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Attendees: Doug Hill, Jerry Newman, Bob Carroll, Dennis Carroll, Suzan Doordan, Holly Hannum, Stacey Schultz, Larry Klevans, Jim Campbell, Ralph Young, Nancy Simpers, Chuck Dolor, Barb Snyder

President Dennis Clower called the meeting to order at 6:30 p.m.

The board met at 6:00 to go over procedures for manning the booth at the Cecil County Fair with Karen Nusic, Volunteer Coordinator. Chuck Dolor volunteered to make game board for use at the fair.

Minutes: Suzan Doordan motioned to approve the minutes from our June meeting as e-mailed and distributed at this meeting. Ralph Young seconded and all approved.

Americorps Volunteer: Holly Hannum introduced Stacey Schultz, our Americorps volunteer. Stacey will be a junior at University of Delaware, majoring in Biology. She has been working with Holly helping with camp duties and has learned how to mow the lawn.

Finley Barn: Dennis Clower is working on lease to present to DNR, in order to go forward with renovations on Finley Barn. David Dodge looked at the structure and has discussed the proposed construction with an architect.

IMPORTANT - MEETING DATE CHANGE: The board of director's meeting has been changed to the 2nd Monday of each month and a fund-raising meeting will be held on the 4th Monday. Suzan moved that we accept the date changes and Ralph seconded. All approved.

SWAT Road Cleanup: July 28th was set as road clean-up date. Meet at Wesley's parking lot at 8:00 a.m.

Fundraising: Ralph Young explained that with the help of Holly and Barb, we submitted an RFP to U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Basic tenants were that we asked for funding of nature school ($80,000).

Need to develop a three-year plan for future grant requests. Barb Snyder will check availability of meeting space and dates to have a retreat in the fall. Get facilitator? Committee needs to meet to rough out goals for retreat. Will need to revisit Linda Walls reports, etc. prior to meeting

Ralph also pulled information from the Internet about Cecil County Organizations, which he gave to Pat Holleran to enter into our database. Nancy Simpers will prepare a letter for all these contacts regarding the nature center's desire to work with them in any capacity they can. Nancy will send letter to a list of all businesses in county for which she has labels available.

Suzan is preparing letter for "Donate Your Rebate" program being touted by Ellen Goodman in her national column suggested for recipients for 2000 tax rebate everyone will receive beginning in August. Pat will give label list of members. Stacey can copy, label and stuff envelopes.

Membership: Bob Carroll requested that board members follow routine set up last year for donations to the nature center. For grant requests, particularly, it is good to be able to say that the board of directors donated an "amount" with 100% participation. In order to reach a goal of $2000, each board member should (if able - it is not mandatory) donate $125 to the nature center. Bob motioned that we send above letter, and Jerry seconded. All approved.

Buildings and Grounds: Jerry Newman detailed a problem with the lock on the barn door because of Elk

Preservation Society needing to get in the barn to their storage facility. Discussed getting a combination lock instead of key lock, in order for all to be able to access.

Jerry discussed request letter for Dave Rudolph detailing our request to erect a "brown" nature center sign. The board decided that the letter should go directly to State Highway Administration, with copies to elected officials, i.e. Rudolph, Baker, Commissioners, etc. asking for a completion date of Sept 30th . Nancy motioned that the sign be requested in the above manner and Suzan seconded. All approved.

Jerry will start looking at how to get steps constructed to meadow. Board approved steps leading from center to meadow to be constructed to the right of the center near fence on Wayne's property. As a safety issue, it is necessary to have a set of steps with railing.

Mini-grant proposal: Barb read details of mini grant from Department of Children and Youth of Cecil County. Suggested we try for grant and "give" some time as a tithe rather than asking for fees in grant. Holly stated that they had written a grant request last year for "Mommy and Me" but it was not funded because of asking for salary. Holly stated grant request was upstairs from last year for Barb to submit.

Programs: Barb reported that Stargazing would have been well attended had our teacher not become ill on the evening of July 13th. Approximately 20 people arrived for the stargazing. Linda Tinsman did give a program on the 15th instead, four people attended.

Fish Walk is set for August 25th with Parke John.

County Fair is set for week of July 20th through 28th. Board members and four volunteers will attend to man the booth.

Budget: Larry Klevans detailed a tentative budget for 2002 for approval by board, detailed our actual and estimated for the remainder of 2001.

Budget for 2002 states that we should increase our budget from $102,827 to $135,900 to fund the salary of an executive director.

Estimated for remainder of 2001: $102,827, including 10,000 for salary for executive director.

Holly stated that Rick Lonie-CCPS, told her that the schools were shorted $4500 for transportation costs for the nature center. Also, the grant from Cecil County Arts Council was shorted by half due to heavy response, which means that Kindergarten Outreach is not fully funded, needs $4600 more.

Budget committee consists of Ralph, Barb, Holly, Larry.

Respectfully submitted,

Barb Snyder

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