Oregon Lavender Association Board Meeting Minutes
Tuesday, November 1, 2016 – 7:00 – 9:00 pm
Board Members Present: Chris Mulder, Bonnie Rinaldi, Karalee Mitro, Steve Seymour,
Carol Tannenbaum, Dan Callen, Michael Lemmers, Mary Jabs, Robin Foleen, Gene Schmidt, (joined later)
Guest: Nicole Callen, Social Media Coordinator
Recap of October Quarterly Membership Meeting:
Financial Report: Carol – good summary of the finances from Michael
Travel Oregon Presentation: Bonnie – very interesting
Michael - Questioned why Travel Oregon has more Regional interests rather than a state wide
interest? Their interest is more on local “bike riding” than a state wide industry approach.
Carol - It is a new focus for them, past background was from a focus on improving local vitality.
They have yet to look at a state wide approach with an industry focus. Don’t yet know how to
go about changing their focus.
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Briefs/Emails: Chris and Carol - Quarterly Briefs are very helpful, as well as the increase in
emails to members this year. They help to keep all OLA members informed and updated.
Board Meeting Minutes - October 18, 2016:
 Michael – moved that the minutes be approved
 Carol - seconded the motion
 All Board members approved the minutes, as written
Membership Update: Bonnie
 Not all the duties of Membership Chair are turned over to Karalee yet. Bonnie is working on
clearing up some pending memberships.
 Total Membership – 75, heading to 79
o 26 Promote With Us
o 16 Grow With Us
o 33 Relax With Us
o 4 pending dues payment due to:
 Website problems, logging in problems, nothing in the cart, can’t renew
messages. Bonnie is invoicing members directly and will update website when
payments come in.
 We have lost some Grow With Us members. Can we reach out to them and see if they
would like to continue membership? (Mary Pat Piazza, Letitia Garson, Heidi Laird
and Alana Karam)
 Bonnie has started a list of website “problems” and will work on them with Laurel Briggs, web
designer, when they discuss website updates.
 Bonnie is reaching out to those members that are not renewing. Sent three e-mails and no
response. Two others did renew. Four didn’t have a listing on the website.
Financial Update: Michael
Review Banking Summary from end of fiscal year, October 31, 2016
 Major income is from Promote with Us memberships and some product sales
 Some duplicate product invoices - Marilyn is having some issues with invoicing.
Michael is working to get this sorted out.
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There is a question about an invoice and shipment that Michael cannot find any proof of.
Carol questioned (COGS) Cost of Goods Sold
Does OLA keep an inventory of all products?
o Michael: No products that come from Marilyn are invoiced by Marilyn to OLA, they are
paid upon invoice. Payment comes prior to receipt of product by OLA.
o Money for the orders is already collected from members.
o Michael does not pay an invoice until the shipment can be cross referenced with a paid
order.
o COGS sold this month reflect orders from last month, invoices are lagging.
o COGS and income are balanced at year end, not monthly
OLA Product Inventory: Chris
 Pre-orders for Chocolate Bars? (currently SOLD OUT)
o Better to order in cooler weather, pay less for shipping
o Original minimum order was 1000 bars, now down to 300 bars
o Suggested that the chocolate bars be put up on the website for members to pre-order,
Bonnie will send Michael instructions from Laurel.
 Marionberry Jam – 5 Cases left (last order was a reorder in September, 2015)
o 12 jars per case
o 3 week lead time, if Marilyn has the bud dried cleaned and ready to deliver
o 1 month to receive order is expectation, no cost for shipping or storage (Chris handles)
o Need to meet a minimum order and collect pre-payments from members
o Bonnie suggested we wait until February to take pre-orders and sell the 5 cases we have
left on hand, until then.
Marketing Update: Dan
 Marketing Committee met on Saturday, Oct. 29th with Amy Morris, Guide designer. They
reviewed the OLA Public Newsletter goals, content and frequency.
o Need more people to work on the Newsletter
o Janice Stewart, April Farms, will be doing the new Public Newsletter, is there a goal to
get one out in November?
o Janice needs training on Constant Contact from Amy and Bonnie, first.
o Nicole met with Janice was to get her on board. Nicole will follow up with Janice to
confirm her participation.
o Constant Content format is available.
