Who We Are: An In-Depth Look mission, purpose, benefits, business plan, annual report |
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Mission Statement HVME is an educational waste prevention organization that fosters business and community development, art and culture, environmental protection, and sustainable living through its services. Our PurposeThe Hudson Valley Materials Exchange is an environmental 501 c (3) organization focusing primarily on the development of effective waste management practices for businesses in the Hudson Valley. Our services include waste assessments, distribution of reusable business waste and workshops illustrating possible uses for our materials. We operate a "Community Warehouse" in Orange County, N.Y. Our present primary outreach for these materials is to schools and artists. We are, however, open to the public and have users from all walks of life. Geographically, we focus on Orange, Ulster, and Dutchess Counties with the bulk of our recipients coming from this area. However, being one of only two "materials for the arts/education" type program open to the public in New York State, people have come from Connecticut, Massachusetts, as well as upstate and downstate New York. HVME usually finds its materials by doing an on-site waste assessment with a potential generator. We will only take materials that are destined for the landfill. When a donor has materials in too great a quantity for us to handle at The Community Warehouse, we try to help them market them elsewhere. The average consumer does not realize that about 75% of waste is created in the manufacturing process of products they purchase. When educators and homeowners shop at The Community Warehouse, we make an effort to educate them as to the origin of the waste and encourage them to share this information with their students. By doing this, we hope to promote a "think twice" attitude when they are shopping for items they may not need. Our materials are presently distributed to eight school districts and 25 schools in the tri-county area we serve and beyond. We presently have about 300 members. We realize that this does not begin to make a dent in the waste stream. However, we think we are accomplishing our goal of protecting the environment by educating a more conscientious consumer. We disperse information about the materials. We enrich the learning experiences of the recipient students. And we save money for our schools and consumers. Other Benefits
Business Plan (updated 4/15/2001)-some text formatting is lost in parts that were tables in "word"-please email a request for document in "word" In 2000, we completed our fifth year of operations as a Community Warehouse. Revenues from handling fees, membership, donations and fee for service totaled $33,000 covering about 30% of our operating budget; an increase of $4,000 from '99. Our budget was $110,000. The remainder of the funding was made up of grants provided by the NYS Dept. of Environmental Conservation (contracted through 2002 then scheduled to be renewed through at least 2007), USEPA and Dyson Foundation. Shopping Methods The warehouse is open to the public. Shopping is
done in one of two ways: as a member or a non-member. Future of Present Operation: Materials for Arts and Education In the fall of 1999, HVME piloted its curriculum designed to stimulate use of its materials in the classroom. We also launched a website, which houses our curriculum and inventory. However, the Community Warehouse part of the present materials for the arts will remain at its present level of operation while we concentrate on the development of the new facility and collection and distribution of the building materials. Management, Personnel and Advisors HVME seeks advice from experts throughout the community and, indeed, nationally. For the expansion to building materials, we sought out members of that community. To that end, we have become a member of the local chapter of National Association of the Remodeling Industry. Their members have already begun to donate materials and our executive director now serves on their board. We have also reached out to Professional Women in Construction and the Homebuilders Association. Much of the data in our market analysis was obtained through advice from UBM programs throughout the U.S. and Canada. We are also a member of ReDO (Reuse Development Organization) which has a national online listserve. This aids us in maintaining an ongoing dialog with other programs nationwide.
