Tobma meeting and election

Meeting in August for Tobma.
August 21st

Welcome to all.
Present was:
Marli, Jeremy, Givago, Charlie, Bennet, Rich, Brian, Mark, Martin, Smitty, Graham.

Secretary: Martin
Speakers adjudisisarory/chairman: Mark

The meeting Had quite a short agenda.
Accept of the minutes from last meeting and the agenda for today.
Nominations to the steering committee/voting
Ideas for what Tobma should be
Open floor

The minutes for the last meting was accepted. So was the agenda.

http://www.new.facebook.com/topic.php?topic=5350&post=22791&uid=20038712099#post22791

Martin added a comment made by Tif - Why not have a veteran on the steering committee? My answer was: We are trying to make a club for working messengers that might be able to grow into a union. Veterans are welcome at meetings and in any capacity cooperating with Tobma, but should not have voting rights and should not be on the steering committee of said group. This is of course up to the new steering committee to agree upon and put in the by laws.

So we went on to nominations:
These 6 wanted to be on board:
Brian
Marli
Rich
Mark
Bennet
Givago

Rich did not get voted in.
So the new steering committee is:

Brian
Marli
Mark
Bennet
Givago

They will constitute themselves so there will be a president, accountant, secretary and 2 ordinary members.

The last 2 items of the agenda merged into:

An idea by givago was kicked around a messenger store of sorts in the core, even a vending machine with tire tube and lube on sale. Mark had an idea for a contact.
Mark have the laminator and the stapler.
One had an idea to make spokecards for all maybe with a slight difference for the steering committee members.
We can raise funds and awareness with:
Patches, Stickers, tshirts, sweatshirts, caps.
We basically need branding.
We need to keep up the work with the Guidebook for rookies.
Maybe make a seminar on winter.
Work place hazards.
What to do if you get in an accident.
Is there a tax rebate on less cycling oriented gear/clothing?
You can claim 30% of your own phone and claim your work space at home.
There is a owners club, maybe we should make contact to cooperate.
Rate transparency to the messengers so you can figure out what you make.
Rich pointed to a fact that we according to the law we are not to undercut the postal service. and we don´t if all our cheap calls are 47 grams or less. I think we need 3 volunteers from different companies to carry a scale for a month. Maybe what we find is an item for Market place on CBC.
We need to focus on the cheapest rates to make a reasonable living out of our job.
How else can we get attention? Strike?
We need to make a www page. Maybe a board.
We need to lobby with the city to make the city move more stuff by bike instead of cars.
Tif made a pledge to head up a ´zine for Toronto messengers.
And all should go to Velosocial on the first Monday of each month.

http://www.new.facebook.com/event.php?eid=44920354936&ref=ts