Attendees: Nathan, David, and Camy in person; Catie and Gail on Zoom

Finances are in good shape

  • Spent some on brochures, canopy, and fold-up table; would like to purchase a table cover when they go on sale.
  • Equipment – sold off the majority of the hives, got a new uncapping tray
  • Education – increased the cost of the apprenticeship class to $50 a piece
  • Library – no new expenses

Membership

  • Currently 129 members
  • New membership really slows down in June/July – opportunity to market or engage more
    • IDEA: Purchase a new electric extractor for the members’ equipment library
  • Membership spotlight program started in April, scheduled through Dec, completed and staged through October
  • Catie wants to draft a welcome letter to send to new members
    • TO DO: Nathan will find out if there is a way to send an automated email to her when new members sign up
  • Catie wants to update the membership benefits area of the website, list “perks” like:
    • Education and social activities
    • Outreach and fundraising opportunities
    • Invitations to hive-side and field events
    • Convenience features like joining or renewing online, hybrid meetings
    • Opportunities to serve the association and the bees (support the mission, board positions)

Association meetings

  • Ways to improve
    • Get high quality speakers
    • Consider meeting every other month so that the board can really prepare for them and make them useful
    • Consider adding a HIVE MIND part of the meeting where members can ask questions of other members
    • Ways to improve the business meeting portion?
  • Nathan has attended the Armory meetings – will be able to accommodate our group if we get larger within the next year or so. We would have to budget for it if we move our meetings there.

Education

  • Last apprenticeship class complete, went really well
  • TO-DO: Nathan got a WASBA 1-day class curriculum and other materials that he will add to the Google drive
  • Journeyman class – want to figure out some of the logistics of it by the end of year with the goal of the class happening next year (we provide the space and instructor)
  • Apprenticeship class happens twice per year (Fall/Winter and Spring/Summer)

Mentorship

  • IDEA: Hive Mind standing agenda item at association meetings
  • Consider mentorship network based on where you live – assign mentors to regions
  • IDEA: Get the Imagine Olympia grant and use some of it to pay mentors for their time, or offer them free membership in the club
  • Club Apiary would make for a good education and mentorship opportunities
  • IDEA: Ask a subject matter expert to talk about how to be a mentor at a team meeting, or offer as onboarding to be a mentor – people would have more confidence how to mentor and that their beekeeping knowledge is enough.

Library

  • Nathan thinks getting functionality to check out a book online is not going to happen
  • Are there ways to get more use of the library?

Equipment

  • IDEA: Get rid of hand crank extractors and stock electric extractors and capping trays

Outreach

  • We have volunteers for staffing the steamboat island farmer’s market if they can sell their honey – Aug 19th is the last one of the season
    • TO-DO: David will reach out to see if we can have a table there again
  • David will continue to do the Beeline newsletter and is open to content
  • Consider improvements to the Beeline – short and sweet email that drives traffic to the website
    • Next meeting date/time with Zoom and speaker
    • What’s the season for bees?
    • Member Spotlight