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HomeMy WebLinkAboutFBMINUTES010505Friends of West University Place Parks Fund, Inc. Board Meeting Minutes January 5, 2005 Friends of West University Place Parks Board met on Wednesday, January 5, 2005, 11:30 a.m., at the Recreation Center. The following were in attendance: Board Members 1. Joni Fichter 2. J.B. Baughman 3. Cece McCann 4. Lynne Goddard 5. Leah Ragiel 6. Cindy Hassler 7. Vicki Grams 8. Margaret Wallace 9. Stacey Speier 10. Sue Hanna 11. Katy Holt City Council Member 1. Mike Woods Executive Director 1. Donna LaMond Visitors 1. George Rosenblatt 2. Marc LaMond Advisory Board Members 1. Gayle Jackson 2. David Crow Chairman's Report - Joni Fichter The January 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 Stacey Speier and seconded by Vicki Grams to approve the minutes as sent to all for the December 3 meeting. The motion carried. Joni welcomed everyone back and offered all a happy 2005. Note pads were given to board members as a thank-you for all their hard work. Joni reported that more stationary exists if anyone needs it, and is available in Donna LaMond's office. Joni thanked everyone who attended the West U Tree lighting. It was a nice event. b A welcome was given to Diana Brown who was approved by council as a member of Friends. Sue Hanna made the motion to approve Diana as a new member of the Board and Vicki Grams seconded. Donna will provide Diana with a notebook covering details about the Board. A thanks was given to everyone for their hard work on PLB 05. There are still some loose ends to tie up and decorating to do. Joni reminded everyone that they need to be at the Hotel Intercontinental on January 21 to decorate, work shifts that evening, and help clean-up that night. Donna, David and Auction group will have sign-up sheets. JMH has come through with several donations, so Joni asked that the Board thank them the next time they are in the store: - '/2 of community tip jar to Friends and WUE - each receiving $1000. A photo was taken and a press release completed on Wednesday morning. The amount will go toward the Rec Center and will be doubled by the Lewis'. $502 from selling tickets that were donated through the Examiner to the Christmas Imax. This was already covered by the papers. Again, will be doubled by Lewis'. 36 bottles of wine for the lead hosts at $2500+ tables, for $1000 underwriter, and as needed, and as needed. Donna, Tim, and Joni met with Linda Lewis to work on details of how their donation will be used. Part of this will depend on the Parks Master Plan and Parks Task Force. Tim will make them aware of these discussions. David, Tim, Michael Ross, Donna and Joni will meet to work on getting funding from Steve Raddick's office for the area between the library and community center on January 28. There was an article in The Examiner that stated the Master Plan Committee will determine how park funds will be spent - we've asked for a correction that states that the Master Plan Committee will make recommendations, not determine how the funds will be spent. Executive Director Report - Donna LaMond Park Lovers Ball 05 - Donna and David Klutts So far, the Ball has raised $87,510 and $37,010 has been received. Participants can pay anyway they want, but we are encouraging everyone to pay by check as credit cards require fees. Gayle Jackson is helping Donna with the all the paperwork by sorting alphabetically and following up with phone calls if needed. The water bill insert went out and Friends has been receiving some funds from that effort. Lynne has volunteered to get flyers about the PLB sent home in the next Monday folders at West U Elementary. West U Methodist Minister did the prayer last year. He has a wedding this year, but can make it to the Ball around 8 p.m. Riva Vanas - H. Alger will donate a % of proceeds of all sales in January to Parks if you tell her you are there because of West U parks. Day before the Ball, we have a room at the hotel where we can take all the auction items, decorations, etc. It will be under lock and key. David will coordinate. On Friday, Board members are all asked to come up to the hotel and help with setting up the tables, displays, packets, etc. Auction Tracker will be handling our pre-scanning of credit cards. We will not hire a professional auctioneer this year. Instead, Danny Jackson will serve as the auctioneer as he knows so many in the audience with assistance from John Cadena. Live auction items include a dog - Katy Holt volunteered to pay and pick- up a dog carrier for the lab. There will only be about three or four live auction items this year: 1. Will ask Continental to donate tickets to Paris or Boston. 2. We have a trip to Paris, a trip to Maine that has been donated by the Lewis', lot's of travel/hotel packages, two dozen autographed pieces of things - scripts, photos, etc. 3. Low on dinners and local retailers - Board asked to call all their contacts and help with this effort. 