Fair Hill Nature and Environmental Center Minutes from the Board of Director's Meeting February 11, 2003

Nature School Report: Holly Hannum
They have only had to reschedule one visit due to weather.

The staff attended an outdoor educators’ meeting. Each attended five sessions. Holly got a rain barrel to auction off. She spoke to a nature photographer about coming to do a member program on nature photography.

Holly discussed a carving project for members, which uses soap for the carving.

One of the camp sessions for the summer will be held the week of Fourth of July, but Holly expects that we will still get good attendance.

Dan asked if we want to consider raising the camp fees. Mario suggested that we keep fees the same, with the state of the national economy. Holly will do a price study with other area camps.

New camps are being added: a summer critter camp, a water activity camp, a longer Chesapeake Bay camp.

There will be a spring version of the after-school program at two county schools.

Outdoor classes begin again on March 15. The staff will be in the week before to see what work needs to be done on trail.

New boots are being purchased, at cost, through R.S. Western Auto. Jerry Newman arranged this for us.

FHNEC Grants/Personnel Committee: Hinda Smith
This is a copy of the paper report that Hinda distributed at the meeting.

Goals:

• To evaluate program staffing needs/effectiveness
• To improve grant income for FHNC through the development of a strategic plan

Questions:

• Do we need to have Staff Performance Reviews?
• Do we need additional staff? Executive Director? There is a need for grant money. Who writes grants?
• Volunteers? Who manages volunteer program?
• Have we made use of teacher interns or student teachers?

Strategic Plan 2002:

Staffing Plan
Current Organizational Chart (Job descriptions were revised on 12/15/01)

FHNC Board of Directors

Chief Executive Director – not yet hired/not in 2003 budget

Educational Director – Holly Hannum
Plans, directs and reviews all activities related to educational programs. Supervises teachers/programs; develops/administers budget in cooperation w/ exec. Director; primary contact w/ CCPS; maintain quality of programs; develops schedule; oversees management of trails; purchase & maintain equipment and supplies; reports to Board; directly reports to Executive Director

Administrative Assistant - Pat Holleran
5 days/week; 6 hours/day; works on items for Board, membership

1 Senior Teacher – Janet Fallon
Teaches classes; designs and implements new curriculum; assists with scheduling; trains teachers and volunteers; teaches camps and outreach programs; works with exec. Director, program committee, membership and board in general on member programs

2 Teacher/Naturalists- Earlene Michener, Katherine Straughn
Design and teach curriculum; maintain trails, exhibits, equipment; train new teachers and volunteers, teach camps and outreach programs, assist with membership

Substitute/ Summer Camp Teacher – Karen Aspinwall (was part-time Exec. Director)

Substitute- Cathryn Harjung

Teachers work 6 hour days. There is no set schedule. They work when there are classes scheduled.
3 have degrees; none are certified; Karen has a masters degree in curriculum

Program needs:
K Program – paid 6 hour day for 2 teachers – Program takes 3 hours
Grades 1-5 Program – 2 hours teaching time each

Summer Programs – 14 camps this year / 8 camps last year
There has been a 10% increase in staffing costs. The administrative assistant was hired last fall. Teacher, Candy started part time in the spring. Fall programs have not changed

Staffing costs = $350.00 /day for 4 teachers. They do not get benefits.

Program costs=Holly Hannum reports the cost for one grade level = $7,200.00

Number of Cecil County students who benefit from program:

Average = 1,408 Cost = $5.11 per student

In addition, we presented the outreach program to approximately 1,000 kindergarten students. Private schools, preschools, and home schools numbered 926. Total number of students served this academic year – 7,830

GRANTS

2002 Budget = $15,075.00

Estimated Actual = $7,260.00
Difference = $7815.00

2003 Budget = 8,500.00

Staff have written the following grants:

• CAD – Arts Council – Funds 1/3 of K program
• Waterfowl Festival – Grade 5
• Cecil Soil Conservation – Grade 4
• Agilent – Program development for After School Program
• Cecil Partnerships – After School Progra
• PG and E Energy Conservation – Grade 6 (did not receive)

Current Grant Activity:
Worked with Holly, Janet, and Larry to submit a Learning Opportunity Grant in the amount of $8000.00 for:

New member programs
Booklets for self-guided nature walks
Website enhancement

Conclusions
Teacher salaries have increased. Program coordinator salary has decreased. Number of programs provided has increased.
We cannot rely on grant funding.
The current staff is outstanding and without them, there would be no nature center!!
There is a breakdown of communication and efforts, due to time and location constraints, especially with the newsletter and programs. It ultimately comes back to Nature Center staff.
At this time, the following duties are being performed by staff:

Grant writing – Holly, Janet
Contacting organizations – Pat
Follow-up calls and meetings – Pat
Thank you letters – Pat
Publicity – Janet
Reports to Board – Holly
Coordinating efforts with CCPS – Holly
Management of office, nature center,... - Holly
Membership services – Pat, Taffy, Barb S.
Volunteer Program – Taffy
Community Programs – Teachers, Barb S.