o Chris e-mailed, Janice but has not received a response yet
 Reviewed Destination Guide page by page
o Everything will fit into the 16 pages, good layout by Amy
o Biggest change was working the Farm Tour back into the design – was what the
members said they wanted, per the membership survey
o Each farm will have the following fields in Guide:
 Farm hours
 Participation in the OLA Farm Tour and Dates
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 Doing their own festival
 Farm Picture, description and address
o Will have year round calendar of events schedule in center of Guide
o Some pages have room for other information, such as wedding information, on pages
where there are not enough farms to fill the layout
o Pictures and Text are slightly smaller
o Using a banner “Participating in the OLA Farm Tour” challenge of a lot of text
o Chris – there is some problem with entering text on the website link for the Guide
o Bonnie – problem lies in the access to the database where the information resides
o New Quote for Printing Costs from Diversified Printers Ink:
 $800.00 more than earlier quote, but down from last year
 Current quote - $6,995 for the 16 pages
o Current Ad space in Guide – 2/3 of a page could have 3 to 5 ads from members
 Bonnie will send out instructions on how to submit information for an ad, if we
know the cost and when the e-mail should be sent out
 $200, same as last year – same size as last year
 Ad submission form is on the website
 Ads needed by November 20, 2016 deadline
 Guide Timeline: Editing of the Guide will start by November 28th
 In December, editing will begin with a line by line review
 January 23, 2017 - Final review of Guide, prior to printing
Facebook Report: Nicole
o September – 4024 page likes
o 3 posts – reached 6400 people
o 300 clicked on posts / liked
o Nicole has done 2 posts with recipes using lavender
Facebook/Instagram – OLA account opened
o Posts on Friday, Saturday and Sunday – focus on holiday gifts or cooking with lavender
o Plan for 3 posts a week
o Bonnie/Chris - use some of the content from Facebook posts in Public Newsletter
o Event posts – National Stress Relief Day, etc.
o Joining OLA
o OLA Public emails - Karalee will continue to answer public e-mails and direct inquiries
Other Marketing Ideas: Bonnie – new ideas to help market OLA lavender products to:
o Florists
o Wedding Planners
o Essential Oil Industry
o Culinary Lavender Users
o Need to reach out to the different associations, industry central source, suggestion have a board member take an industry and find out all they can
o The OLA has the largest collection of lavender products in the nation and it should be
promoted through:
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 Facebook
 Public Newsletter
 Other ideas?
 Dan – Guide and Newsletter Strategy
o OLA have 3 major categories for sales:
 Retail Sales
 Websites
 ETSY
 Wholesale Sales
 Florists
 Essential oil
 Agritourism and Events
o What are we trying to accomplish? How do we build the industry?
 Talking to consumer
 Talking to Industry
Website Host Change: Board Vote
 Need to change to a host that supports Word Press
o Recommendation – GoDaddy
 Webmaster familiar with GoDaddy
 Price is $96/year, can lock that price if we pay for 3 years
 No lock, it goes up to $150/year
 Currently, our website hosting is free
o Michael moved to adopt GoDaddy for the 3 year commitment
o Carol seconded the motion
o Board members voted – all approved
o Laurel will sign up with GoDaddy and send invoice to OLA
 Domain Names – Board Vote
o lavenderdestinations.com – owned in the past, web committee wants to repurchase
o added cost - $17.50/year through Coho.net
o OLA has these domain names:
1. Oregonlavenderfestival.com
2. Oregonlavenderfestival.org
3. Oreognlavenderdestinations.com
4. Oregonlavenderdestinations.org
5. Oregonlavenderphotocontest.com
6. Oregonlavender.org
ADD Domain – lavenderdestinations.com?
o Dan moved to purchase lavenderdestinations.com
o Steve seconded the motion
o Board members voted, all approved to add the domain
 Photo Contest Domain – is it needed?
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o All the submissions for the photo contest came through the Guide or the website
o General agreement is to let it go. Bonnie will follow through to make that happen.
Domain names and e-mails will remain with Coho.net, unless GoDaddy offers a better package
Web Site Changes: Website Committee
o A new priority list is being put together
o $2,500 is set aside for the website
o Expecting approximately $900 from the Willamette Valley Lavender Festival
 Top Priority?
 Mobile Access
 Calendar of Events
o Dan – could we have Saturday meeting in February with Laurel and get her opinions on
design and recent developments, and meet to discuss website topics.
o Bonnie – requested a list of site improvements from Board Members to prioritize prior
to meeting with Laurel.
o Bonnie will create a PDF with instructions for Event Submissions for website. We need a
member to help members with the OLA website.
o Recommendation is to use the same information for the Blog that is used on Facebook
to keep the site fresh, high in the search engine world.
o Grow with Us Member Benefits:
 Paid Events
 Website Postings
 Inclusion in Nicole’s Facebook/Instagram plan
 Public Newsletter
o Products and Services
 Dan - add a slide to the PowerPoint at member meetings regarding the Open
Positions – the REAL need for volunteers, report month to month what is filled
and what was accomplished
 When volunteers are plugged in and learning more, the association is stronger
 No one signed up to work on the website at the quarterly meet
 A few volunteers did sign up to help proof the Guide
 Nicole will help with content for the Public Newsletter, then
 Need someone to pick up the content for the newsletter
 Need someone to pick up the content and add it onto the website
 Bonnie - Suggestion to take the different levels and contact them 1:1 to discover
their needs and their understanding of the association, communicate the
association’s needs for their help possibly in the new year.
