. By the fall of 2007 they hope to have the internet based component of the system on line such that the public can begin to access the system via the web and make their own reservations without requiring a live contact. LBG s can also go online from any location to check / change their individual availability or to make reservation trades. ***** Elliott Gruber then explained how Blackbaud successfully won the bid. Six or eight companies expressed an interest in the RFP for the Ticketing and Reservation system. They narrowed the responders down to two vendors: Gateway which had much more experience in a ticketing reservation system and Blackbaud a company with limited experience in such systems but known for their fundraising software package for nonprofits known as Raiser s Edge.

11 Despite the fact they have limited (3-4 years experience) in the type of package the Foundation was looking for, Blackbaud was chosen as they were known for their customer service and their willingness to do customization. They were selected in September and on October 30 came to talk to representatives of the park and Foundation to better understand the unique needs of the system in preparation for developing the customization required as stated in the original RFP. With the sudden move of Eastern National and the subsequent acceleration of the Foundation s takeover of the reservation system Blackbaud was asked to install an interim software package which is in the process of being accomplished over the next week or so. This was done by them in less than three weeks so they clearly are responsive to customer service. Preliminary work by Cheryl and Rich has already shown the temporary package to have more built-in functionality than the old Eastern system. It will allow a degree of automatic scheduling and tracking and will show if there is any double-bookings. Cheryl will have to continue to schedule guides manually however. Blackbaud staff will be here all next week assisting in getting this new system up and running. That will give us time to test it before it goes live. ***** Brion Fitzgerald then suggested we go over the basic rules set down in the RFP. These were things that each prospective vendor had to agree to include in any ticketing and reservation system. 1. The system has to be internet based and available 24-hours a day such that a visitor can make their own reservations without having to contact a live person. 2. The system has to provide the use of telephone contact or walkup services (random visitors) for those visitors without Internet access. Brion said he wanted the telephone number prominently seen. 3. The system has to have the capability to book every service in the park. 4. The system will be based on the assumption that visitor demand for guide services for reserved cars will increase to over 50% of advanced reservations. 5. The system must have the built in capacity to balance supply and demand. 6. The system needs to be a part of the National Park Service s Intelligent Management Plan. The means the system will automatically use the scheduling system to ensure that no more than a set number of buses will be sent out on any particular day. This will be used to regulate crowds on the field. Brion stated that at some point in the future the same will be done for cars. Not now but certainly down the road. 7. The system will allow guides to go in and establish / change their availability. Guides could go in afterwards and put in vacation time, etc. up to two weeks but would not be able to completely block themselves out. Any significant change would need to be run through the guide supervisor for permission so the system would not allow such changes. We need to start

12 to think about specific rules for this latter part and how to best establish them. Rich Simmons then asked a question about what should be on the Internet reservations page besides the drop down list of LBG s and their specialties. Fred Hawthorne questioned what was meant by that and if that meant any visitor would be able to pick any LBG from a list. If so, that would mean people would pick guides sight unseen based on hearing their name or a book they ve written, etc. Brion stated this drop down feature was only for in-house scheduling use and visitors would not have the option of choosing a guide unless they called their reservation in and talked to a live person. ***** Brion next wanted to look at what the RFP stated would be the conditions laid down for assigning LBG s in order to refine the rules. Reservations will be assigned initially based on three factors: Seniority in years as a Licensed Battlefield Guide Seniority in years in the Reservation System Availability Criteria We then began to look at the RFP stated-criteria required to be fed into the system in order to properly and automatically assign tours. 1. Is the LBG participating or not? Guide can opt to stay out of the system entirely, can opt to do car tours only OR be in the car/bus system. Talked a bit about possibility that future guide classes will be told from the beginning they MUST do cars/buses else not licensed. I brought that up NOT the park though Brion agreed that may be the case with existing guides grandfathered and allowed to opt only cars or opt out altogether. 2. What are the total amount of tours he/she will take this guide year? 3. Which days of the week do you wish to work? 4. What times of day do you wish to work? 5. Dates that you would not be able to work during the coming year. 6. Types of tours preferred or not preferred specialties. 7. The time blocked in for a break between tours the minimum being 15 minutes. 8. Maximum number of tours you agree to do each day. 9. Guide CANNOT book tours without a break in between. 10. The system cannot book more than two tours without an hour break. Discussed afterwards that this may need to be massaged by us a bit. Hour seems excessive and potentially bothering some. 11. The preferred start time and end time for your work day. 12. Specialty tours system currently allows five RFP asked for more. 13. Language proficiencies.

13 14. Original date of licensing becoming an LBG. We discussed the fact that we need to develop this list and not rely on the rather faulty memory of some LBG s. There followed a lengthy discussion about equitability of car/bus reservation distribution. This was not considered by the NPS/Foundation. The committee members then spent considerable time trying to explain WHY it was important to maintain a fair and equal distribution of cars/buses so no one guide has a preponderance of either cars or buses. Rich stated we need a rule and insisted it was simply a matter of establishing a percentage. We tried to explain how it could logically be done by having the computer checking each guide each time to see which one could equitably receive that reservation. We believe Rich finally understood and said he felt he could develop a programming rule. We need to follow up on this. ***** Brion then explained how the NPS envisioned the random system working. In the morning a LBG will come in and log in at the guideroom putting in his/her personal pin number and indicating availability for tours. When a tour comes in it will be assigned based on all the criteria in the system: seniority as guide, seniority in system and unique specialties. We all immediately questioned this. Brion further stated that guides that said they would be available for reservations that day whether or not they received a reservation would get automatic priority over those who had not made themselves available then. A visitor could arrive at nine and say they wanted a tour at 2 PM. The system, using all the above criteria would assign the available random guide. Considerable conversation ensued over all the potential problems this would cause. Brion indicated this is what Dr. Latschar had requested. We emphasized how it destroyed one of the basic strengths of guiding and that a random system envisioned above would only work with paid employees who were willing to sit around which we most certainly were not. Eventually discussion began to focus on how we could make the current paper/draw system work. We would still utilize the computer based sign in system with all people coming in prior to 8 logging into the system and receiving a time stamp. At 8 AM the system would randomly mix the list and establish the initial guide rotation. As subsequent guides come and sign in later in the morning a time stamp would establish their order. As a random party comes up and requests guide services the reservation specialist would access this list, choose the next guide and call the guideroom. That guide would log in and set a new time as would be done now. Chris spent some time explaining the rotation to Rich using some recent daily sheets. Rich felt he could create such a program outside of the system to be used. Brion

14 indicated this was part of the RFP and would be the responsibility of Blackbaud to develop a module to work within their system. Copies of several of the sheets were to be provided to Rich by us so he could work on the rules to explain it to the programmers. ***** As the time was approaching 11:30 Brion asked Rich to summarize the rules developed as a result of our discussions and get them out to all participants by Thanksgiving week. We are to peruse these notes, provide feedback and then we will all get back together on Wednesday, November 29, This meeting will take place at 8:30 AM in the Visitor Center Conference Room. Following this meeting we will establish a time to meet with Aspen the Blackbaud programmer in charge of the team working on the final Ticketing and Reservation system software.

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