Upon implementing this plan we found that the viewers were not the decisionmakers. They therefore needed to take some of the samples back to their decision makers. Because of this we found ourselves having to collect increasingly larger amounts of sample materials. We also found that what we defined as local, our users did not and they were not willing to travel an hour to collect the materials from the generators but were willing to take them from us. Within the first year after we had published our first listing catalog we collected and distributed nearly ten tons of reusable waste materials from our tiny 400 sq. ft. warehouse. As the initial 20 companies began to look at their wastestream through our eyes, the volume of the materials they wanted to donate became too great to handle in the space we had. In addition, our users were starting to come from areas far outside the small town of New Paltz. We, therefore, incorporated as a non profit in January '95 and moved to a larger (3000 s. f.) facility called "The Community Warehouse" in 9/95. We started charging a small membership fee in 11/94 and started charging additional handling fees for some materials in 2/'96. HVME usually finds it materials by doing an on -
site waste assessment with a potential donor. These assessments are
carried out by the executive director whose background in solid waste
management allows her to not only select materials for The Community
Warehouse but to market some of the materials too great in volume
for collection. Most of the "off - site" materials marketed
are pallets which are collected for refurbishing by pallet removal
companies. This accounts for about 50% of the 2000 tons of diverted
materials listed above. Products and Services to be Provided On a limited basis, we conduct waste assessments to assist businesses and institutions with other aspects of effective solid waste management other than the materials they donate to us. In addition, we have done some demonstration workshops. Future Services Proposed Expansion: Used Building Materials
(UBM) The UBM will be operated at the Community Warehouse along side the existing program. We have moved to better suited retail location 12 miles further south of our previous site. It is too early to tell if this will improve participation but we have every reason to believe it will. Market Analysis of Used/Surplus Building
Materials Expansion Industry Trends The building material industry is currently experiencing
a period of rapid growth in Canada and the US. The 50% increase in
used building material stores across North America in the past five
years appears to be the result of numerous factors: Conclusion: HVME presently serves 1300 customers yearly with a revenue of $30,000 averaging $23 per customer for art and craft materials with present pricing structure of membership. To reach the additional $170,000 of our proposed operating budget, we would need to add 3400 customers purchasing building materials at an average purchase of $50 per customer (derived from interviews with existing programs nationwide). Therefore, HVME would need to serve 2% of our initial 180,000 target market (Orange, Dutchess and Ulster Counties through 2003 then adding outreach to Putnam and Rockland Counties) consisting primarily of homeowners. The majority of supporting data figures in our market analysis are from the first three counties. NOTE: The above inforrnation was developed in 1998. Since we have moved to Orange County, we will accelerate our schedule to market to Putnam and, particularly, to Rockland (which borders Orange County to the south). SUPPORTING DATA: HVME serves two distinct groups: The following profiles and supporting numbers give a more in depth picture of who these people/businesses are. Where applicable, we have stated the derivation of our data, however, there is more information available upon request. CUSTOMER PROFILES Research shows that spending on do-it-yourself projects and direct material purchases (measured by household purchases of building materials) peaks at householders aged 25 - 44 year olds, and declines steadily thereafter. Therefore, we have used this age range as the age base for drawing household information from the 1997 Lifestyle Market Analyst. Low Income Households have an income level of under
$30,000 and an age range of 18-44 and HOUSEHOLDS IN TARGET AREA* County 2. Farmers - profile derived from 1997 Lifestyle Market Analysis and testimony from existing custormers (4).Total numbers for target area (4000 potential derived from Cornell Cooperative Extension Dutchess Co.) 3. Artists, theatre groups (29 potential, 5 present members), educators, school districts (42 potential, 8 present members) - profile and numbers for target area derived from testimony from existing customers, NYS Education Dept. and Cornell Cooperative Extension Dutchess County. A survey of local theatre groups found that 100% of respondents reported interest in using HVME for building materials. The theaters put on an average of 5.9 plays per year and spend $1,208 per play for a total of $7127.20 per year. They would be willing to travel an average of 32.5 miles for reduced price, used materials as opposed to 10 miles for new, regular price materials. We have member theatre groups now. 4. Small businesses like cottage industries - 75
present customers Rural Opportunities of Dutchess Co. - 10/98 Section
8 Landlord Survey Response Summary Program Interest Travel Distance - an average of 23.98 miles for used materials as opposed to 28.37 for new materials Monthly Material Expenditures Yearly Material Expenditures
