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HomeMy WebLinkAboutFBMINUTES100404Friends of West University Place Parks Fund, Inc. Board Meeting Minutes October 4, 2004 Friends of West University Place Parks Board met on Wednesday, October 4, 2004, at 6:15 p.m. at Cece McCann's house. The following were in attendance: Board Members 1. Joni Fichter 2. Vicki Grams 3. Maria Elena Herbst 4. Cece McCann 5. Lynne Goddard 6. Stacey Speier 7. David Klutts 8. Katherine Kardesch 9. Claudia Holmes 10. Jeanette "JB" Baughman 11. Katy Holt 12. Leah Ragiel 13. Margaret Wallace 14. Cindy Hassler Advistory Board Members 1. Beverly Loftis 2. David Crow 3. Gayle Jackson 4. Renelle Cadena 5. Ann Graves Executive Director & Staff Donna LaMond Chairman's Report -Joni Fichter The October meeting was called to order at 6:15 p.m. by Chair Joni Fichter. A report was given and the following items covered: Call to Order A motion was made by Lynne Goddard and seconded by Leah Ragiel to approve the minutes as sent to all for the Sept. 1 meeting. The motion carried. Thanks to Cece and Mike McCann for hosting the Friends Board meeting. a Welcome to Friends new board members Jeannette Baughman, Katy Holt, Margaret Wallace, and Claudia Holmes. Welcome to advisory board members - Renelle Cadena, Ann Graves, David, Gayle Jackson, Beverly Loftis. Motion made to nominate to the advisory board by Cece McCann, David Klutts seconded. Approved. Rotary - After the last Board meeting, Nick Aschliman from Rotary called Joni to ask the Board to make a presentation on the pocket park as Friends were one of the five finalists for the Rotary anniversary gift. Donna, Tim, Michael and Joni put together a presentation and presented it along with WUE, Stella Link Redevelopment, South Campus Redevelopment, and WULL. WULL was selected to receive the $ and while it would have been nice to have Friends selected, the selection of WULL will benefit all in the community. It was requested that the Board thank those in Rotary for their consideration. It was noted that there might be a possibility of interest on WU parks from Rotary in the future. An article in The Examiner that said that Friends had turned down $ from Rotary was incorrect. The paper was called and they formally apologized for this misrepresentation. Joni acid Donna attended [he Council meeting on 9/27 and presented the $25K start-up funds to get pocket park plans in place and started. A Task f=orce will be named to work on the Pocket Park The Lewis' have agreed to be Honorary Chairs for PLB 05. Sell of old WUP street signs - West U Elementary had an idea to sell old street signs from West University that have been replaced with new signs. There are more than 550 of these signs. Since it was the school's idea, a motion was made by Margaret Wallace to allow West U Elementary to sell the signs at the West U Elementary school auction, keeping all the proceeds with the exception of $5 per sign, $2 of which will be paid to the City for salvage value, and $3 will be given to Friends. All signs that do not sell at the school auction will then be given to Friends to sell at PLB 05. All proceeds from the signs sold at the PLB will go to Friends, with the exception of the $2 per sign which will go to the City. Stacey Speier seconded the motion. The motion carried. Executive Director Report - Donna LaMond The West U Festival of New Homes Tour will occur on October 23 & 24 and October 30 & 31. Friends will be selling tickets to the tour at the Community Bldg., 6104 Auden. Some volunteers in the Seniors Group will be helping sell the tickets for Friends. The tickets are $5 for all 8 homes. 100% of the proceeds are designated for Friends and since Friends can designate the funds for the Rec. Center, this will double the proceeds. There are 4,000 tickets to sell. Assistance will be needed with early sales of the tickets and selling tickets at the homes on the tour. A packet including 10 tickets was handed out to each Friends and Advisory Board member to sell to friends and neighbors. The money would need to be turned into Donna at the Community Building. News of the home tours will be posted on the marquee at the Community Building and at the Rec. Center, and banners hung at three WU parks. The homebuilders will be putting information in the papers and press releases will be sent out. Claudia Holmes will be helping Donna with this project as the point person for the scheduling of who works when and at which house. A schedule was provided for volunteer sign-up. Donna represented Friends at the