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HomeMy WebLinkAboutFBMINUTES120104Friends of West University Place Parks Fund, Inc. Board Meeting Minutes December 1, 2004 Friends of West University Place Parks Board met on Wednesday, December 1, 2004, 11:30 a.m., at the Recreation Center. The following were in attendance: Board Members 1. Joni Fichter 2. Cece McCann 3. Lynne Goddard 4. Leah Ragiel 5. Cindy Hassler 6. David Klutts 7. Vicki Grams 8. Margaret Wallace 9. Stacey Speier Executive Director & West Universit Parks Staff 1. Donna LaMond 2. Tim O'Connor Chairman's Report - Joni Fichter The December meeting was called to order at 11:30 a.m. by Chair Joni Fichter. A report was given and the following items covered: A motion was made by Margaret Wallace and seconded by Vicki Grams to approve the minutes as sent to all for the November 3 meeting. The motion carried. A thanks was given to everyone for their hard work on PLB. Donna LaMond will cover the PLB details in her report. There's more work to be done on the PLB. The invitation is ready. Tim O'Connor and Joni had a meeting with John Lucas and are hopeful that he will arrange autographed sport-related items for the auction plus some funding. Jim Reid at JMH is donating one half of whatever is collected from the sale of coffee in the community tip jar to Friends through the end of the year. Thanks to David Klutts for making the sign for JMH. There is a plan to get something in the paper about the JMH support. JMH also will sell tickets to the Museum of Fine Arts Christmas show and give 100% of proceeds to Friends. Executive Director Report - Donna LaMond Regarding the out-of-service WUP street signs, Friends received a check in the amount of $305 (61 signs) from West University Elementary. Out of this amount, Friends will have to reimburse the City $2 per sign. Some membership dues 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 still a backlog of acknowledgement letters that need to be generated and mailed out. Working with Cheryl Butler and Claudia to process some paver orders. Working with a past paver purchaser (Edie Vaughan) to get an issue resolved and a new paver ordered. Park Lovers' Ball Underwriting commitments are coming in. To date, we have $74,000 plus probably another $10,000 in in-kind donations. Cindy Hassler has been very helpful in organizing the underwriter follow up contacts. Thanks to those of you who have been making phone calls, etc., it has paid off! We will continue to send out more underwriter letters as prospects are introduced. We also need to make follow-up calls to the West U vendor list provided by Tim. It was suggested that David Klutts handle this. Auction items are coming in to Donna's office and to Stacey Speier's office. Margaret Wallace is keeping up with the input of the auction items into Auction Tracker and Lynne Goddard is keeping a tab on making sure that everything is running smoothly. We have a received number of hotel rooms for Europe. Ginger Brown is working on securing a dog for the ball for the live auction. Deadline for auction items for the program is December 15. Objective is to mail-out thank you letters to underwriters to-date by year end. Donna will handle this. Vicki Grams and Maria Elena Herbst are working with the hotel to be sure decoration planning is done. This includes the decoration of the silent and live auction areas and the ball room. They also are working on auction sociables along with a committee they have put together. A number of sociables are in the works, but they are still looking for participants. Donna plans to get with Linda Lewis to let her draw a name at the Christmas Tree lighting on December 6, 6:30 p.m. at City Hall. The lucky winner of the drawing will get a room at the InterContinental Houston Hotel the evening of the ball. Cece has been working with Renelle Cadena at Trademarks on the invitations for the ball. The plan is for the invitations to go out in the mail mid-week next week or sooner. The appearance is like an architectural plan, over-sized, and is designed to catch the eye of both a business or individual person. Underwriter packages need to go out by mid-December. Working to get the stuffer about the ball included in the water bill mailing which is usually inserted each year around this time. It is going to be hard for someone not to know about PLB. Will get PLB banner placed over University Blvd., hoping to hang it twice and to be sure it is up during marathon. Three more smaller banners will be hung in high visibility areas at WU Parks. Will get information in the West University Elementary School Pony Express Newsletter and will send a flyer home in the students' Monday folders promoting the ball. Working on updating Website for PLB05, a high priority. Donna needs to get software for her computer so that she can work on it from the office. Currently, she can only work on it at home. FrontPage is the software needed along with Storefront which is the purchasing arm of the website where people can pay via credit card online. Cece made the motion to spend $200 to buy the needed software program for the Web site, Margaret seconded. The motion passed. Additional Items Working with Lynne Goddard on BuyForCharity.com as a new Friends Community Partner and to revitalize our existing partners and explore new ones. Friends annual newsletter. Working with new Membership/Newsletter Chair, Katy Holt, to get this project underway. This was slated to go out in October, however due to the circumstances with the Ball, we will get it out after the Ball. Donna has asked Shannon Gardner, former Board member who did the newsletter, to help us on this first one completed. Working to schedule a date and time to get a photo of Gayle Jackson, Ross Frazer, and Beverly Loftis by "their trees" at Colonial Park for press release. Assisting with Foundation goals. Will be scheduling a meeting with committee chair and other members to move forward on establishing goals and the implementation of these goals. Treasurer's Report - Sue Hanna The report is attached. Board Reports E-store - Claudia Holmes No report Admin/PR Committee - Katherine Kardesch and Margaret Wallace No report Development Committee - Charlie Henke-Chair, Jeannette Baughman, Stacey Speier No report _Membership & Marketing - Katv Holt Newsletter - Shannon Gardner will help her get started. Probably won't happen until after the ball. Special Events & Proiects Thermometer showing dollars donated and matched has been received and is on display at the Rec Center and City Hall. A big thanks to David Klutts and Freeman Company for the thermometer signs. Wish List/Givinq Tree - Vicki Grams & Maria Elena Herbst Recycled benches will be donated through David Birney, Solvay America, Inc. and Steve Ragiel at Waste Management. Business Partners - Lynne Goddard 0 No report Contracts. Nominations, and Bylaws a No Report Parks & Advisory Liaison - Cece McCann Cece made sure that the Advisory Board was copied on the PLB information and underwriter information. Donna also has been keeping them updated on PLB activities and asking for their input. Joni thought it would be a good idea to send them an email every week or so, so they are updated on the fundraising activity. Parks & Rec Report - Tim O'Connor Christmas lighting will be on Monday, December 6. Several people have been nominated for the Master Plan Task Force and will be presented to City Council for nomination. Rice Pocket Park - Task force meeting weekly, gng into third meing it's going very well. Will go to statement of qualifi ation from land cape and architects. ARK Park - Stacey Speier will have a final recommendation to City Council by end of month. New Business Friends is out of ornaments - the Friends brochure says you get one at certain contributing levels. Joni will order 100, perhaps a little different and not as heavy as the past ornaments. Next Friends Board meeting will be on January 5 at 11:30 a.m. at the Rec Center. Friends would like to plan a welcome event for City Manager, Michael Ross, and family (new child). Joni will ask Michael when they would be available to participate. Everyone could contribute punch and cookies. After PLB05, left-over Out-of-Service WUP signs will be offered to West U Little League to sell at its auction in April. They will reimburse Friends $5 ($3 to Friends and $2 to the city for salvage value). Adiournment David Klutts made the motion to adjourn the Friends meeting and Stacey Speier seconded the motion. The motion passed.