Unit Information The table illustrates the frequency that the section 8 landlords require the following items/materials:
material/item DONOR PROFILES paint* plywood (OSB)* kitchen cabinets buckets ceramic
tile* NOTE: For this component, we collaborated extensively with Mark Wheeler, waste reduction specialist for Dutchess Co. Cooperative Extension. Mark is presently under contract with NYS Office of Recycling Market Development (ORMD) for business waste reduction in The Hudson Valley with the construction waste stream a specific part of his focus. We partnered on presentations, waste assessments, market analysis and referrals. 1. wood waste - in addition to local contractors, we have identified 6 businesses (listed below) within a 20 mile radius who generate this material in substantial quantity, far more than we could ever collect from them. These companies already distribute some of their materials to the community. All are related to the building field but don't build in the traditional sense. Instead they manufacture building components on their site. We expect to get a great deal of lumber and other building woods from them as opposed to contractors because they are a reliable source and have the space to store materials. All of them generate materials suitable both for our present program, "materials for art & education", and our USED BUILDING MATERIALS (UBM) expansion and have agreed to participate. Miron Home & Truss - Kingston - manufacture prefabricated buildings. They generate many tons of wood waste yearly mainly consisting of OSB (oriented strand board - sheathing material) and lumber in very small pieces. We anticipate their OSB to be the majority of material we will use. It is used, interchangeably, with plywood in many construction situations. New OSB is sold in 4'x8' sheets, the same as plywood but is frequently cut to make smaller structures. At Miron, as in other new construction, we saw many sheets of 4' & 5' in length, cut out from window openings. Lumb Woodworking - Poughkeepsie - specialty contracts ie. railroad car walls & manhole covers - they generate plywood, balsa and lumber as well as formica. M.L.Condon - Stormville (Dutchess)- manufacture specialty wood products like finish woodwork. Generate many tons/year of 99% hardwoods such as teak, mahogany, poplar, walnuts and cherry. Most of their wood waste is generated in 12' strips of varying widths and could be used for finish work as well as dowels and mounting. They transport their waste to Taylor Tree Recycling in Montgomery (Orange Co.) and will deliver a 30 yard dumptruck load to us whenever we want provided we take a full load. Adirondack Stair - Saugerties (Ulster) - manufacture stairs of all kinds. Generate lumber droppings and full sets of stairs as well as railings, several tons/year. Circumstances leading to the generation of stairs and railings are usually rejection or default on the order or change in design. Chelsea Homes - Marlboro (Ulster) - modular home manufacturing. Generate wood of all kinds as well as other kinds of building materials. They periodically do sales on their waste but the wood waste is the largest part of their wastestream that they must dispose of. They keep a wood waste pile open to the public. We will try to get them to palletize some of this.. Mid Hudson Fence - Wappingers Falls (Dutchess) - generate about 400 cu. yds. of lumber droppings a year which is stored in a 30 yard roll off supplied by their hauler who reports to them that it is being recycled. most likely, at Taylor Tree. We are not sure how we will use their wood in the UBM part of the program but we know we will be using it in the exiting program.
Other sources of wood are contractors and lumber yards. We have already interviewed several who are willing to participate. In researching existing programs like The Loading Dock in Baltimore, we found that lumber and other building woods were one of the scarcer materials. Though it won't be definitive until we begin collecting materials, this does not seem to be the case in this area. 2. roofing materials - three possible sources so far: Sampco - Massechusetts - make trade show displays for shingle manufacturers. Source of waste are overruns and discontinued product lines. They delivered 16 pallets this past February to us and said they will probably be doing this yearly. This load, however, was missing the "seal down tab" a strip of tar that prevents shingles from blowing off roofs. Though they have sold it has been a deterrent. Now that we know the difference, we will be more careful about what we accept. Owens - Corning, New Jersey - Shingle manufacturer among other building materials. We met the local sales representative at a NARI (Remodelers' Association) meeting. He was very interested in our program and wants to donate loose overrun shingles. . NEI Advanced Composite Technology - New Hampshire - off - spec roll roofing and ice underlayment, ongoing. Four different products. According to our building trade research, this is a high-end quality roofing material that sells at stores like Home Depot for $50/roll. Though we will need to invest $500/truckload to ship, it should yield $11,000/load in revenue at $25/roll 3. doors & windows - we've received several of these from homeowners. They are the most abundant of all the materials found collected by other programs we've researched. Pella - window & door manufacturer - nationwide. Pella does a close - out sale periodically at their New Jersey facility but always has leftover stock that they dispose of. Owens - Corning - in addition to the above mentioned roofing materials, they make doors and windows which we hope they will donate to us. Contractors - several NARI members have begun to donate very high quality windows to us. 4. flooring - we've identified two excellent flooring sources within 5 miles of our facility. Empire Carpet - Marlboro (Ulster) - this company are carpet installers and do not have a retail showroom where they can sell the remains of their carpet installations which can be very high quality carpet remnants. They also generate used parquet flooring removed from installations where this flooring is replaced by carpet. We have been collecting from them for 6 months and everything has sold. Chelsea Homes - periodic carpet and linoleum 5. sheetrock - generated in 4'x5' sheets by Chelsea
home and Miron in very large quantities due to cut out drippings from
picture window installations. Multiple materials - we have spoken to 4 local home
improvement retail operations who are interested in participating
in our program. One company, Wickes Lumber, in Walden (Orange) has
suggested that they set up a drop off area at their facility for their
contractor customers. There are five small cities (population under 50,000) within a 5 -25 mile radius of the Community Warehouse. They are Poughkeepsie and Beacon (Dutchess County), Newburgh and Middletown (Orange County), and Kingston (Ulster County). All of them have Home Depot and other building material-type stores. These will be the major source of our competition. In addition, there are eight surplus stores located in various parts of the three county area all of which are outside a 10-mile radius of our facility. These stores carry only new surplus at considerably greater prices than we have. We found only one, very small "used" building material store located about 25 miles from us in Woodstock. Based on the layout of their operation, we do not expect them to be any competition. HVME Positioning: Offer a wide range of products dedicated to: MARKETING STRATEGY CUSTOMER PLAN LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION!!!!!!!!!!!!!! - our new facility will accomplish two goals. The first, and most important, is greater visibility. Stewart International Airport is known to everyone in the Hudson Valley. The second goal is more space. The new facility is 9,000 s.f., twice the size of our previous location with the same amount of yard space. This will allow us to fully develop our expansion to building materials and enhance our present operation with more variety. 1. a. Our first marketing activity will be a large
mailing, to be executed within four months of our move to our new
facility, to the following groups: b. When we have expanded our building materials inventory to a marketable level (hopefully six months) we will send announcements to 40,000 homeowners (10,000 to each of four target counties) through the "Money Mailer", a coupon advertising service. Most of the businesses along the 9W corridor (our previous location) use this and report it quite successful. (Depending on the response, we will do another one to a different 30,000 in 6 months and will be timed to include our grand opening announcement). ?? To date, our most cost and result effective form of outreach is word of mouth. Because our facility is unique and will continue to be so when we expand, the most effective method of creating that word of mouth is to invite prospective customers and those in a position to reach out to them like art councils and other collaborative organizations (listed below) to our facility. MARKETING STRATEGY ?? Develop public relations with individual reporters of area news organizations. Press coverage thus far has been front page feature articles in the Times Herald Record (Middletown, NY) and Poughkeepsie Journal. It yielded considerable response both from donors as well as customers. These articles were mainly about the plans for the expansion and our present operation. They are looking forward to doing follow up articles when we have our grand opening. This event will provide the catalyst for interest. We have a well-developed list of press contacts. We will send out two press releases monthly. 4. open houses:- our first one will be our grand opening. When we first opened our doors in 10/95 we had a festival/party type grand opening called "Waste Deep in Reuse. WDST radio sponsored it and local restaurants donated large quantities of food. Many of our artist members donated entertainment and hosted workshops with projects made from our materials. The event was well covered by the press and over 400 people from the community attending. We expect to follow the same format but on a larger scale and will expect many more attendees due to location and the presence in the community that we have gained in the past four years. ?? coordinated garage sales with community groups and local chamber of commerce (Village of Pawling holds annual yard sale coordinated by the local chamber) 6. administrative tours for public housing authorities who administer Section 8 landlord organizations, promotional giveaways and purchasing incentives ?? material use workshops - we have had several of these during the past four years. They are very time-consuming but can be worth it if done on a regular basis. We will start with 2 our first year in the new facility, one for each area of our program and expand to 4 the second year. By 2005 we plan to have one monthly. They will be run by volunteer contractors, artists and craftspeople who use our facility as has been done at The Loading Dock in Baltimore. 8. Presentations at trade organizations like NARI, Homebuilders Association, Chambers of Commerce 9. Yellow pages ad 10. web-page - list inventory updated weekly profile
