MISSION STATEMENT: To promote our members, the community, and economic development resulting in a better quality of life. Agenda Call to order by President, Kevin Jaspers 1. Consideration of: (Approval) a) Board of Directors September 21, 2017 Agenda b) Board of Directors August 17, 2017 Minutes 2. Financial Reports (Discussion & Approval) a) August - Accounts Receivable, Balance Sheet, & Profit & Loss Statement 3. Director s report Eric Hortness a) Briefing of Chamber activities, upcoming events, ED activity, and membership 4. Old Business a) Chamber Bucks Mad Money Gift Card Update b) City of Madison Budget Request for 2018 - Update c) Employee Handbook Updates (Discussion & Approval) d) Salaried Positions for office staff (Discussion & Approval) e) Planning Retreat Discussion f) Trojan Day Parade Saturday 5. New Business a) 2018 Membership Dues Increase(Discussion & Approval) b) Health Insurance c) 2018 BoD Retention/Recruitment/Replacement d) Newsletter e) Show & Sell week staff hours f) Website Analytics 6. Consideration of standing committee meeting minutes: (Discussion & Approval) Review of Committee Minutes: Rec & Tourney, Education, Ag, and Community Promotions No meeting: Diplomats & Governmental Affairs May September 7. Ex-Officio Reports: a) Julie Gross Lake Area Improvement Corporation b) Kelli Wollmann Lake County Commission c) Aaron Walter The Community Center d) SFC John Anderson SDNG 211 th Engineering Co. 8. Newsletter submission for July/August edition: (bi-monthly BoD article included in each newsletter) a) BoD Article Daniel Buresh Deadline: October 27, 2017 Publication Date: November 14, 2017 9. Next Chamber Board of Directors Meeting: Thursday, October 19 th, 2017 7:00 AM Depot 10. Adjournment:
MISSION STATEMENT: To promote our members, the community, and economic development resulting in a better quality of life. Minutes Members Present: Kevin Jaspers- President, Tom Bloom- Vice President, Sara Wardner- Secretary/Treasurer, Liz Avery, Vicki Kommes, Adam Shaw, Dan Buresh, Stacey Krusemark Staff Present: Eric Hortness- Executive Director, Danielle Manthey- Office Manager and Courtney Storm- Promotions & Committee Coordinator Members Absent: Lisa Schaefer Call to order by President, Kevin Jaspers 7:04 AM 1. Consideration of: (Approval) c) Board of Directors September 21, 2017 Agenda Motion: Krusemark motioned to approve the September BoD Meeting Agenda as presented with the addition under new business for the Website Analytics and Shaw seconded. Motion Carried. d) Board of Directors August 17, 2017 Minutes Motion: Kommes motioned to approve the August BoD Meeting Minutes as presented and Buresh seconded. Motion Carried. 2. Financial Reports (Discussion & Approval) b) August - Accounts Receivable, Balance Sheet, & Profit & Loss Statement Hortness noted that figuring in payments received September 1 st through September 20th that brings the A/R Summary total to $2913.00 still outstanding Motion: Patch motioned to approve the August financial reports as presented and Bloom seconded. Motion Carried. 3. Director s report Eric Hortness b) Briefing of Chamber activities, upcoming events, ED activity, and membership DSU Move-In Day Great turn out. Served out on the campus green, it was a beautiful day. Stadium 10 Year Anniversary Ribbon Cutting September 30 Pride in What We Build Showcase October 5 Madison Middle School Gym Rooster Rush Tailgate October 6 Trojan Field Off the Clock Vast Broadband October 10 Trick or Treat October 31 Wine Tour October 14 approx. 20 registrants to date SESD Tourism Meeting September 20 o Discussed Salem Visitor Center o Tourism Capital for the Day upcoming, would like Madison to participate 324 Members to date (ended 2016 with a record 321) o JB s o SIX21 Trends Boutique o JT Mechanics Chamber Christmas Cash Potential New Promotion o Christmas Loans issued by local banks. Customers would receive gift certificates issued in $100 and $20 increments that can be used at local businesses. The businesses where the certificates are used pays 4% interest on loan amount. o Customer who receives the loan has 12 months to pay the loan back interest free. They receive o Hortness contacted the local banks and East River Federal Credit Union and Dakotaland FCU Interlakes Branch are interested in participating other banks have policies in place that will not allow them to participate. o Retailers are interested Montgomery s and Karl s TV & Appliance are a few that Hortness spoke too. o Bloom suggested having a minimum loan amount that can be issued by the banks.
