Minutes from the February 4th, 2008 meeting:
Present: Zach Ball, Chris Grove, Shawn Calhoun, Troy Heibein, Michelle Strain, Jonathan Clark, Darren Wheaton, Tim Jones, Jess Hamilton.
Regrets: Kevin Estabrooks, Sarah Milligan, Bill Waterman.
Meeting called to order.
Agenda approved.
Minutes amended to include Darren as having been present at last meeting, then approved as amended.
Financial Report:
- Still doing very well compared to last year.
- We approximately broke even in January (net income of $377 for the month) compared with an almost $7,000 loss in January of last year.
- Big gain in cover charge.
- We still have a net surplus at this point in the year, compared to a large net loss at this point last year.
- Memberships and cover charges are still accounting for the majority of the net income (this is where the Pub is making its money).
- Debate over whether or not Fridays still need such heavy drink discounts based on how busy the Pub has become. Scooter noted that he does not want to change the discounts during the current year, and that low drink prices are probably attracting more people to come out on Fridays instead of Saturdays, which is good because we are already at or exceeding capacity on Saturdays. Everyone agreed that a different dynamic will occur in the new Pub. The bar design in the new Pub will help with the drink line issues. Scooter noted that having so many people show up at one time, and everyone wanting to get drinks at the same time, was a major organizational problem for the staff.
Promotional Report:
- Sold a second wave of memberships in January.
- Price has been discounted to $30 in January and $20 in February.
- With midterms and February being a short month (break week) there are not many promotions planned.
- SAC Bingo coming up with a Fireball Whiskey promotion.
- March 6th – Jagermeister promotion.
- March 19th – Grad banquet.
- March 26th – Conduct Becoming.
- March 27th – Athletic banquet.
- No real plans for the Break week other than for the Thursday night before the break, and Trivia on Tuesday during the break itself.
- February is sort of slow, but we expect a lot of events and promotions in March.
Security Report:
- Lots of smuggling, catching a couple people each week. It is a big problem, costing us thousands of dollars per year, so we are really trying to minimize it. There are three notable cases in judicial right now.
- Coat check incident, someone had to be kicked out of coat check and then threw a chair out onto the main road outside the building – got a ban for that.
- There was another disagreement over a drink which resulted in a minor assault, therefore another ban.
- Lots of minor incidents, but luckily no really major ones recently.
Entertainment Report:
- Two wet/dry events were very poorly attended by the underage crowd.
- February will be slow for bands.
- March is looking better with several bands booked.
Minutes from the January 7th, 2008 meeting:
Present: Kevin Estabrooks, Zach Ball, Shawn Calhoun, Troy Heibein, Michelle Strain, Jonathan Clark, Darren Wheaton.
Regrets: Chris Grover, Sarah Milligan, Jess Hamilton, Tim Jones, Bill Waterman.
Meeting called to order.
Agenda approved.
Minutes from previous meeting approved as read.
Old News:
-Talked about the "Wet Wednesdays" confusion – Scooter had advertised an event as being 19+ because it was not specifically identified on Tim's schedule as being a wet/dry event, but it actually was a wet/dry event (due to Winter Carnival). Scooter immediately sent out a correction email after Tim notified him of the error.
New News:
-We got some more information about the new Pub in Trueman. Specifically, we would need to buy a new glasswasher, because ours does not meet MTA's green standards. Also, water cooled ice machines are no good, so we'll have to buy another ice machine. The walk-in compressor unit that we currently have is compliant with current standards, and will be moved. Renovations are progressing on schedule, so we are still tentatively scheduled to move between approximately August 15th and August 30th of 2008.
Financial Report:
-December is traditionally one of our weakest months of the year, due to exams and holidays, which means that we are only able to be open for major sales on a couple key dates during the month. In December of 2007, the Pub lost approximately $2700 for the month. However, in comparison with the same period in 2006, this year proved to be very strong. The loss in the month of December in 2006 was approximately $7700, therefore, our loss for December this year was about $5000 less than the loss for the previous year.
Security Report:
-No major incidents to report.
Meeting adjourned.
Next meeting set for 8pm, February 4th, 2008.
