MINUTES of CentreBike General Membership Meeting
March 14, 2016
Meeting held at the State College Borough Building
Present:
Anna Nelson, President; Paul Rito, Vice President; Kelly Doyle, Treasurer; Joan Potter, Secretary; Brian Dempsey; Lynda Crow; Andrew Artz; Allan Stoekl; Jean Bemis; Melissa Bopp; Brooke Pinkos; Katie Duitt; Irene Hicks
The meeting was called to order by Anna Nelson at 5:35 pm.
Bike Occupancy Permit
CentreBike signed on to a letter about BOP to help further statewide action. Any updates on this issue will be shared with the membership.
Bike Friendly Business (BFB) update
Jim Serene and Jean Bemis met with Jeannine Lozier at the Mount Nittany Medical Center to propose they apply for BFB status. After discussing, Jeannine proposed that the entire Mount Nittany Health System (MNH) be included. She’s interested in pursuing this effort with the idea to “tool box” the MNH effort to make it easier for other businesses in town to become BFBs. Jeannine also feels that to facilitate approval of a BFB for MNH will require that it be included with a bigger plan – just one component of a larger “Community Action Plan” in response to their community health needs assessment. This will likely happen later this year.
Anna Nelson approached the bike shops about applying for BFB status and all were positive. Freeze Thaw has already submitted their application. She also spoke with Jackie Sheader at CATA, Rowland Creative, and Appalachian Outdoors.
Joan Potter met with Suzanne Marder about Minitab’s BFB application and she confirmed that they hope to submit in March. Other businesses on the list as potential BFBs include the YMCA, Blue Mountain Software, AccuWeather, Restek, Fitology, PYP and Rothrock Coffee.
May Bike Month Activity Planning
- Kelli Doyle will reach out to Mayor Goreham to ask if she’ll lead a Community Bike Ride
- Information table at Allen Street Gates scheduled for Friday, April 29th to kick-off Bike Month – this is last date to reach students & faculty before finals start the first week in May. Trish will have 100 bike maps available for distribution.
- Commuter Coffee Fridays schedule:
- May 6 – Old Main Steps
- May 13 – The Bicycle Shop
- May 20 – Borough Building Plaza [Celebrate Bike To Work Day; contact BFBs to sponsor]
- May 27 – Freeze Thaw Cycles
- Bike to School Day initiative – May 4th. Melissa Bopp, the Coordinator of Exercise is Medicine on Campus Initiative at Penn State, and her interns prepared a package of information to distribute to Phys Ed instructors in the State College and surrounding school districts.
- Brian Dempsey suggested May’s CentreBike meeting be open to public for a presentation on what CentreBike is focusing on, and we could invite Township representatives to present what their plans are to support the Regional Bike Plan and how they’re encouraging bicycling. Another topic could be the Complete Streets plan.
CentreGives Campaign
Anna registered CentreBike’s fundraising page. Discussed ideas to use these funds, including creating a new map of local bike routes and promoting bike safety through a creative ad campaign.
Membership Management
Anna & Paul Rito are assessing a free open source nonprofit software called CiviCRM.org to manage memberships, dues, fundraisers, newsletters, events and attendance. The program works similarly to Mailchimp and is integrated with WordPress.
Upcoming Activity
- Paul Rito will be attending the Bicycle South Central PA Regional Summit in Lancaster on March 19th. The new PennDOT bike/pedestrian coordinator will be speaking, along with Alex Doty, the Executive Director of the League of American Bicyclists, and other advocates.
- Kelly Doyle is scheduled to represent CentreBike at the Community Health event at the Mt. Nittany School on April 28th.
There being no further business to come before the meeting, it adjourned at 6:40 pm.
Respectfully submitted,
Joan Potter, Secretary
