Fair Hill Nature and Environmental Center
Minutes from the Board of Director's Meeting
February 22, 2006
Attendees:
Cline,
Karen (excused) xSchneckenburger,
Dan
xGangemi, Mario xLevia,
Dr. Del xSmith,
Hinda
Green,
Connie Milburn,
Ilene xSpeakman,
Dan
xHannum,
Holly Pannill,
Bill White,
Cindy (excused)
xJentzch,
Tracy xPerkins,
Lisa
Mario Gangemi called the meeting to order
at 6:35 P.M.
The January Board meeting was a Board
Member training retreat
There were no minutes from the
retreat. Tracy Jentzch had a
powerpoint presentation that was reviewed:
Action Items:
- Springfest
planning
- Need to
recruit new Board Members who meet the needs defined during the retreat.
- Need a Vice President (currently)
- Need to fill empty committee seats and chairs
- Need to recruit volunteers to fill committee seats.
- Need
Credit card processing abilities
- Need fifth
teacher immediately.
Nature School Report: Holly
Hannum
We will complete
outreach programs on February 28th. It has been going well. In addition to CCPS we are visiting Caravel Academy,
MacClary School, Keene Elementary and new this year,West Park Elementary in
Newark. Lions Club members from
Cecilton and Rising Sun attended presentations which they support.
I spoke at the January
25th meeting of the Cecilton Lions Club and will speak at a Rising
Sun meeting on April 5th.
I spoke by phone with Ford Hamilton of the Elkton Lions Club. They are adding us to their annual
budget as a permanent item. They
are a small club with a limited budget.
We will receive $100 this year.
I attended one day of a
professional training workshop at Ashland Nature Center in January. Tracy arranged for my attendance and
the payment of accompanying fees.
Thanks Tracy, it was very enlightening.
Amy, Janet, Karen and I
attended the MAEOE conference in Ocean City on February 3-5. Richard Louv delivered the keynote
address. We attended a variety of
workshops including one on earthworm ecology and one on physics phun. Karen picked up a lead on a possible
grant opportunity through NOAA. We
will take a closer look at that after we complete outreach programs.
A grant request to the
Waterfowl Festival at Easton was submitted on February 15th for
$8035. Last year we asked for
$7090 and received $4000.
On Saturday, February 11
I met with Eagle Scout candidate, Andrew Falkowski. I gave him a few ideas of projects that we might be
interested in having completed for the Center. I also made him aware that anything he proposes must be
cleared through the Park Office. I
asked for a kiosk to be built out front to contain program information, new
more permanent benches for the fire ring at the pavilion, and possibly some new
picnic tables. If you have other
suggestions I will pass them along.
He has a younger brother who will be interested in a project soon.
We are presently
developing a brochure for summer camp.
We will have 5 weeks of camp beginning on June 19th and
ending July 28t. We
will not have camp the week of July 4th. We are adding a new insect camp for ages 5-7 this year,we
have all new activities in Waterworks Camp, and will revive Hike and Build Camp
which we have not done for several years with new activities. We plan to extend the time for camp
by1/2 hour and increase the cost by $5 to $70 for members and $90 for
nonmembers. Costwise this balances
out. I attended a campfair on
February 16th at Immaculate Conception School and have a list of
interested families. We plan to
have the schedule finalized by March 1.
The school is still in
need of a 5th teacher.
This is going to be especially important since Lisa is leaving us in
March. We are working on this gap,
but are open to suggestions. I
will be interviewing someone who works part-time at White Clay Creek. I plan to contact some CCPS teachers
who may be interested in helping out with camp coverage.
On February 18th
we held a PresidentŐs Day Tea presented by Jerri Carpenter. It was well attended and brought in
$135 and one new family membership.
One couple came from Union NJ and plan to return for maplesugaring and
bluebirds on March 4. The taps are
collecting sap from the trees outside the Center and Jerry Newman has delivered
parts for boxmaking.
Our Spring Trail Day is
scheduled for March 18th from 9-12 with lunch provided.
Lisa and I met with amateur astronomer James Morgan on February 14th. He is hoping to have an astronomy campover for families on June 13-25. He has 8 to 10 families interested so far. It seems like a great opportunity to attract a new group of people to our Center. He will need 4 to 6 volunteers from us to help with the organization of the event which he hopes to make an ongoing event. I am unable to attend that weekend which was chosen according to the cycle of the moon. He is anxious to have a meeting with those volunteers ASAP. He offered to come to this meeting but I held him off because I know that you want to concentrate on committee structure. He could come next month if you are interested.
Program Committee:
We have the following programs on our
calendar for :
- Card exchange at the FHNC for the CC Chamber of
Commerce
Treasurer's Report/Finance Committee:
Bill Pannill
á
No report. Bill was not in attendance
Personnel Committee: Hinda Smith
Community Relations: Lisa Perkins (for Ron) (Habitat Editor)
- Need articles for Habitat. Strongly suggests
Next Meeting: March 22, 2006 at 6:30 P.M., at the Nature Center.
The meeting was adjourned at P.M.
Respectfully submitted by Daniel Speakman