local examples of green building practices and successful building
projects using our materials and other reused materials MARKETING STRATEGY - DONOR PLAN One of our first steps to solicit donors was to attend meetings of the local building trade organizations. That was three years ago and one of those relationships has proved extremely fruitful, NARI (National Association of the Remodeling Industry). They have given us a complimentary membership, invited our executive director to sit on their board, agreed to help us with renovating our building and their members have begun to donate very good quality materials. We consider them our official mentors and they have been extremely helpful in teaching us about the waste within the building industry. One drawback to NARI is that they are very small in membership. We have tried to connect with the much larger Home Builders' Association but our success has been slow in coming. We will wait until our facility is more established because we believe that once we have caught on with this organization that donations will be rapidly forthcoming and we want to have the capacity to handle it. One issue that we learned early on in our development is that we must be vigilant and reliable collectors of these materials. We have seen that non profits, in general, have the reputation of being unreliable when it comes to donation. We understand this because many grassroots local non-profits are usually understaffed and underfunded. Many of them depend on volunteers to do this kind of work. Many of our donors have tried to donate their materials directly to a schools or art groups and have given up in disgust because the materials are not collected in a timely fashion if at all. We have had to overcome this reputation by being reliable, continuously revisiting their waste stream and building the infrastructure necessary for timely collection (truck and staff). This has convinced them that collecting materials is our mission and therefore our main activity. We are noticing that very small contractors do not join trade organizations but based on the response from newspaper articles and the recognition by those who work in our area, passing by our facility frequently, that they periodically have materials to donate and will usually deliver it. We will seek to connect with these donors but networking may be difficult other than word of mouth, which frequently can be most effective. We will also use the following methods as recommended in Section 3 of an operations handbook published by The Loading Dock - the following procedures are summarized from that handbook and our own experiences. cold call sources - Once leads have been contacted we will send out follow up letters accompanied by our program information and arrange for a visit. Non responsive contacts who have agreed to consider us and who have been sent our program info will receive a follow up call in two weeks. Often donors will have received the information and have a donation ready but have not had time to make arrangements. A follow up can be timely in this respect. A data file is kept for each donor with a total history of all contact with the donor. Once a donation has been received, a thank you letter itemizing the donation and some guidance for correct tax procedure will be sent to the donor. Again, this kind of reliability will keep donors interested in donating. networking - through our seven years of existence and in the process of researching this plan, we have gained many valuable contacts with other similar programs nationwide.. We share information about materials we are collecting and frequently those materials are generated in a quantity too great for any one of us to handle it all. There is now a national reuse organization (ReDO) who is working on coordinating the transportation and networking of these materials. We expect this to be very effective in the future. donor breakfasts - work very well in maintaining
relationships with donors which is always a work in progress. It will
allow us to show appreciation and allow donors to visualize how their
materials are used and to network with one another. Committed collaborating agencies:
NOTE: This is an operating expense budget only, our original business plan completed in 1998 included a capital budget for the construction/purchase of a new facility. We have since moved to a new facility but are renting. A purchase may happen in the future (perhaps as soon as the next five years). A separate capital budget for that project is available upon request but may never be needed. We, therefore, have omitted it from this plan. Should we proceed, we have every reason to believe that we will be able to secure the funding necessary to execute a capital project since we were awarded $100,000 for it initially by the NYS Dept. of Economic Development. expense category 2001 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2. We will purchase a forklift in 2001 which will be the final equipment purchase for the expansion 3. accounting, insurance, garbage, copy machine service, etc..
SOURCE 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 FOOTNOTES1. awarded - means grant has been approved, contract has been signed but money has not been applied for or submitted. We have submitted our pre application for our second round of NYS DEC funding and are 200 on the waiting list. This grant will continue to pay for 50% of operating expenses, including some capital costs through the year 2007 when we project to be fully self sufficient through the sale of our materials. These grants are not competitive, they are disbursed by number on a waiting list and the availability of funds. DEC informed us that most likely our place on the list was reached in mid- 2000 and we submitted our full application in January 200. Our present contract ends 12/2002. Our NYS DEC funding allows us to carry over an incrementally increasing surplus through the year 2006 when that funding source ceases. Because it is a reimbursement grant our starting funds for each succeeding year will include the NYS DEC funds reimbursed for the previous year but not yet received by years end. Our grants from DEC are multi-year contracts based solely on expenses and not income. As our program expands and collects ever increasing revenue each year our funding from DEC will not decrease by the same increments.This accumulated surplus will allow us a cushion for the years 2008 and 2009 while we continue to grow our income from sale of materials alone. 2. Dyson granted us $40,000 in '98 as match for our NYS DEC grant with specific plans towards our expansion. They have indicated a willingness to consider another one time match. Charitable Ventures has funded us twice in the past. If they cannot grant us the money this time they may be willing to give a no interest loan. If not we will be applying for low interest loans to various agencies in our area. We, however, need to concentrate our activities on the development of the program and do as little fundraising as possible, particularly in our first year in our new location. Funding applied for and received from these sources in 2001 will be designated for part of that year as well as 2002. 3. Revenue - includes sale of materials, memberships, fees for service such as workshops. These projections are based on a 30% increase from '99 with the move to our new facility completed by June. We believe it quite conceivable that our revenue will more than double in a year to eighteen months because of the additional materials, space and better location. 2003 ANNUAL REPORT NOTE: We believe an annual report should be a tool for self-examination as well as public accountability. We therefore are forthcoming with issues that need to be addressed within the organization. Where activities and/or goals remain unchanged from 2002, we repeat language verbatim. Since it has been 3 years since our move to a larger facility, this report will reflect that time span where appropriate. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY We completed our ninth full year as a non profit organization, our eighth year as a Community Warehouse and have now been in our new location 2 ¾ years continuing to work at our mission of waste prevention and working towards financial self-sufficiency. However, in March we completed our tenth year as a program having begun as a municipal entity of the Town of New Paltz in March 1993 before incorporating as a non profit in January 1995. We celebrated this milestone with several events throughout the year (see OUTREACH section). We continued the collection and distribution of reusable waste materials and promotion, education, and market research for new materials and customers. Throughout the year we remained primarily a “materials for arts/education” type program, expanding our collection of building materials modestly. This year we collected 35 tons (up 10 tons from last year) for the Community Warehouse with a conservative potential purchasing and avoided disposal cost savings of $150,000 (up $50,000 from last year). Our big increase in building materials inventory came at the end of 2001 through 2002 bringing our total inventory to about 60%. 2003 saw a modest increase in these materials (specifically ceramic tile) bringing the total to about 70%. Staffing remained a very large issue (see STAFFING
section). Use of the program continued to increase both in new/ renewed
memberships and customers but not as much as 2002 and we, again, made
a modest gain in revenue from membership and sale of materials. Our
landlord, Stewart Airport, continued to be a problem this year forcing
us to enclose our loading dock if we wanted to use it for storage. 2003 non-grant revenue was $37,300 increasing by $3,000. Due to unforeseen event date conflicts we were unable to attend our most significant off site event, The Clearwater Revival, which would have brought an additional $1500. Our expenses remained the same at about $130,000 bringing income from our own activities (ia) to about 29% of operating expenses, up 3% from 2002. Since we have moved to our new location our income has increased by $9000 and our "ia" has increased by 7%. Our unexpected and, therefore unbudgeted, expenses exceeded $14,000 over the 3 years. $9000 of this money can be accounted for in increased liability insurance which shortly after we moved jumped from $600 annually to $3500. We had no way of planning for this since the insurance panic came after the September 11th tragedy. The other increases have been in health insurance which doubled over the past 3 years. This money could have been spent on additional staff and thereby additional outreach but instead had to go towards just keeping our doors open. In August we received an award from the Newburgh Developers’ Association for our work in the community.