4. Stacey made a suggestion that we sell raffle tickets for some of the hotel trips - it was decided to raffle the Ireland, Switzerland, and Greece trips for $50 a ticket. 5. Leah and Donna looked at Berings for Underwriter gifts - they've donated $2500 for the gifts. Gifts have been found for those couples who bought and are sitting at the tables for $2500 and $5000. Ten bottles of wine will be given at the $1,000 level to the couples who donated this amount. Treasurer's Report - Sue Hanna 0 The report is attached. Balance is $208,000 in the bank. Collected $17,000 for PLB, but have many more checks to deposit. Board Reports E-store - Claudia Holmes ornaments - Joni ordered 100 trees from Willow River Farms Admin/PR Committee - Katherine Kardesch and Margaret Wallace No report Development Committee - Charlie Henke-Chair, Jeannette Baughman, Stacey Speyer Committee is helping with PLB underwriting. Developing a Matching List. Will be working on a Lisa Grotten Boren memorial to family (work with Linda Lewis and Joni). Will be contacting CenterPointe's Kenny Mercado per Michael Ross. Will work on establishing major neighborhood donors - identify, contact, kick- off some type of estate planning/early giving campaign. NFL Grant, Savvy Award thru Foleys, Chase Award, etc. Membership & Marketing - Katy Holt Will be getting a photo of the Lewis' with the thermometer for publicity efforts. Upcoming Newsletter - will cover Matching at Rec; matching business list; PLB information, etc. V Will be working on Membership packets. Would like 100 percent board participation. Plan to get membership information out via postcards, the mail, water bill, city currents, press, marquee, banner, etc. Wish List/Giving Tree - Vicki Grams & Maria Elena Herbst No Report - Business Partners - Lynne Goddard Will continue to work on special business partner deals: Grocery Share cards local retailers (Chick Fil A, Katz, CFA) Gexa buyforcharity.com Mission Fish.com JMH Contracts, Nominations, and Bylaws Q No Report Parks & Advisory Liaison - Cece McCann Cece reported that is pleased that the Board is sharing the meeting agendas with the Advisory Board. v4 Tim O'Connor is having the low spots filled in at Colonial and Whitt Johnson parks. Council Report - Mike Woods Mike reported that he has been looking into wireless access in the West U parks - and eventually perhaps provide wireless city wide - do it like you do at your house. He felt that the wireless would be fairly inexpensive. Would like to see a demonstration set-up in the parks soon. If the city were to provide wireless in the parks as a start, people could sit at the parks with their kids and check their email or surf the internet. Mike also suggested that Friends could get someone or companies to sponsor the wireless service. These companies would pay for the service in exchange for advertising that they are a sponsor of the wireless service. The money collected from the companies would go to the Parks fund. Mike estimated that the wireless would cost possibly less than $1,000. The suggestion would be to work with probably Time Warner cable to get the wireless installed. il Marc LaMond was asked by Joni to sit-in on the Board meeting since he is considered Friends Web king. He stated that he is working with West U Little League to install Wireless Web cam at the fields. It will be on a telephone pole. This will allow parents to check on their kids at the park from their computer. There was discussion and agreement that we would need to be careful about wide open access to the internet for our children and would need to look into a way to control this so that our children wouldn't be able to access everything on the Internet. It also was agreed that the wireless access would draw people to the parks and is a great sponsorship tool. Leah Ragiel felt that we would need to communicate to the neighborhood that we would be getting some real money out of it for the parks - from the sponsorship opportunities. The Board thought it was worth further investigation. Stacey offered to work with Mike on additional research and get back with the board on how it could be done and a cost. Marc also thought the City/Friends might be able to work with Time Warner about including a 911 system in the parks as well - similar to what is done on college campuses. Parks & Rep Report - Tim O'Connor Pocket Park - Task force meeting weekly. ARF Park - No report from Stacey Speier at this time. Park Master Plan Task Force - Cindy Hassler is the Friends rep. There has been no meeting at this point to report. Old Business John Lucas has offered to do some things for the PLB. Tim will work with him on that. Party for Michael Ross and family to be held sometime in Feb/Mar New Business Next meeting will be held on February 2 at 11:30 a.m. at the Rec Center Adiournment Cece McCann made the motion to adjourn the Friends meeting and Lynne Goddard seconded the motion. The motion passed.