Jan. 20, 2015

Steve Johnston made a short presentation at the Forum today to present the material in the slides at right and below, to update participants on growth in attendance, growth in total recipients of the Forum’s e-mails, and to report a downturn in the donations that pay for coffee supplies and fuel the Forum’s donations in support of the West Charlotte Recreation Center.

The rest of the slides portrayed the projected April departure from the West Charlotte Rec Center during upcoming renovations and the probable relocation during those renovations to Ivory Baker Center off Oaklawn Avenue. The presentation then circled back to coffee: Once at Ivory Baker, the coffee service may be set up just outside the meeting room. That’s not an option at West Charlotte because the coffee table cannot be visually monitored from the Forum room.

(For those who do not attend the Forum regularly, there are almost always two meetings going on: one in the meeting room following the plan of the day; and another in the foyer as attendees network on an individual basis). Departures for coffee refills will not add much to the congestion at the door.

A coffee table outside the room opens the possibility of replacing the coffee urns with a less burdensome but noisier and more expensive service based on single-serve K-cups. The data below shows that current free-will donations would not support K-cup service.

One note of progress: When the downturn in donations from the coffee cup fund were shown, Forum regular John Powell donated $200 to bring donations in line with previous full-year donations. That donation has been made to Partners for Parks and is reflected in the Forum’s financials on this website.

A PDF file of all the slides is here.

E-mails are sent Sundays to announce speakers, and again later in the week with meeting’s announcements. Particularly in reference to the Sunday e-mails, subject lines carry the name of the speaker so there is no need for most Forum participants to open them.