Attendees: Lucia Darr, Peggy Finn, Lenore Kepler, Lisa Willwerth and Kate Willwerth
Apologies: Janet Groth, Noeline Kohr, Kathy Ryan and Maureen Terrill,
The meeting was called to order at 7:00 p.m. The meeting was held at Kate’s home.
Action Leader in Bold.
Treasurer’s Report:
- Cash Balance $5747. Lisa distributed an updated treasurer’s report.
- Tax filings have been submitted. Lisa has not had confirmation from the IRS of receipt of filings.
- Raffle proceeds to date is $421. See further raffle discussion below.
- Cultural Council Grant was granted for $300 our June 2016 Program: The Art of Ikebana. This is the first time we have not received the entire amount requested (we requested $450). We still have to submit the reimbursement form and make sure we properly advertise this program per the Cultural Grant guidelines.
General Discussion:
- Massachusetts Master Gardener Association 2015-2016 Horticultural Grants: Lucia received notice of grants that range from $250 to $1000. The deadline is January 30th. For Garden Clubs: “We will look at The Garden Club Grant is offered to Massachusetts garden clubs to assist in support, maintenance or creation of a community gardening project. We are specifically looking for groups who would like to provide or enhance a community space that is open to the public and that connects people to plants.” We will consider this in future years. Link to application: http://massmastergardeners.org/mmga-2015-2016-horticultural-grants/
- Keys: Lisa will incorporate the master list of keys in the Treasurer’s records. This will ensure the record is passed to the next Treasurer.
Community Center Key | Storage Closet Key |
Lisa | |
Noeline | |
Lenore | Lenore |
Gayle | Gayle |
Kate | Kate |
Lucia | Lucia |
Peggy | Peggy |
Maureen | Maureen |
- Audio at the Community Center: Maureen met with Kim Kaner about a speaker headset. MCC has older but working amplification equipment. It a matter or figuring out the cable connection and then Maureen will purchase a compatible headset from Radio Shack ~ $52.
- NSCC Scholarship: Lenore has heard from Bruce Daniels of Private Bank & Trust Company and he will respond to her next week. He did say that due to the many requests for charitable donations, he is not sure if they could match our scholarship funds. Due to the increased raffle proceeds, we might be able to fund the entire $1000 scholarship without help. Timing for funding the scholarship is in April/May. We also discussed approaching other area businesses for matching funds.
- Membership requirements were discussed again at length. Lucia suggested a running checklist that would track the members’ contributions (i.e. raffle items, refreshments, community service help). We decided to revisit in the spring.
- Raffle was discussed. Overall, the club members have been very generous with the raffle collections. Some of that might be attributed to the fact that all proceeds are going to the NSCC Scholarship. Kate will update the raffle sign to make that more prominent. Also suggested that a sign showing how we are doing against our goal of $1000.
- Other discussions: Annual board appreciation dinner was scheduled for January 28th at Petrillo’s in Peabody for the nine primary board members. Lenore will make 7:00 pm reservations and the group will car pool. 73 pounds of food was collected at our Holiday party and donated to Beverly Bootstraps. We received a nice thank you note from them.
Program Discussions:
- February 9th Program: Pressed Flower Cards Workshop
- Social Media/Publicity – Publicity: Kate will send email reminder to club members who signed up. No need for signage or other publicity.
- Program confirmation: Beth will confirm program
- Hospitality: Gayle has sign-up sheet. Gayle or Noeline need to coordinate and send out reminders.
- Early arrival/set-up: Peggy, Kate and Gayle (?)
- Late arrival/clean-up: All
- Raffle Item: Lenore will purchase a raffle item.
Program Sub-Committee Report:
- Kathy will hold a sub-committee meeting in February to start program planning for the 2016/17 season.
- Kate has collected program ideas and will forward to sub-committee. See file: Program Ideas 2015 – 2016.
Community Service Sub-Committee Report:
- Window boxes: Lenore will continue to coordinate the window box effort at both the Community Center and Bootstraps. The goal is to have consistency of design and materials between them.
- Lenore will engage the sub-committee members to help in this effort (Avis, Janet, Sally, Joan and Ellen).
- Two of the Bootstraps window boxes are very shallow and in poor repair. We discussed replacement. Lisa will check to see if replacement is being planned at Bootstraps. Otherwise, Lucia suggested that some club members would be willing to donate new boxes.
- Lenore will plan for the next window box decoration effort in April.
- We will ask Maureen to create signs for both sites (“Planted by the Seaside Garden Club” or something similar).
- Collaboration with the MERHS Green Team: Lenore will contact MERHS Green Team, Eric Majors to see if we can “share” their green tips on our blog and Facebook.
Social Media Sub-Committee Report:
- Maureen met with Dot Sieradzki to transition the WordPress blog to her. Dot has been doing an excellent job posting program and club updates to the blog.
- We will also ask Dot to take on the Facebook postings as it is similar to posting to the blog.
- We would like Dot to lead the Social Media effort and join the board. Maureen or Kate will approach Dot.
- Kate will send out instructions to the club how to “follow” the blog so they get notified when new items are posted.
Next Board Meeting: Thursday, March 24th at 7:00 pm at Lucia’s home.
(Note – decided to skip a February meeting)
The meeting was adjourned at 9:00 p.m. Respectfully submitted, Kate Willwerth