Minutes from the December 2nd, 2007 meeting:
Present: Ian Allen, Zach Ball, Chris Grove, Jonathan Clark, Troy Heibein, Sarah Milligan, Michelle Strain, Tim Jones, Jess Hamilton, Shawn Calhoun, Darren Wheaton.
Regrets: Bill Waterman, Kevin Estabrooks.
Minutes of the Board's November meeting were approved, with minor amendments.
Old Business (Scooter):
- Scooter has had initial exploratory talks with Joy at the SAC regarding possible options for the new Pub next year, and possible partnerships with the SAC. Some tentative options would be to have the Pub run the large room on busy nights as a wet bar, or for the Pub to partner with the SAC and have the room set up as a wet/dry bar, or for the Pub to explore the possibility of running the room as a wet/dry bar, or to go with a wet room only but limit this to Saturday nights rather than both Fridays and Saturdays.
- Scooter will present these options more formally later in the year. First, he needs to engage in further discussions with Joy to try to figure out logistical issues that would be involved with each option, before an official set of options is presented to the SAC and to the Pub's Board. Joy is generally receptive to the idea of enhanced cooperation between the Pub and SAC, but of course, everything is pretty vague right now so no commitments can be made without further extensive investigation.
Security Report (Scooter):
- Smuggling: there have been more people caught smuggling alcohol into the Pub than normal lately. Four people were caught one weekend and giving warnings, and after that weekend, people caught will be charged through judicial. Warning signs were posted on the Pub website and in all of the washroom stalls.
- Racism: an incident arose earlier in the term between one of the international students and another student. There were concerns at first that this might have been a racially-based incident, but it appeared after the fact that the participants were simply over-reacting on the night in question, and there seem to have been no repercussions since then.
- Harassment: there have been a couple cases of harassment of various types within the Pub, which can sometimes be tougher to deal with because they sometimes involve grey areas where there is no immediate proof that something happened. However, Scooter reiterated that incidents such as these should be brought to the attention of the bar staff immediately, so they can try to deal with the situation at that time.
- Theft: one student was banned for theft after being caught stealing money from the tip jars.
- Overall, the number of bans and judicial charges has increased from the previous years, but is consistent with the number of incidents in previous years when volumes and traffic levels were similar.
Trueman Progress Report (Michelle):
- Furniture cost estimates are going to be higher than $60,000.
- There will be a tour on Wednesday morning at 11:45am with the electrical consultant, who will be going over the current Pub equipment to make sure that everything is up to code.
- Loose furniture will not be too expensive – it is the mechanical items that will push the price up.
- The University has a higher building standard than the provincial building code.
Financial Report (Scooter):
- The Pub broke even in November.
- Bar stock inventories are quite high compared to normal levels.
- Alcohol sales of all sub-categories are up from last year.
- Volumes are up.
- Wages are up, however, because of increased volumes and also because of increases to the minimum wage rates.
Promotional Report (Grover):
- Not a lot of special things happening in December due to the exam period.
- Normal hours during exams.
- Energy drinks on sale (which can be taken out of the Pub, because they do not contain alcohol).
- Tim said that there was a consensus that the "wet-dry" Wednesdays should be changed to just "wet" only, because the number of under-agers in November at the events was weak. Sarah wondered about making the decision on an event-by-event basis, although it would be more confusing that way. Shawn said that upperclassmen were upset about having to drink in the back room. Scooter cautioned that it has been the cover charge from underagers at these events which makes them more feasible, and changing the format half-way through the year would set a bad precedent if we want to have wet-dry events next year. There was a long debate about this, with Scooter & Grover speaking out against the change, and most of the other student board members arguing in favor of changing to wet-only. Everyone agreed that while the program was a good success during first term, it was limited because of the poor layout of the bar area. In the end, the Board decided to cut back on the number of wet/dry events, but Tim committed to having one major wet/dry event each month and also to making sure that the SAC sent out an email to explain to students why the events were being scaled back.
- Michelle discussed a trend in the past couple years whereby more students are living in Moncton and commuting back and forth to Sackville, for various reasons (including the greater availability of part-time work in Moncton).
Next meeting scheduled for 8pm on January 14th, 2008.
Meeting adjourned.
