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HomeMy WebLinkAboutFBMINUTES050207Friends of West University Place Parks Fund, Inc. Board Meeting Minutes May 2, 2007 Friends of West University Place Parks Board met on Wednesday, May 2nd, at 11:30 a.m. at the West University Place Recreation Center, 4210 Bellaire Blvd. The following were in attendance: Board Members Executive Director Others Joni Fichter Donna LaMond Vernon Tyger Vicki Grams Eva Ruth Moravec Judy Bouillion Sue Hanna Diana Brown Susan Sample Margaret Wallace Joni Fichter called the meeting to order at 11:40 a.m. President's Report - Joni Fichter ■ Congrats to Palmer Wilson on his Eagle Scout project and thanks to Tim O'Connor for helping him with this. Thanks to Thompson Hanson for their contributions, as well. We did send a small check ($100) to Palmer to help him with this. ■ Susan Sample, Donna and Joni took Vernon Tyger to lunch to discuss future fundraisers. Susan will talk about a community garage sale in her report. Vernon is willing to help us with a fun run if we decide to do it. ■ We received the Comcast check for $25K. A special thanks to councilman Dick Yehle for his help and support with this. ■ Joni met and visited with Bizet Siegel and thanked them for the $13K donation to Whitt Johnson Park. ■ Donna, Vicki, and Joni toured the ZaZa... Donna will go over that in her report. ■ We've had meetings regarding parks master plan, Colonial and Rec Center bond issues, etc. Lots of press and those running for council in attendance. ■ Meeting tonight about the above and Donna and Joni will go. Approval of the Minutes and Sign-In Sheet - Judy Bouillion A motion was made by Vicki Grams and seconded by Sue Hanna to approve the April 4, 2007 Minutes as sent. The motion carried. Executive Director's Report - Donna LaMond ■ Our efforts with Comcast Cable have literally paid off! Just yesterday Friends received a check for $25,000 from them. Donna sent out an email to the Friends Board and the Friends Advisory Board about this. Councilman Dick Yehle was extremely instrumental in securing this donation. Thank you, Dick! Per the letter Donna received from Comcast, they would like to publicly present a check sometime in mid June. We will be working with them to set up a date and time to do this and you will be notified as far in advance as possible. ■ Had a lunch meeting on April 23 with Joni Fichter, Susan Sample and Vernon Tyger, arranged by Susan. We were hopeful that Vernon might consider joining the Friends board, but at this time he feels that he is overcommitted and cannot. However, he did not say no about sometime in the future. We met with him to talk about his fundraising experience and learned that he does have a lot! He is willing to help Friends with a fundraising event such as a bike ride or fun run, or something along those lines. He has our board meeting on his calendar and should be here to address this a little more. We also talked to Susan about some ideas she has for fundraising and she will talk about that more in her report. • Judy Bouillion has gotten in touch with Katy Holt to get the scoop on how she did the membership newsletter, software she used, etc. Judy and Donna will meet to get the annual newsletter and membership campaign officially launched. ■ PLB 07 - Donna is continuing to work on collections of underwriter commitments and ball auction purchases. A second round of invoices in some cases have been mailed out. Payments are continuing to trickle in. Vicki returned some unsold auction items to Donna's office, along with some that were sold and just need to be paid for and picked up. She also came up to the office and reworked our display case at the community bldg. so that our new TRAPS award is nicely displayed and the other things in the cabinet were updated. Thank you, Vicki! • PLB 08 -The date is set for Saturday, Feb. 9, 2008. Two hotels are holding space for us at this time. The Houstonian has penciled us in and Hotel ZaZa has us scheduled as well. Both have sent us a contract that will need to be executed soon in order to finalize our agreement. Joni, Vicki and Donna had a meeting last week at the ZaZa with Kleibert Estrada. He gave us an extensive tour of the ZaZa facilities. The venue is promising to be gorgeous, and should be opening on June 1, 2007. Donna thinks the venue will be challenging as far as setting up our gala, with a big board and silent auction. We are awaiting word from the ZaZa as to whether or not they can make available to us two additional areas that would be needed in order to accommodate our group. It is certainly not the traditional layout that a hotel usually has to offer, but would be very different and fun. The search is on IN A BIG WAY for the next ball chair(s). Donna seriously needs your assistance in nominating someone to take this role on. Continuing to assist Danielle Kernell, Kelli Watson, and Sue Jensen (and other host committee members) with the Crawfish Boil, which was a PLB07 sociable. The date is Saturday, May 5 at the home of Kelli and Chris Watson, 3516 Tangley. Will get back on track with Sue Hanna to move/deposit Friends money at Bank of River Oaks with Andrew Lane. Donna will check in with Walter Thomas to be sure that Friends receives the funds (or credit for the funds) generated by interest on the money we wrote a check to the City for the Lewis match. Usually, we keep the restricted funds in our accounts so that we can collect on the interest. This was a special set of circumstances requested by the Lewis Family Charitable Foundation. Donna will contact the Lewis Foundation to see if they want the invoice now, or wait until year end which is how they had requested it be done in the past. Donna will attend a WU Park Planning Workshop tonight at City Hall at 6:30 along with other invited participants. • Generally regrouping and getting things filed in Donna's office and getting organized to be ready for PLB 08. Penny and Vicki Grams and Donna will be getting together prior to the end of the month to consolidate information. If anyone has any time they would like to volunteer and come in for a morning or afternoon and help with filing, etc., Donna would welcome your assistance! ■ On May 14th, at 6:30 pm Vicki and Penny Grams will be honored at the City Council meeting with the Star Service Award. Palmer Wilson will also be receiving an award. The Friends board is encouraged to attend to show their support. Board Reports Treasurer's Report - Sue Hanna Report Distributed. Discussed that the writing of checks must be timed since monies are designated for specific parks and uses. Various banks have been supportive and Friends would like to show appreciation by putting funds in some of these banks. Donna will call and find out when the Lewis Foundation matching check will be written. Park Lovers Ball - 2007 Vicki Grams Vicki is in the process of creating a detailed notebook or reference manual for the PLB. Parks & Rec Report - Tim O'Connor Tim was unable to attend the meeting, but did submit an updated report which is attached to the minutes. E-store - Diana Brown Received pavers, need to be installed. Admin Committee - Margaret Wallace No report. