A Zoom-based Mariner House Board of Directors (BOD) meeting was held on Tuesday, September 16, 2025, using the Mariner House Zoom account and recorded by MHA Zoom host Tracy Canty, the Mariner House Association (MHA) Property Manager. That recording constitutes the official and approved recording of this meeting, to the exclusion of any and all other recordings or partial recordings, intentional or accidental.
Attending the meeting were Board members: Ranelle Brew, Pat Catchpole, Kerric Harvey, and Bob Vanasse, as well as property manager Tracy Canty.
Absent were Tammy Rausch and Mark Thurston.
A quorum of the Board voting members having been attained, Bob Vanasse called the meeting to order at 7:00 p.m.
Approval of prior meeting’s minutes
Bob Vanasse opened the meeting by declaring the minutes from the August 2025 session approved by general acclamation.
PROPERTY MANAGER’S REPORT
Island News
There was no “Island News” report given in this meeting, an unanticipated departure from the usual practice. Instead, the property manager was prompted to provide the “Mariner House Updates” section of the meeting directly after the approval of the minutes. Hopefully discussion about this will be forthcoming at the October 2025 session.
Mariner House Updates
* Mariner House enjoyed an 87% occupancy rate during the month of August.
* Exterior painting in the back of the house is scheduled for October 2025. We have between $15K – $20K of our regular operating budget set aside for painting projects, which will be helpful in this regard.
* Tracy is continuing to get estimates for the major work to be done in the main entrance foyer and stairwell, including the cupola.
* Replacing the gutters and downspouts has been completed.
* Essex and Defiance will be getting new sofa bed couches, with the request in place that they be non-down filled because of member allergies.
* Bob, Tracy and Bill have started discussions about possible window replacements as a project to consider sooner rather than later.
*Tracy reminded the Board that there are Decorating Chair vacancies for Columbia, Essex, and Barstow, suggesting that the annual meeting and/or the literature sent to members about it might be a good place to encourage people to apply for those volunteer positions.
* Challenges continue to exist in finding an amenable date for the 2025 General Meeting of Mariner House owners. Bob mentioned that he still needed to hear results about candidate dates from several Board members via the Doodle poll he’s put together and sent out; Kerric thanked Bob for doing that. As soon as all results are in, Bob will consult with Tracy and share that information with the Board.
OLD BUSINESS
* Lively discussion continued around the idea of changing the annual meeting format from its customary hybrid design, in which online/by phone and in-person options are available to members as ways to participate, to an exclusively online format. This is actually a continuance of last month’s BOD meeting, but with some new information available to help inform the Board’s decision.
* Bob reported that the By-Laws do not stipulate that the annual meeting be held in person, only that they occur in such a way as to be accessible to the general membership. He also shared with the Board a useful Infographic he had developed, in which he overlaid the home addresses of current Mariner House interval owners onto a map of the United States.
* Bob and Ranelle returned to the matter of low in-person attendance at the last several years of in-person meetings. Kerric noted that roughly the same small number of members made use of the on-line option as attended the meeting in person, wondering if this indicated a larger issue with owner engagement that would not be addressed by dropping the in-person component from the current multi-method design for attending these sessions.
* Bob directed the Board’s attention to the new Infographic map, which illustrates the far-flung locations of the current Mariner House owners, and, he noted, underscores Hyannis’s inconvenience as a place to hold an in-person meeting now that the MH ownership has expanded from its formerly New England-centered base.
* Brief discussion ensued around the ways in which the data-enriched map could be very helpful for understanding just how much the membership had spread out over the last years and the implications of that for subsequent Board activities, including community building.
* While appreciating the insights offered by the map, Kerric observed that since our general members can already join the meeting by using online means, the map was illuminating in many ways, but not conclusive in providing new information to guide the Board members as we consider the possibility of dropping the in-person option.
* Questions of administrative due process were also discussed, since the proposed change in annual meeting format would affect the full membership at the policy level.
* Speaking to that point, Bob offered to speak with the people who do attend the meetings in person in order to ask their opinion about moving to an exclusively online session, on behalf of the Board. The Board members present felt that this would be helpful as part of the general information collection process.
* Also suggested at this point was the importance of reaching out to members who do not attend in person for their feedback being the necessary “second half” of that information gathering. This is to determine whether it is, indeed, the inconvenience of the Hyannis location or some other factor – such as lack of general engagement – which leads to the low in person and online attendance rates.
* Kerric offered to put together a one-question poll on the meeting format question, run it by the Board for approval, and then send it to the general membership via Survey Monkey. Ranelle mentioned that she’d like to add some questions to that poll.
* A key and immediate realization, drawn from Bob’s Infographic map, was that it would be a good idea to start the general meeting somewhat later in the day than has been the case traditionally, in order to avoid imposing undue burden on our West Coast members, who would have to get up inordinately early to attend even by Zoom. This was informally but enthusiastically agreed upon by all members present.
There being no news business, and a motion to do being made and seconded, Bob adjourned the meeting at 7:26 p.m. The next Mariner House Board meeting will be held on Tuesday, October 21, 2025, at 7:00 p.m. EDT.
Minutes submitted by:
Kerric Harvey,
Mariner House Board of Directors and Secretary,
October 11, 2025