o Hortness asked for board feedback and thoughts. Bloom noted that anything that brings in additional walk-in foot traffic to local business is a good idea. Wardner suggested that the customers tell the banks in advance where they want to spend the loan to guarantee it is used at Chamber Member businesses. o Hortness noted that we could not do Mad Money as a substitute because the retailers would then be paying the 4% interest and the credit card fees. o Hortness will speak with the interested banks and keep board updated on if we plan to move forward with the promotion for the upcoming holiday season. SESD Annual Meeting morning of October 3 o All Chamber staff will be attending Held at Good Earth State Park 4. Old Business g) Chamber Bucks Mad Money Gift Card Update Started issuing Mad Money on September 1 st All businesses have been set up if needed. Staff presented the card issuing system on the projector screen and showed the merchant report, which shows all of the businesses that the cards have been used at. Jaspers noted that after having a full year s report, this will be a great selling point for new members. h) City of Madison Budget Request for 2018 Update Approved $85,000 Commissioners have heard positive things about the direction the Chamber is going City is excited for the Madison video that the Chamber is having done by Wollmann Productions. Should be done in the next few weeks. i) Employee Handbook Updates (Discussion & Approval) Hortness presented handout with the updates to the Employee Handbook Updates to the Pay Periods/Hours of Work sections of the Employee Handbook are as follows: Pay Periods The pay period of the Chamber staff will be semi-monthly. The first pay period runs from the 1 st -15 th and is paid on the 20 th. The second pay period runs the 16 th -the end of the month and is paid on the 5 th of the following month. If the pay date falls on a weekend, staff will be paid the Friday prior to the pay date. Hours of Work In accordance with the Fair Labor Standards Act, the Chamber may establish the work week to best fit the needs of the Chamber. Regular office hours are from 8 am-5 pm Monday through Thursday, and 8 am-4:30 pm on Friday. Staff will alternate lunch hours in order to maintain an open office. Any employee who does not qualify as an "exempt" employee under the provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act will be classified as an hourly (non-exempt) employee. An hourly employee is expected to work at least 40 hours per week, on a yearly basis. Any hours worked over 40 within the work week (not including holidays or scheduled PTO) will be paid at one and one-half times the employee s hourly wage. A salaried (exempt) employee is expected to work at least X number of hours in a pay period. X is determined by the following formula: Number of working days in the pay period x 8 hours = total hours The number of hours less than the calculated amount needed for the pay period will be deducted from the employee s PTO balance. Each employee will report their individual hours worked and PTO used to the Office Manager. The Office Manager will track the number of hours worked and PTO for all office staff.