September 13 City Council meeting where she requested the appointment of new board members as recommended by the Friends Board. Council approved four new board members: Katy Holt, Margaret Wallace, JB Baughman, and Claudia Holmes. A few openings on the board still need to be filled. Board members were asked to spread the word out to those that may be interested. Press releases to this effect will also go out. Memberships continue to come in and donation responses to the Lewis Challenge letter that went out in the last City Currents are still trickling in as well. There is a backlog of acknowledgement letters that need to be generated and mailed out. Katherine Kardesch will be helping Friends with this project as her schedule permits. Mayor Ballanfant suggested that Friends consider posting a chart of our progress on the Lewis Challenge in the form of a gauge drawn on a big board and placed outside City Hall and at the Rec Center as well. Whitney will look into this as the Special Events and Projects Chair. M, Working with Cece to further establish the role of the advisory board. The first annual joint meeting with the advisory board was held tonight to get their ideas and added support. Note that current advisory board member terms were up in August. It is hoped that will all renew their terms. PLB 05 A fact sheet/overview on the ball was included in each of the packets passed out to Board members tonight. This will be part of the underwriting package. Auction donor forms were also included in the packets so if an opportunity presents itself to retain auction items, Board members will be prepared. All Board members were asked to help with solicitation of underwriters and auction items. A kick-off meeting for the PLB committee will be held on Wednesday, October 13, 10:00 - 11:30 a.m. at the home of Vicki Grams, 4119 Riley. This meeting will be to create community awareness and build excitement about PLB 2005. Friends also will be recruiting people to help with specific areas of the ball, and plans to offer early sign-up incentives again. There will be a drawing for some good prizes, including a stay at the InterContinental Houston Hotel the evening of the ball. Auction: There has been discussion of scaling back on the quantity of items for this ball and instead focus more on quality. A professional fundraising organization has been retained to help us solicit auction items, Silent Partners, based in California. They have a system (database) in place. Friends provide them with letters and auction donor forms, and they mail everything out, including to the Friends' own auction donor prospect list. Silent Partners guarantees that Friends will make back at least what is paid for their services. The fee is $6,000. Friends agreed at the last board meeting to give this company a try for the 2005 PLB. Friends will still need to make follow-up phone calls and pick-up any local auction items. Stacey Speier will receive the auction items at his office, Farmers Insurance located on University Blvd. Friends is negotiating with Storage USA for free storage of the auction items again this year. Storage USA is close to full capacity this year, but Donna plans to stop by their office this week and hopefully make it more difficult to say no. Plan B will be storage at the Rec Center. Margaret Wallace, Lynne Goddard and Karin Dubose met with Donna to go over the auction. Margaret will be responsible for inputting auction information into Auction Tracker. Katherine and Claudia will help Margaret with the paperwork and the program. Venue: The contract with InterContinental Houston Hotel was executed for PLB 05, which will take place on Friday, January 21, 2005. The deposit has been paid. David Klutts, Donna LaMond, Vicki Grams, and Maria Elena Herbst met at the hotel a few weeks ago and worked on planning for the event. Menus were selected and wine options discussed for the evening. The layout of the silent and live auction displays were evaluated as well as the decorations for the ballroom. Although the hotel will be responsible, along with David, for the ballroom decorations, Maria Elena and Vicki will be the Decorations Chairs for the overall event, which will include the areas outside the ballroom. Friends will be able to get into the hotel and store auction items, decorations, etc., on January 20, and then will begin set up promptly at 8:00 a.m. on Friday, January 21. Invitations: Cece has offered to be in charge of the PLB 05 invitation design. Renelle Cadena's company, Trademarks, has agreed to comp the