 Mary – there is a need for Newbies to OLA:
 History of the OLA
 Goals
 What is the direction of the organization
 What we can do for each other
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Encouraging new people to invest time and energy in the organization
o Help with networking
o Answering questions from new members/farms
o Hand holding!
 Carol – need to reach out to the Grow with Us members:
o Develop a mentoring program
o Assume responsibility to mentor a new farm member
o Help them see how they can get more out of OLA
 Karalee – as new members and with a small farm, she felt intimidated
o Mentoring program would be beneficial
o Would also be willing to help organize
 Chris – open to those who would like to start, put together ideas, outside a regular meeting and
get back to the board with suggestions
 Carol and Karalee will talk off-line in the near future
o How to reach out to Grow with Us members
o Phone calls will add a more personal touch
Grant Committee/Point Person: Bonnie, Carol
o Bonnie Rinaldi, Carol Tannenbaum, Bonnie Albright and Shannon Wetzel responded with
interest to help with grants, on the membership survey
o Recruiting non-board members for a committee?
o Carol will take the lead for the committee
o Bonnie R. has grant writing experience and wrote a grant for OLA last year
Information for emails in November: Chris, Bonnie
o Bonnie – will take care of deadline reminders for the guide submission and write instructions for
Guide ads. Bonnie will continue to send the emails and work with Karalee to help with the
Membership Chair duties and help Karalee with the transition this year.
o Bonnie – one of the benefits of Marketing with OLA is, with an additional $20 fee, there is an
opportunity to post an event on the OLA website for “your” farm, be listed on the website and a
post on the OLA Facebook and in the OLA Public Newsletter.
o Needs to be firmed up
o Some events are small and the $20 may be too much for some members to pay
o To encourage more events being listed on the website, suggest lowering the cost, and
also assure website and Facebook posting, as well as event listed in Public Newsletter.
o Michael does not believe that there are many members that have events
o Bonnie – members could also let people know when they are going to farmer’s markets and
holiday bazaars, so their customers follow them
o Chris – create a Grow with Us marketing package rate to help those members plan for posting
events that they attend, like farmer’s markets and seasonal events in other locations, where
they sell their lavender products
o Dan – lower the price to get more event posted and encourage OLA website participation,
o need 4 posts per month, of 4 events to keep website “active”
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Bonnie – start with fixes to the event submissions and better instructions so people can make
submissions easily. We need instructions/explanations to help members make submissions
o Michael – find a format for the event page that is calendar driven
o Those who want to make a submission with a picture, their hours, a description of
event, etc, should make a payment the $20, vs. those members that want to make an
event announcement, “xxx farm will be at the xxx farmer’s market on this date.”
Add a link to the announcement that takes people to their websites for more
information
o Chris – offer two different types of listings
o Bonnie - quick and longer version:
o Quick – using the current format we currently use, change the price point and make the
instructions better
o Longer – put on website upgrades, making the event calendar more like we want it to
be. Currently date and photo driven, finding events by photos
o Michael – the Calendar of Events needs to be the #1 item, then people can see what events are
on what day
o Bonnie – this will require different software and could take awhile to implement, unless close to
spring, someone comes up with a Word Press Plug-in
o Suggestion - $10.00 for submission & Facebook post, try this through the Holiday season.
o Need to promote place to find Lavender Events. Facebook posts point you back to the Website
and Events List
Next Membership Meeting: Chris
o February 18, 2017 at Ravencroft
o Potluck Lunch, Guide distribution, share experiences from USLGA Conference
o Dan asked Matt from Certified Folder, to speak regarding Guide Distribution
o Speaker, Mary Stewart? discuss looping with other farms for a Loop Event
o Culinary topic? Lavender Spike? Who is willing to provide educational material for
future member meetings?
Future Membership Meetings: Chris
o April 1st, 8th or 9th Chris Mulder, Barn Owl Nursery, offered to host meeting
o Members’ Fair – Products Fair
o End of August Mary and Bill Jabs, Eagle Creek Lavender, offered to host meeting
o October?
Next Board Meeting is scheduled for Tuesday, December 6, 2016, 7:00 – 9:00 pm
Minutes submitted by Robin Foleen, OLA Secretary
Edited by Chris Mulder
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