Avery noted to keep the hourly employee writing in the Handbook in the case that we would hire a parttime or hourly employee in the future. Motion: Avery motioned to approve the Employee Handbook Updates to Pay Periods/Hourly & Salaried Employees as presented to go into effect January 1, 2018 and Patch seconded. Motion Carried. Updates to the Paid Holidays section of the Employee Handbook are as follows: The Chamber provides twelve holidays (8 observed and 4 floating holidays) a year to all regular employees. (Effective January 1, 2018) 1. New Year s Day 2. President s Day 3. Good Friday 4. Memorial Day 5. Independence Day 6. Labor Day 7. Columbus/Native American Day 8. Veteran s Day 9. Thanksgiving Day 10. Christmas Eve 11. Christmas Day 12. New Year s Eve New Year's Day, Memorial Day, Independence Day, Labor Day, Thanksgiving Day and Christmas Day are regular observed holidays and on these days, normal Chamber operations are closed down. Holidays falling on the first day of the weekend will be observed on the day before; holidays falling on the last day of the weekend will be observed the following day. Four additional "floating holidays are provided; President s Day, Good Friday, Columbus/Native American Day, Veteran s Day; for which Chamber operations continue as usual and alternate holiday time off is given as described below. Staff has the option to work on these holidays and earn eight (8) hours of holiday PTO for each of these holidays worked. Holiday PTO hours must be used during the same calendar year of the holiday they were earned for and employees cannot carry them over to the following year. The staff must coordinate so at least one staff member is in the office on each of the previously stated four floating holidays. Christmas Eve and New Year s Eve are given special consideration and will be determined by the Executive Director as appropriate. The Chamber office will be open and staff members will be required to work either the Friday prior to the holiday or the Tuesday following the holiday if the Christmas Eve/Christmas Day and New Year s Eve/New Year s Day holidays occur over the weekend. Shaw noted that he thinks that keeping the office open more days of the year especially around the holidays will be very beneficial. Motion: Shaw motioned to approve the Employee Handbook Updates to Paid Holidays as presented to go into effect January 1, 2018 and Kommes seconded. Motion Carried. j) Salaried Positions for office staff (Discussion & Approval) Hortness presented Salary Proposal for Manthey & Storm Suggesting a 4.5% increase for Manthey and Storm Hortness noted that this will be a fixed amount which will be beneficial for budget purposes. Motion: Shaw motioned to approve Storm and Manthey moving from hourly to salaried positions as proposed with a 4.5% increase in pay to go into effect January 1, 2018 and Avery seconded. Motion Carried. k) Planning Retreat Discussion Planning Retreat to set the direction for where we would like to go in the next few years. Discuss the direction the Chamber would like to go membership and marketing wise. Bloom noted that last year s retreat was done with Jamison and it would be beneficial to have another one with all new staff in the office. Avery suggested taking an afternoon for the retreat. Jaspers added that we should look at setting a date before Thanksgiving. Retreat would focus on plans for 2018, switching to a tiered membership system to start in 2019.
Hortness will send out a doodle survey to all board members with possible dates to meet in October. Planning retreat will be the October BoD meeting. l) Trojan Day Parade Saturday Shaw will drive his truck. Jaspers, Patch, Avery, Wardner and Bloom will ride with and hand out candy. Next year Hortness would like to do one Chamber entry with board and all committees. Board is entry 73 in the parade. Shaw & Jaspers will have truck in line by 9:45 AM. Other board members will walk down after the band performs. Hortness noted that Ellsworth Funeral Home is having an open house during the parade to celebrate the new patio and new director and encouraged all board members to attend. 5. New Business g) 2018 Membership Dues Increase (Discussion & Approval) Hand out of potential membership increases was presented. Hortness suggested no increase for 2018 Shaw noted that we just increased membership 3% in 2017. Hortness will ask LAIC for reports on FTE employees to use for membership calculations. Shaw suggested having an online form for members to fill out. Bloom noted that he would prefer to see a 1.5% increase this year and a 1.5% increase next year instead of a 0% increase this year and a 3% increase next year. Hortness suggested presenting it to members as not increasing this year, leaving room for increased sponsorships. Planning to send memberships out in November. Motion: Shaw motioned to approve a 0% increase for 