THE COMMUNITY WAREHOUSE 1. through membership ($25 - $450/ year (depending on group size) About 50% of art/education materials are included with membership, others are priced individually (50% discount for members). 2. non - members - $1.50/bag (4 bags for $5) no member
discount on priced materials. Managing membership continues to be a challenge with: 1. groups whose size varies throughout the year making it difficult to quote member fees 2. individual members who take very large amounts of materials. The Board developed an alternative fee structure at its retreat in July/'97 that would maintain membership but allow a fixed amount of materials for that membership. It has yet to be implemented for fear of losing members. This was reviewed again in 2001 to no conclusion. Results: We report membership numbers because it helps us track our progress in serving our community. Membership numbered 360, 240 new memberships and 120 renewals (significant increase from last year). Though this total is only 45 more than last year it is significant in that it shows that we are slowly gaining recognition in our new community. During the last three years we resided in our old location new use of the program had stagnated. We believe that this shows that our new location is having an effect on the use of our program. The number of "education related customers" remained about the same at about one third. We expect, however, that 2004 will show a significant increase in this percentage because of an initiative by the Orange County Legislature to promote the program to their schools. In August, they awarded us $5000 with the specific purpose of purchasing memberships for all their districts. To date, 11 of the 15 districts have signed on. In addition we picked up 1 childcare organization and 4 private schools. Though this is only a total of 16 new memberships it represents a potential increase in use by about 15,000 students. This is significant because it means we have a greater opportunity to expand the implementation of our education mission of effective waste prevention practices through reuse. Educators represent about 75% of the total number of people using HVME materials. This is because teachers who shop bring our materials back to their students who are the true users. Each teacher represents anywhere from 25 to several hundred students. Membership income decreased by $700 and material sales increased by $3300. Customers numbered 2450, up an additional 500 from last year, breakdown for 2003 was 1965 members and 485 non - members. Since our move we have increased total customer visits by about 1500, at least a 50% increase. In March we kicked off our second decade by extending our shopping hours to Tuesdays and Wednesdays bringing our total open days from 3 to 5. While it initially seemed that this was an instant success in that we were seeing enough customers on the new days to pay for the additional staff, by year’s end there was no significant increase in revenue. Though this was a major fulfillment of our business plan, we tentatively believe this was a mistake because it put staffing strains on the organization that we were not prepared to overcome (see STAFFING section). We, however, feel we cannot backpedal to close on these days because it may play havoc with our credibility. In addition, we are allowing for the fact that it may be too early to predict the ultimate outcome of this change. Part of our mission is to serve the business community by helping them divert their useable waste materials. We, therefore, deem it necessary to track our progress in serving this community. Since our move we have made significant progress towards this goal raising the number of new donor businesses by 28. In 2003 the total materials donors numbered 53 up 14 from 2002, of which 20 were new to us (up 2 from last year) and 17 were individuals (up10 from last year). Geographic demographics remained about the same with customers coming from as far as Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Jersey as well as the nine Hudson Valley counties. We remain, to our knowledge, one of only two "materials for arts/education" programs open to the public in the state, ours and another one in Long Island. Our materials are very different from each other so we are experimenting with exchanging truckloads. Our liability insurance issue seems to have stabilized this year but it will remain at the high rate we are paying. STAFFING – This is the first year we are reporting about this issue. We do this because it continues to be a major problem that, to date, we have been unable to overcome and which has been exacerbated by the extension of our shopping hours placing additional burden on existing staff. By the end of 2002 we finally filled the part-time customer service position left vacant for a year and a half. It became vacant again in August. We have done some major reconsidering and have decided to completely revamp our staffing strategy. Our present warehouse manager, who has been with us for six years, is a very important part of the organization. We realized, however, that her schedule (M-F 8:30-3:00) necessitates an additional part-time customer service person to staff the two hours left to closing. We can only afford to pay a low wage for this position making it very difficult to keep good staff. We, therefore, are combining both positions, which will pay a good wage with benefits for one full time position. We began advertising this year and have yet to find the best candidate. USED/SURPLUS BUILDING MATERIALS (UBM) We modestly increased collection of these materials this year and they have been a modicum of success. In December of 2001 we received our first large load of home improvement materials, a 100 pallet load of surplus kitchen cabinet door from Ikea in New Jersey. It was questionable how successful these materials would be and the skepticism was warranted. Gradually this material has picked up momentum and we sold more of it this year than 2002. Kitchens and bathrooms are the most popular building material but