Topic: Meeting Minutes/Next Steps
Topic type:
Notes from 2010 meetings (most recent June 6). RELATED ITEMS LISTED TO THE RIGHT -->
Mon, June 7, 2010 meeting: 5pm
Location: Community room in Police Dept behind City Hall.
Attendees:
Mary Hooper, Rob Hubbard, Joslyn Wilschek, Barry McPhee
- Update from Rob
- Rob gave an update on his speaking with Onion River Exchange to gauge their interest in being a owning entity for a cooperative vehicle [Rob, I missed this part; can you finish this entry?]
- Moving ahead with the Car-Share Vermont project:
- Mary proposed that it is "survey time"; all agreed.
- First Steps:
- Wait for the template from Annie Bourdon
- Divide up who contacts whom
- Develop a call list; lean on Annie for help.
- Begin contacting the business community and general population, per steps immediately below.
- General Population steps
- email (see email lists below; add new ones) : "here's the idea; are you into it? would you help? please get back to us by [date]. If you're interested, there'll be a meeting for which we'll provide details"
- leverage as many email lists as possible
- place articles in local media:
- Bridge
- Times-Argus
- World
- invitation to a meeting
- Business/"business partner" community steps (see potential business partners in table below)
- phone calls to the larger business
- describe prospective CSV setup in ctl Vt
- ask "will you be a business partner?"
- follow-up email
General Email Lists Potential Business Partners (team member assigned) - enVision (@300-400)
- CAN! mail-lists
- Montpelier Alive
- Montpelier Energy Team
- Hunger Mtn Coop?
- The City
- The State
- Blue Cross Blue Shield
- CVCAC
- Ctl Vt Medical Center
- Hunger Mtn Coop (Rob Hubbard)
- National Life - Tim Shea, contact. (Mary)
- Shaws (Rob Hubbard)
- VCFA (Mary)
- VLT
- VNRC
- Vermont Mutual (Mary: tough to crack)
- Washington Co. Family Ctr.
Wed, May 26, 2010 meeting:
- Update from Mary:
- She and Annie Bourdon, Director of Car Share VT, have not yet spoken directly to each other; only played phone tag.
- Mary sent an email to the State Building and Grounds Services (BGS) people; she learned that BGS Commissioner Jerry Meyers had spoken with Annie at some point. (indicating that BGS appears to have continued interest in doing business with CSV).
- Mary asked the team to keep "bugging" her to make sure she follows through on this thread.
- Update from Joslyn:
- re: her call to Everett insurance as part of ongoing research on the Coop Pickup idea -- Everett thinks there may be a specialty market for this type of this, where "a group would pay the owner". They estimate a $1,200 premium on a vehicle for such an arrangement.
- Joslyn got the impression that "if the group is known to the owner," the arrangement will be simpler.
- Next Meeting -- the Team scheduled it for June 7, 5pm. Mary will arrange with the City Mgr's office to reserve the City Manager's conference room again.
- Next Steps:
- Mary -- will ask Annie Bourdon about:
- (our use of) their survey form.
- to confirm that no individual insurance is needed by Car-Share VT customers
- Mary -- will talk to Jack Byrne, who heads ZipCar's Middlebury's office -- for reconnoitering purposes.
- Mary -- will reserver the next meeting in the City Manager's conference room .
- Joslyn -- will speak again with Everet insurance about what happens when:
- a corporation owns the pickup truck, vs.
- an individual owns the pickup truck and can identify the other users (small, informal friend/neighbor group known to each other).
- Rob -- will look into what if Onion River Exchange owned a Cooperative pickup truck. Would ORE already be a qualified owning entity? Etc.
- Mary -- will ask Annie Bourdon about:
Tues, April 6, 2010 meeting:
My notes pre-meeting
- Should we measure demand? Remember, Annie wants to know the interest-level.
- In Burlington, CSV began with mailing list of 500 interested people. Maybe we dovetail the creation of that list with demand-measuring.
- remember: One additional marketing item is to publicizing this to businesses to offer this as an incentive to employees.
- CSV: what proportion of use is by businesses?
- Car-sharing can also help a local company attain the Green Building Certification Institute’s LEED certification.
- Larger Montpelier companies, e.g. National Life, might be convinced to use a vehicle
- CSV seems to be okay with not moving into the black due to our co-venture alone.
- are, or can/should we, be going for a particular CSV program? Such as the ‘peer-to-peer car/truck-sharing’ one?
- “MET, or CSV & MET together, could have an event, and/or use local print, radio, cable, internet media, to spread the idea. Then develop the business plan, as a prerequisite to grant application.” This points us back to measuring demand.
In-Meeting
- Joslyn & Rob discussed the $1,000 “License fee” mentioned by Annie Bourdon as a requirement for any vehicle-rental organization must pay, and which she assumed would apply to the “Coop Pickup.” Rob’s research on it is in the "is a $1,000 rental license fee for real?" related item you'll see to the right on this page -- it amounts to AOT apparently requiring a bond to ensure payment of up to the "total potential liability of the rental company," which for a new applicant, with no history on which to calculate a bond requirement, defaults to $1,000.
