A Word from the Board: Annual Meeting Wrap-up

By Jay Fields, Board Vice Chair, Co-op Owner

New Board members. New By-Laws. New Articles of Incorporation. Spring 2015 is the season of change and growth for GreenTree and a watershed moment for our Co-op. On May 29th, 2015 we gathered once again at the Mt. Pleasant Discovery Museum (MPDM) to consider candidates for the Board of Directors, and amendments to our By-Laws and Articles of Incorporation. After tallying the votes I am pleased to recognize the return of Board members Gary Kramer and Ray Davies, and welcome new Board members Carolyn Kaya, Aiman Shahpurwala, and Bob Murray. After the election we have a full nine member Board of Directors. We held our first meeting with newly constituted Board on June 17th, 2015 and elected Board Officers. Sam Jones is our new Board Chair, Liz Conway is our new Secretary, Bob Murray is our new Treasurer, and I will serve as an interim Vice-Chair.

With our new Articles of Incorporation and fresh By-laws we will be able to support our General Manager through a new funding mechanism. As Liz Conway pointed out in her March 22nd, 2015 Word from the Board, we will now be able to offer non-voting investment certificates (certificates) to Owners and non-owners of GreenTree—a first for our Co-op.

This enables GreenTree to capture capital in a unique way, which will help facilitate GreenTree’s relocation. The recent amendments to the Articles and By-laws provided the Board with the legal mechanism to offer these certificates. The next step is for the Board and the General Manager to determine how to market and sell the certificates. To this end the Board will put together an ad-hoc fundraising sub-committee to work with the General Manager to roll out our next step for GreenTree’s growth. Keep an eye out on GreenTree’s website, and other social media to see how you can support GreenTree.

A special thank you to all who contributed to the success of our annual meeting—to MPDM, its staff and Executive Director (GreenTree Owner) Heather Frisch for once again supporting GreenTree and working so hard to make our Annual Owner Meeting a family friendly event; to Mike Gilmore for the amazing music; and to the incredible GreenTree staff who worked behind the scenes and front and center at the event to ensure a successful election and great evening.