Minutes from the November 5th, 2007 meeting:
Present: Jess Hamilton, Sarah Milligan, Tim Jones, Chris Grove, Zach Ball, Jonathan Clark, Darren Wheaton, Shawn Calhoun, Michelle Strain, Troy Heibein, Bill Waterman, Ian Allen.
Regrets: None.
Manager's Report (Scooter):
- Brewery marketing partnership proposals have been submitted to Labatts, Moosehead, and Molson. The breweries will have until late January to respond. When the proposals come in, Scooter will present them to Grover, Troy, and Jess for review. A decision will be made in March.
- Discussion of a possible greater working partnership with the SAC has not happened yet. Scooter contacted Joy to let her know that the Pub would like to discuss long-term partnership options. We have several months to talk about possibilities, but it would be good to finalize any possible plans by the end of the current academic year (April 2008).
Financial Report (Kevin):
- The Pub basically broke even in October, which is a significant improvement from October of 2006. Revenues increased significantly (doubled) when compared to October of 2006 – partly due to consistently higher customer traffic, and partly due to the fact that October of 2006 was especially bad because of the closure for a week due to the Norwalk virus. Most of the costs were more in line with previous stable periods of three or four years ago.
- Much busier on weekends than in past couple of years, as demonstrated by the very large increase in cover charge revenues. As mentioned in previous meetings, the Pub generally does not make money on regular operations and from selling alcohol, and the membership and cover charge revenues are the two items that keep us in business.
- The Pub should be able to break even this year, for the first time in about four years, if the start of the year is indicative of future performance for the rest of the year.
- Scooter commented that we need to allocate about $60,000 to $70,000 for the move to Trueman. He thinks that we will have approximately that amount in the bank at the end of this year, but not much more.
- Michelle said that tentative furniture prices should be available for the next board meeting.
- The main things to focus on with respect to the financial report is that sales have approximately doubled (not a big impact because we don't make much from selling drinks, but it shows that customer traffic is up), the cash balance in the bank is adequate to keep us from becoming insolvent, and cover charges at the door are a very significant contribution.
Promotional Report (Grover):
- Things are going very well.
- Hallowe'en events were great. The MASSIE party at Hallowe'en was timed to allow the MASSIE crowd to overlap with the regular nightly crowd, which encouraged people to stay after the party officially ended.
- There is a "Mojo Cooler" promotional night on Thursday designed to let people become more familiar with that product. This will be tied in with the BioScience trivia night somehow.
- There will be a country music night shortly, on a Wednesday night, which will be a mix of a DJ playing country tunes, and hopefully a local country-based live band.
- Talking with Habitat For Humanity about a couple of promotional events for late November and early January.
- The Conduct Becoming Songwriters' Contest is coming up shortly. This is usually a pretty big event. Tim noted that there are a lot of underage performers this year, so it is a good thing that this event will run on a Wednesday night. This bodes well for the future for the Conduct Becoming project.
Security Report (Scooter):
- Back to the "normal" problems associated with high customer volumes.
- Trying to cut down on the amount of alcohol smuggled into the Pub, through the use of undercover Pub staff and undercover campus police officers. Signs have been placed in the washrooms as warnings, and patrons caught with smuggled alcohol will face the usual bans and judicial charges.
- Wednesday nights are getting to be problematic on busier nights. Although there have been no unusual security problems per se, the amount of space available to people who are allowed to consume alcohol is inadequate. Unfortunately though, we can't just switch the bar to a completely 19+ venue for the live shows, because it is the presence of the underage patrons in the dry room that makes the shows viable. Those patrons still have to pay the cover charges to see the bands, and without the cover charges from those customers, we would not be able to bring in the bands. Scooter has discussed plans to put up a "snow fence" on certain Wednesday nights that are expected to be extremely busy, to allow for a slightly larger area for the wet room. On these nights, campus police officers (regular and undercover) will be used to monitor for problems.
No other business was discussed.
Next meeting set for Monday night, December 3rd, 2007, at 8pm.
Meeting adjourned.
Minutes from the October 15th, 2007 meeting:
Present: Jess Hamilton, Ian Allen, Chris Grove, Kevin Estabrooks, Darren Wheaton, Shawn Calhoun, Michelle Strain, Tim Jones.