It is not possible for Nature Center staff to fulfill these duties:

Seeking appropriate funding sources
Accounting – financial budget
Fundraising
Public relations and marketing

Recommendations

• Work towards being able to hire an executive director, even if only on a part-time basis.
• Reward the staff for their dedication and hard work. Employee retention is an important issue.
• Allow Educational Director to have some paid leave time.
• Increase hours for other staff. Increase their responsibilities.
• Provide additional training opportunities for Administrative Assistant, so that she is able to complete all activities related to membership, newsletters,...
• Provide additional training for all staff.
• Give all staff members specific and clear duties to perform. Rewrite job descriptions until an executive director can be hired.
• Visit other Nature Centers/Develop partnerships for continuous improvement
• Increase use of volunteers, interns, and student teachers.
• Staff performance reviews would probably be helpful, but not necessary.

Discussion:
Earl Miller (CCPS) has volunteered to provide computer training for staff at the Nature Center, to make better use of the new technology we have acquired.

Holly reiterated that she has not previously had computer services available, so she has not ever learned the uses of a lot of the software.

Dan Sc. suggested that a report be made at the next meeting about what the staff wants in the way of training. Then we should use Earl Miller, CCC courses, or whatever other resources are available, to train the staff.

Special Appeal : Mario Gangemi
Mario has a letter that he will complete and send around for comment from the board. Barb has sent Mario a mailing list to use for the distribution of the letter.

Public Relations: Doug Hill
The Buzz for February is completed. Two more editions should be going out before Spring Fest. Doug would like some other, more specific, information about Spring Fest for the next edition. Please have this to him by March 10.

For the video-marketing project, Brown, Carroll, and Waterhouse need to give names of groups they will visit to Doug Hill, at the meeting or via e-mail.

Doug recorded several changes in which board members are visiting which organizations.

The video is at the FHNC. There are three copies. Once people use the video, please return it as soon as you can.

Dan Sc. suggested that people can just take a contribution, without a visit to a meeting, if an organization so wishes.

Dan Sp. noted that a copy of the video is available at our web site. People only need a high speed Internet connection to download it. The software to view it is downloadable at our site as well.

A suggestion was made that we keep gift memberships available for any time of the year, rather than just for Christmas.

The bottle sale is being pursued on Ebay. It appeared for three days with five inquiries, but no photos were available. It was suggested that we sell them for whatever we can get.

Membership: Bob Carroll
Bob broke down the membership by area.

Hinda suggested that the Membership Committee get together to discuss guest memberships, as well as what a new member receives, and how to coordinate the membership lists with Pat. Then we can pursue the computer training that is necessary to support her work.

Buildings and Grounds: Mario Gangemi
Jerry Newman reported that we are still getting some water in the basement.

President’s Report: Dan Schneckenburger
Dan has a letter from a fundraiser who lives in the Aberdeen area. She is offering her services to FHNEC. He will contact her.

There is a workshop which Dan a will attend ($185 per person) in Towson, on March 22. Others are welcome to attend.

Dan brought up the Fox Trot Ball. He has an offer from Conectiv ($1000) to be the main sponsor. Dan will meet with the original Fox Trot committee, to discuss a date and other arrangements. He will also look for other sponsors (Duffield Associates, American Home and Hardware).

Dan has been approached by two parties who want to hold weddings at the Nature Center. There is a lot of interest in using the Nature Center for various functions. We need to make a consistent fee schedule, liability arrangements, custodial arrangements, etc

.
Dan briefly mentioned the Strategic Plan and an Honorary Board. With the lateness of the hour, these were tabled for future discussion.

New Business:
Jerry Newman reported that he attended a program at Abbot’s Mill Nature Center, and will attend a program on invasive plant species and their effect on bird populations.

Jerry also reported on the value of using iGive.com to get donations from membership. Internet shopping brings a percentage of the purchases to FHNEC. He also discussed having a credit card option for memberships on our web site.

Jerry presented a request letter for asking organizations for donations to support camperships for the summer camps. Holly said that there have been some years that we have not given all of the money away. Holly will decide on an amount to offer as a partial scholarship. Rick will give her a copy of a scholarship application from another camp to use as a possible model.

Next Meeting: March 11 at 6:30 P.M.

The meeting was adjourned at 8:55 P.M.

Respectfully submitted,

Rick Waterhouse

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