we don’t get enough of them. We plan to do more outreach to remodelers in 2004. As predicted, our new relationship with Sherwood tile yielded 8 tons of new ceramic tile donated worth about $30,000 retail which we will sell for about $10,000. The quality is very high and not even available at such stores as Home Depot. Customers who know enough about this material are ecstatic about the addition to our stock. We expect an equal or greater amount to be donated in 2004. Taylor Recycling is a Construction/Demolition disposal site in Montgomery not far from our facility. They generate about one ton/week of useable lumber. They have expanded their operation, as predicted in last year’s report, which may provide an opportunity to harvest this material from their facility. This summer, with volunteer help, we enclosed our loading dock enabling us to reclaim some significant floor space. We gained even more floor space when we were donated seven sets of racking. With some additional tweaking to our space we should be ready soon to receive lumber in 2004. Sale of building materials increased by $2700, totaling $9000. Since our move we have increased our building materials sales by $4700 a more than 50% increase and now totaling 30% percent of our revenue. Though this has not affected our bottomline significantly it tells us that with a concerted effort to develop this part of the program it will be the success we have outlined in our business plan. Our business plan calls for us to turn our attention to developing the building materials part of our program by acquiring materials and advertising to homeowners and apartment owners once we secure a larger facility. Because of the success grand opening event and the overwhelming response we got from the art community as well as the increase in both the amount and quality of the arts/education materials that found their way to us unsolicited since our move, we decided to, in essence, "go with the flow" and see where this led us in 2003. We could not do both because of the lack of staff. We resolved in last year’s report to reserve judgement until the end of 2003. We now feel this was a mistake (see OUTREACH section). OUTREACH – In an effort to build on our momentum from 2002 and, at the same time, relieve some of the stress that one large event created on staff (it took 5 months of full time effort to coordinate our 2002 grand opening attending to little else), held several small events thoughout the year using our 10th anniversary as the theme for the year with the hope that it would be noteworthy to the press. All of these events were well received but poorly attended despite our outreach efforts. Below is our list of events as taken from our website. Having lost our third staff person in August it became impossible to continue on with the scheduled events. We, therefore, cancelled October, November and December events. The "focus group" previously planned for November has been postponed to spring 2004. You're Invited. We mark our 10th year of operation
in March 2003! Join in our YEAR-LONG Celebration! MARCH Saturday 4/26, 1-2:30 PM- "Happy, Healthy, Handsome
Habitats for Precious Pocket Pets" MAY - "Name Our Art Gallery" contest Our contest was a big success! We had over 100 entrees and the choice was really difficult. The winning name was submitted by Monica Ostrow & Laura Martinez-Bianco, both of whom have participated in our 2002 & 2003 art exhibit. We wish to thank all the people who participated in the contest. The winning name is (drum roll please) “galerie Deja View” JUNE - Saturday 6/21, 12-5 PM - official opening
of "galerie Deja View - "Summer Soulstice" 2003 Art
Exhibit Opening JULY & AUGUST - "Reusable into Art" workshop series SEPTEMBER – Puppets - Performances & workshops all month with - Arm of the Sea Theatre Puppet Theatre - Saturday, 9/20 2pm, puppet making workshops 12-2, pre registration required - Ivy Vine Players (tentative) & psKnocked Senseless (Saturday 9/13 or 9/27 - tba - all day) "Reusable into Art" workshop series OCTOBER - Wearable Art Workshops all month make hats, clothes, accessories from elegant to outrageous, culminating in a fashion show costume party on the Saturday 10/25 with Halloween the theme. "Reusable into Art" workshop series - all workshops this month will focus on wearable art NOVEMBER "Reusable into Art" workshop series DECEMBER Below is a list of our workshop series offered for the first time. The goal behind this activity was to extend our outreach to the education community. We were approached by the artists featured in the list below who agreed to do all the work needed to publicize them. There was more outreach needed than anticipated and they were poorly attended most of the time. We wound up canceling about a third of them. What is listed below is the project in its 2004 incarnation. Instead of having prescheduled workshops dependant on individual registrations we will book them for prepaid groups only. This way we don’t have to tie up any staff for doubtful attendance "Reusables into Art" - . led by artists-in-residence
Shawn Dell Joyce & Ricky Fowler workshop fees - must be prepaid other particulars workshops with asterisks (*) are co-sponsored by the Mid-Hudson Teachers Center - Art supplies in Unexpected Places (i.e. Preparing
Surfaces for Painting) WEARABLE ART In addition to the above outreach efforts we made the following strides towards promoting our program: - took membership in the Orange County Chamber of
Commerce Plans for 2004: Website FUNDING Personnel - $3880 - : Hourly wage includes benefits at $1/hour based on part time employment or 30% for full time. Wherever Possible, we have documented the work (available upon request). Value (cost derivations) are based on either the reported actual wages of the volunteer or salary we would have paid them based on existing paid positions . $1870 - events - 200 hours - wage value $$8-10/hour
- coordination, set up, customer service, (breakdown upon request) Non-personnel - $8700 Equipment - $6000 -
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