design. Friends is still looking for an underwriter to cover the cost of printing and mailing the invites along with some other in-kind underwriting. David is working on this. Leah Ragiel and Donna are working to review the underwriting prospect mailing list. A draft underwriting letter has been prepared and will be ready to print once the prospects lists (addresses) are ready to merge with the letter. A former Friends board member, Cheryl Butler, will be assisting Donna with this project. Donna has asked Linda and Phil Lewis to work with her on preparation of a special mailing list for their friends. Linda is spending the majority of her time in Maine between now and Nov. 10 and will provide whatever she can via email. Friends will need to designate someone to specifically follow-up after the ball with the underwriters. This person would make sure that the underwriters get the benefits promised to them, and also would be instrumental in getting the underwriter acknowledgement/thank you letters out as well. If any Board member is interested, or know of someone who would be interested, please let Donna know. M Band: David Klutts has secured a band for the ball. A contract has been signed with Commercial Art. David will be the band liaison. Treasurer's Report - Sue Hanna The report is attached. Board Reports E-store Claudia will be taking this over. No report this meeting. Admin/PR Committee - Katherine Kardesch/Mar aret Wallace No report this meeting. Development Committee Chair - Charlie Henke Chair, Stacey Speier Meeting soon to go through list of underwriters, sponsors, and other big groups Membership & Marketing - Katy Holt Katy will be taking this area over. Donna will be working with Katy to get this project underway. The newsletter typically goes out in October. Shannon Gardner, a former Board member who did the newsletter, has been asked to help Friends/Katy get this first one out. Special Events & Proiects - Whitnev Walsh 61 Not Present Looking into finding a thermometer(s)/gauge that will indicate the amount of funds Friends has raised to date through the Lewis Family Charitable Foundation. Wish List/Giving Tree - Vicki Grams and Maria Elena Herbst Waiting to get with Tim on what's available at all of the parks so they can create wish lists. Business Partners - Lynne Goddard Approaching JMH about being a potential business partner. Will ask JMH to sell the home tour tickets as well. Block Captain Liaison - Lynne Goddard I-I No report Contracts, Nominations and Bylaws Committee K< Need a person to take on chairing this committee Parks & Advisory Liaison Chair - Cece McCann k No report Cece asked Joni to give an update on all the parks for purposes of the new Advisory Board and Friends members. Update was given by Joni and David. Parks & Rec Report - Tim O'Connor Not present No report Park and Rec Board Report - David Klutts Reported that the City was looking into possibility of buying some new properties in West U for parks space. Looking at a situation where the Park and Rec Board would not work quite so closely with the City. Instead they would look at forming more Tasks Force teams which are not obligated to the same governmental guidelines. The Parks and Rec Board would then possibility not meet on a monthly basis if they don't have agenda items in which they need to cover. Other Business Joni reported that Tim O'Connor asked the Friends, on behalf of the city, we would fund a master plan for the Rec Center with interaction of Colonial Park. The amount would be approximately $40-50K. Joni asked the Friends would like to do something along these lines. Leah Ragiel commented that it was irresponsible for Friends to fund a paper plan for the Rec Center because it is expected by the community that the money raised for Friends is to be used on actual equipment and/or projects for the parks. Motion made by Stacey Speier and seconded by David Klutts for Friends to fund $100,000 ($50,000 from Friends and $50,000 from the Lewis' matching fund) after the City has paid for a Rec Center master plan to be developed and then approved. Motion passed. Stacey is head of the Dog Park Task Force. Plans are to turn a potential plan into the City by November 15. Next meeting will be on November 3 at 11:30 a.m. at the Rec Center. Board was asked to bring own lunches (brown bag it, no lunch will be provided. Friends will provide something to drink). Adjournment Stacey Speier made the motion to adjourn and Cece McCann seconded the motion. Motion carried and the meeting was adjourned at 8:00 p.m. if if