- After Mary’s arrival—and through to the end of the meeting--the discussion focussed on a situation via which we could begin the CSV co-venture with State-used cars:
- The State is looking for means to cut many millions in spending.
- Mary, who is on the ___________ Committee, asked BGS Commissioner Jerry Meyers whether they’d be interested in availing of a car-sharing program if it would be cheaper than State-owned cars. [my speculation here: Jerry indicated some interest.]
- BGS owns two groups of cars: one for incidental travel; a second for lease to Agencies.
- BGS, according to Mary, would donate the cars.
- the question then is, would they expect a super deal? All agreed that perhaps they would, but would still have to pay something.
- the question then is, would they expect a super deal? All agreed that perhaps they would, but would still have to pay something.
- Rob asked whether overnight storage locations would pose a problem; Mary said it seems that little of BGS’ useage results is overnight.
- Mary observed that one way to market this to BGS (et al?) is that, under our arrangement, CSV cars could be used for personal trips, and perhaps emergencies.
- Costs were discussed; we supposed they’d include:
- the car’s cost
- useage (time & miles) cost
- insurance costs flowing through to users — Joslyn to make a follow-up call to confirm that the user wouldn’t need to have their own car insurance.
- NEXT STEPS:
- Mary to call Annie Bourdon to reality-check.
- Joslyn to make a follow-up call to confirm that the user wouldn’t need to have their own car insurance.
- Joslyn to call Everett insurance as part of ongoing research on the Coop Pickup idea.
- Our reconnoitering of other users who’d piggyback on this.
- Montpelier-Waterbury State-employee commutes
- National Life
- VCFA, NECI students
- Mary to call Annie Bourdon to reality-check.
Monday, Feb 22, 2010
"Merged notes from the Feb 22 2010 mtg. with Car Share Vt. We've got Barry's and Carl's so far; read through and add any you've got that they missed."
CSV Basics
CSV began in 2008; has a 2-person staff and interns. It now has 500 members; demographics are “18-80.” Use is primarily personal: 25% students. Many members use it as their family's second car. The remaining use is by businesses.
CSV estimates it will need @25 vehicles to be self-sufficient. They currently have 9 vehicles: 5 Prius, 4 AWD Subarus, all Burlington-based. The average trip is 30 miles; all trips are round-trip. CSV charges based on time and miles (Zipcar does only time).
Cars are used 4-5 hours a day now. Average trip length: 3 hours, 9 miles per hour. In 2009, 50% self sufficient, better than the 30% they expected. Would need minimum 6 hours per day, 25 vehicles, 1200 dues-paying members to be self-sufficient.
They are currently working with Winooski to get a grant to have one car there, too. They are also just starting “Share-A-Little” pickups: currently they are offering loss-leader pricing at 7.95/hour.
Their business members include VEIC and law firms; their public members include the City of Burlington.
Thoughts on informal car/truck cooperatives
A car-share in Boulder started informally, and eventually had to become more formal. Rob Hubbard will follow this up a bit.
CSV expansion/programs under consideration:
One potential program under consideration, ‘peer-to-peer car/truck-sharing’, resembles the “cooperative pick-up truck” between friends/neighbors we started with. A person owns a car/truck; CarShare Vt leases the vehicle for $1, and a group of people joins CarShare for renting the vehicle. CarShare provides no maintenance.
Co-venturing with MET/Montpelier:
Annie wants to know the interest-level, and will share resources. CSV has been wanting to expand into the Montpelier area, but hasn’t until now seen the organizational capacity to carry it. Now, she sees MET as means to avoid a Montpelier-based staff.
CSV has an online platform that could seamlessly expand to include a couple Montpelier vehicles.
How CSV/MET could kickstart:
In Burlington, CSV began with mailing list of 500 interested people. They hel on open house, before they had vehicles to further grow the mailing list. They went door to door, got press attention. Then started fundraising.
MET, or CSV & MET together, could have an event, and/or use local print, radio, cable, internet media, to spread the idea. Then develop the business plan, as a prerequisite to grant application. Annie estimates an initial $12-15K grant could be enough for planning.
There is also a possible grant opportunity to do a pilot project around the ‘peer-to-peer car/truck-sharing’ (see above) in Montpelier.
One additional marketing item: publicizing this to businesses to offer this as an incentive to employees. Car-sharing can also help a local company attain the Green Building Certification Institute’s LEED certification. Larger Montpelier companies, e.g. National Life, might be convinced to use a vehicle, even a dedicated vehicle. Seventh Generation wants to do this in Burlington.
1.25.10 Transportation Team mtg:
Agenda:
• note to all that Anne is the link to MHS service-learning students
• update from joslyn Wilschek
- spoke to Anne, fr Carshare Vt
- supplied:
- list of issues
- discussed pairing up; possible mtg
- group must be a car-sharing org
- very few insurance cos cover these: only one is one in Philad.
- gotta be a mbmer to use it...$5/mo;
- gotta have good driving record
- $1,000 permit for the entity
- $15-30 to process member apps.
- $12-19/pp
- CS interested in co-work w/MET
- each user: $30 join fee
- note to Joslyn the C.U. team's ability to pick this up.
- Mary:
- publicizing the co-venture w/CS VT
Anne Watson
- How the MHS service-learners could help.
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