2018 Membership Dues and Avery seconded. Motion Carried. h) Health Insurance Hortness & Jaspers have been looking into options for Health Insurance for Chamber Staff. Other Chambers work with the City to offer Chamber Employees health insurance. Jaspers spoke with Jen at the city and she is going to discuss with the Brandon City Finance officer to discuss logistics. Hortness explained that Brandon has the Chambers paychecks issued through the City and the Chamber reimburses the city for the payroll. In turn, the Chamber employees are able to be carried on the city s health benefits. i) 2018 BoD Retention/Recruitment/Replacement Hortness presented the Terms and Attendance Sheets to all board members. Hortness noted that we do not have any board members who are completing their second term. Bloom and Wardner are finishing their first term and would like to continue with a second term. Motion: Avery motioned to approve Bloom and Wardner to continue for a second term on the Board of Directors and Kommes seconded. Motion Carried. Hortness will speak with Schaefer about being absent from board and committee meetings and see if she would like to continue on the board for 2018. If Schaefer is not interested in continuing Board will appoint a new member for 2018. j) Newsletter Hortness noted that he would like to see the Newsletter move to a E-Newsletter online. Wardner asked if we went to an online newsletter what program would be used. Storm noted that we would need to do some research on different options. Storm also noted that she would like to see the newsletter moved from bi-monthly to quarterly. Buresh noted that we would be eliminating some exposure by not having it available for non-members to take or read at businesses. Shaw suggested printing the electronic version to take to businesses to have for customers to read/take. Avery suggested doing a one-page flyer that can still be inserted into the paper to reach non-members with a quick highlight and website information. Shaw suggested having a link on the website for non-members to receive the Monday Minute.
Wardner noted that a lot of the information in the newsletter is duplicate information that was already in the newspaper. Hortness will speak with Jon at the Leader about potential changes. k) Show & Sell week staff hours Hortness noted that with Show & Sell the week of Thanksgiving and two Leadership Madison meetings that week it will be difficult for staff to not have overtime. Motion: Shaw motioned to approve up to 8 hours of overtime the week of Thanksgiving per person for Storm and Manthey as deemed necessary and Wardner seconded. Motion Carried. l) Website Analytics Presentation by Buresh Buresh presented handouts showing Channels, Overview, Behavior Flow, and Active Users website analytics. Spreadsheets show 30 days worth of data. Can see what pages people are visiting while on the Chamber Website. Can see how many people are visiting the website. Buresh spoke with Daren about the madisonsd.com and it will not be updated anymore unless LAIC or someone other than Bulldog Media would like to take it over. It is the most well-known Madison website so he would like to see that happen. Buresh noted that our links that come from Social media are low. Need to make sure to have continued posts, no more than 3 posts a day and post pictures. When something happens post right away instead of scheduling for days later. Wardner suggested having check-ins on Facebook for events like Off the Clock. The Events Calendar is most visited. Buresh suggested in the future to have the top five sponsors of an event get a banner ad that runs on this page Events Calendar. Buresh suggested more linking. Example: when you go to a business name it links to events that that member has sponsored. Jaspers thanked Buresh for his expertise and putting this together. 6. Consideration of standing committee meeting minutes: (Discussion & Approval) Review of Committee Minutes: Rec & Tourney, Education, Ag, and Community Promotions No meeting: Diplomats & Governmental Affairs May September Motion: Avery motioned to approve the Committee Meeting Minutes as presented and Patch seconded. Motion Carried. 7. Ex-Officio Reports: e) Julie Gross Lake Area Improvement Corporation NO REPORT f) Kelli Wollmann Lake County Commission Emailed Report to Hortness, Hortness sent to board via email g) Aaron Walter The Community Center NO REPORT h) SFC John Anderson SDNG 211 th Engineering Co. NO REPORT 8. Newsletter submission for July/August edition: (bi-monthly BoD article included in each newsletter) a) BoD Article Daniel Buresh Deadline: October 27, 2017 Publication Date: November 14, 2017 9. Next Chamber Board of Directors Meeting: Thursday, October 19 th, 2017 7:00 AM Depot (Subject to change) 10. Adjournment: Shaw motioned to adjourn the September BoD meeting at 9:04 am and Buresh seconded. Motion Carried.