Regrets: Troy Heibein, Sarah Milligan, Zach Ball.
The meeting was called to order.
Board Structure for 2007-2008:
- Darren Wheaton was appointed Chairperson.
- Tim Jones was appointed Vice Chairperson.
- Jess Hamilton was appointed Secretary.
- Kevin Estabrooks was appointed Accountant/Treasurer.
- We will try to find a Faculty member willing to fill the vacant Faculty position, and invite him or her to join the Board.
Financial Report:
- Scooter talked about the financials in some detail, ie. expenses, revenue, miscellaneous.
- Various plans to increase revenue indirectly through public relations efforts such as general promotional items (ie. key chains, magnets, etc.).
- Repairs to be minimized this year.
- Security expenses to be reduced.
- There will be an increase in travel expense, because of higher gas prices affecting us directly through pickups, and indirectly through delivery costs.
- Slight increase in wages – minimum wage has increased, and there will be a few more hours paid out.
- Large decrease in salary expense when compared to two years ago, due to savings from Scooter's salary cut.
- Amortization/depreciation is the only non-cash expense on the financial statements (it is an expense from past periods being recognized over a period of several years).
- Bank balance is about $50,000.
- Tim asked about moving expenses for the move to Trueman (ie. the cost of the physical move, and any new equipment that would be required). Michelle said that anything fixed will be provided by the university, due to the leasehold agreement. Dishwashers, ice machine, etc. would be paid for by the Pub. Lighting is a university cost. Some things can be moved over based on existing equipment, but there will still be some minor costs involved (ie. the walk-in cooler).
Promotional Report:
- Upcoming events include DJ Champion, an After-Party on the night that the Great Lake Swimmers play at MTA, comedians, and C'Mon (a band which appeared on the Superbad soundtrack).
- Question about which DJ's would be used on the Wednesday nights: it could be either existing Pub DJ's, or imports, depending on the specific night.
- There will be a combined music trivia & Karaokee night later this term.
New Business:
1. Brewery Agreements: the major breweries will be approached shortly for proposals for a multi-year period (starting May 1st, 2008). There has been significant interest from all three breweries in the past, and the results of this process are expected to be positive.
2. Wet/Dry Events: Scooter is trying to put together wet/dry events on Wednesday nights. Getting insurance has been a problem so far. Our liquor license (a Club license) currently allows for wet/dry intermingling, however, the Pub does not wish to run a mixed wet/dry environment. The plans for the current Wednesday night Wet/Dry events are to have two rooms segregated completely, with one room being 19+ only and containing the alcohol, and the other room being accessible to underage students (if they are from MTA), but there would be no alcohol available in the underage room. In the past (six years ago), the Wet/Dry events were extremely popular, but technical issues caused the Pub to stop doing them at the time. If the insurance issue cannot be worked out with the existing insurer, then we have other potential options, such as going through a completely new company (Marsh?) or perhaps allowing the SAC to run a wet/dry room under their own license, and the Pub runs the license in the wet room. Either way, we have to balance the cost against potential revenues and non-financial promotional benefits.
3. Competition: Paddy O's appears to be struggling (it is the fifth bar in that location in ten years, and none of the previous bars lasted for more than three years). There have been rumours that a new bar may open up in the former Pizza Delight/Remy's Bistro location, but that doesn't seem likely or logical at the moment. Greco is now closed, although that will not impact the Pub since they didn't sell alcohol. Joey's has a new expansion & martini bar, although it is not expected that this will have any sort of a material impact on the Pub.
The next meeting was set for October 15th, 2007, at 8pm.
Meeting adjoined.
Minutes from the September 10th, 2007 meeting:
Present: Jess Hamilton, Ian Allen, Chris Grove, Kevin Estabrooks, Darren Wheaton, Shawn Calhoun, Michelle Strain, Tim Jones, Sarah Milligan, Troy Heibein, Bill Waterman, Scooter, Zach Ball.
Regrets: none.
The meeting was called to order. The Agenda for this meeting and Minutes from the previous meeting were both approved.
