Hello members,
A few reminders for you and a point of clarification. While we won’t be having an official member meeting in December (we’re doing the celebration instead), the board will be meeting. After our annual planning session we decided we’re going to separate the two meetings from here on out, so member meetings can be focused on topics that benefit members, and board meetings can be focused on governance.
The board meeting will be December 19th, at Courtyard Minneapolis, at 3pm in the upper lobby. (TOMORROW.)
Our annual member holiday party is also tomorrow: Thursday December 19th, 4:00pm
…both at the newly renovated Courtyard Minneapolis Downtown! 1500 Washington Ave S.
The member event is free for current members, a suggested donation of $10 for non-members is much appreciated. Of course the board meeting is free for all.
Notes from the last member meeting can be found at: http://www.wbba.thewestbank.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/2013-11-21_MemberMeetingNotes.pdf
and an updated version of our Strategic Planning session, complete with our prorities for 2014, can be found at: http://www.wbba.thewestbank.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/2013_SPlanningSession.pdf
Our board secretary will be posting minutes from the board meetings.
This will become a little bit more fluid in the future – our hope is that separating out the two meetings will allow both parts of the system to work more efficiently and that those who want to participate in the governance / organizational components can do so, but members wanting to participate in member meetings and seminars don’t have to get bogged down in the bureaucracy (unless they want to, of course. 🙂 )
An Opportunity!
The UMN Good Neighbor Fund will be enhanced in 2014 with a contribution from the MN Vikings (the “Vikings Good Neighbor Partnership Fund”). To make the most of this new opportunity for 2014, the Request for Applications will be published earlier than in past years and will have an earlier grant application deadline. Good Neighbor Fund/Vikings Partnership Fund applications for 2014 will be due on January 31, 2014.
The WBBA will be acting as a fiscal agent for organizations from the area interested in submitting proposals. If you are interested in using the WBBA as a fiscal agent for this opportunity, please send us a brief email to: info@thewestbank.org to describe the project you’re proposing – a few sentences is fine – and we’ll get back to you with more information both on the Good Neighbor Fund grant as well as our Fiscal Agency requirements. You will need to notify us of your intention to submit a proposal using the WBBA as a fiscal agent by January 15th, 2014 so we can plan accordingly and connect groups working on proposals with similar scales/scopes.
You can find more about the grant opportunity at: https://www.myu.umn.edu/metadot/index.pl?id=3684831
Yours,
-Jamie
