Attending: Ellis Burruss, Jerry Knight, Cheryl Wathen, and Ben Mourad
Absent: David Swope, Bill Sims and Gayle Shaw
The meeting was called to order at 6:32 pm.
Minutes
The minutes from the last meeting were approved as posted on the web.
Treasurer’s Report:
Dave Swope was not present so the Treasurer’s report was not given. For a complete treasurers report contact the Treasurer.
Membership:
Ben gave the membership report. The GBACC membership renewal invoices are up to date for the year. Advantage Homes has joined GBACC. New member certificates and window decals need to go out to new members. Ellis will check to see if he has a copy of the certificate on his computer.
Organizational:
Ellis advised the ballots for the November election will go out this week. Jerry will call the head of the nomination committee to make sure we have members to count the ballots.
After a discussion on the advantages of GBACC having an office space it was decided it would not be advisable at this point. Ben suggested GBACC look into online storage for information. All the board officers would have access to the information and all of GBACC records could be kept in one place. The Board asked Ben to investigate on line storage and report at the next Board meeting. Jerry checked into the cost of a storage unit at Brunswick Self Storage to keep other records and material. A 5x5 in climate control is $49.50 per month.
Publicity:
Jerry is working on the GBACC Business folder. It will be based on the Havre de Grace Folder Bill Sims gave to GBACC. When the folder is completed it will go into all the Maryland Visitors Centers and to other businesses and locations frequented by out of town visitors. Business ads will be located around a large map of Brunswick. The board approved going forward with the project and it will be taken before the membership at the next business meeting.
Ellis gave a report on the business directory. It is on schedule for release in November. The Directory press run was discussed. This is the recommendation we will make to the
Membership: Ellen reports that the ad sales (and sponsorships) have gone over the estimated $6000 mark by several hundred dollars. We can make a few changes to get the page number down from 72 to 68 or 64 and maybe save money on postage, ads, etc. After all the saving measures and the extra ad sales, we will print as many as we can for the money we have. Any number over 3000 will be allocated to Brunswick Crossing. It could amount to 1000 - 1300. In addition, any directories destined for businesses that do not have much business traffic will also be allocated to Brunswick Crossing.
Brunswick Crossing will get between 1000 to 1500 copies of the 2010 Directory for distribution at their new Community Center. Next year, we will plan a larger press run and adjust the ad costs proportionately.
Events:
Phil Graves of Out of the Mud Media will host the November 12th Business Card Exchange at El Sloppy Taco. On December 10th the Business Card Exchange will be at Railside Café. Jerry has not heard back from the Lovettsville Business Association about hosting the business card exchange every other month starting in January 2010. GBACC would host the Business Card Exchange one month and LBA would host it the next month. He also asked the LBA if they would be interested in co-sponsoring a spring 2010 Business Expo. He is awaiting an answer. Jerry is also proposing for the Months of January and February GBACC has “speed networking” rather than the usual Business Card Exchange. It would be based on “speed dating”, members would have a certain amount of time to talking to other members about their business then they would change tables and do the same thing with other group of members. This was discussed at the last business meeting and was meet with enthusiasm. The LBA and other business organizations will be ask to join in this event.
The November 4th Business Meeting will have Russell Frisby, former chairman of the Maryland Public Service Commission will speaker on PATH. GBACC members Pamela and Malcolm Baldwin have ask to speak on an alternative point of view.