Financial Report:
- Financial performance for September 2007 was very favorable compared to previous years.
- Part of the increase was due to the fact that Sub-Zero draught continues to have strong sales. Sub-Zero was not available until late October last year.
- Part of the increase is due to greater overall traffic, due to the reduced traffic at some of our competing establishments.
- Darren noticed that the promos had increased. The reason was a large increase in the drinks that were given out to the early-bird membership purchasers, and promos given out in association with the pool tournament.
- Security expenses were not factored into last month's numbers, which resulted in a slight difference.
- Scooter hopes that the financial performance for September will be indicative of a much busier year to come.
Promotional Report:
- Great SAC-sponsored events, mostly live entertainment, on Wednesday nights.
- Still getting several new members per week, even though it is October.
- Fireball liquor and Sourpuss have both been added to the bar shelves.
- Every event seems to be going twice as well this year compared to last.
- Wednesday nights are doing well. There is no door money to the Pub (it goes to the bands) but there are drink sales of approximately $800 per night (profit of $200-300 after expenses). Labour costs are up, but the increased bar sales are covering that cost.
- Good public relations for underage students.
- DJ for Hallowe'en night (a Wednesday), in conjunction with the SAC and the MASSIE department.
- We are planning a country night for later in the term.
Manager's Report:
- We had a sewer backup, but the plumbers were called in quickly and it was fixed, and the custodians did a good job of getting everything back to normal.
- Security-wise, there has only been one ban so far.
- Surveys were distributed to ask students what they want to see in the new university center. Results will be compiled and distributed to the board members shortly. The most popular choices were the pool tables and the dj booth/dance floor, not surprisingly. Coat check was actually considered to be quite unimportant by most. Not much interest in being open during the day, unfortunately.
Old Business:
- Discussions have been started with the various breweries to enter into a new multi-year promotional partnership, starting when we move into the new building.
- Insurance – we finally got permission from our insurance carrier in the middle of September, through the assistance of our local broker, to host the segregated wet/dry events. The conditions are that this only applies on Wednesday nights when we are doing partnership events with the SAC. The SAC will assume the liability for the completely dry area, and the Pub will assume the liability for the completely wet area. This will only apply as long as the Pub ensures that no alcohol is permitted in the dry area.
New Business:
- Talked about the size of the new venue. Lots of questions about the size and layout. Scooter feels that smaller is better for the majority of the time.
- Discussed problems with access to washrooms on busy nights, and with the issue of bringing drinks into the washrooms.
- DJ booth will be problematic. There is no way to build a permanent DJ booth in the larger room. We could build a small permanent booth in the smaller room, but that wouldn't work because we need the dance floor in the larger room.
- Talked about the SAC's potential role in the café area. Jess expressed concern about the amount of responsibility that might be placed on Bar Services. Scooter suggested that extensive discussions would have to take place first, to make sure that both the Pub and SAC are happy, before presenting any proposal to the university.
- Michelle reiterated that money is tight for building the new pub/university center.
- Will have to factor increased costs when using the café area, ie. custodial, maintenance, repairs, etc.
- Chairs and tables in the café can be packed away to make room for a dance floor.
- There will be benches along the sides in the main pub, to increase seating capacity.
- The smaller size of the main Pub will be better during low-traffic periods, ie. Monday to Thursday evenings.
- As long as traffic levels are sufficient to justify the use of the café area on weekends, then that will give us a huge amount of extra room to accommodate the larger weekend crowds.
- The only permanent infrastructure that would be needed in the café area would be a few small dance lights in the ceiling, and the main speaker "tops". The bass bins could be moved in and out as they are needed, because they just sit on the floor.
- There is the possibility that the Pub could work together with the SAC to provide for an integrated wet/dry venue in the larger room on a semi-regular basis, rather than the segregated wet/dry approach that we currently use on Wednesday evenings. That will be tricky, but if we can make it work, it would have significant benefits for everyone involved, especially for the students. Scooter will be putting together a proposal for this idea, and talking to Joy and Michelle about it. If anything positive results from this, then it can be presented to the full Council and to the Pub's Board for proper consideration.
The next meeting was set for November 5th, 2007, at 8pm.
Meeting adjoined.
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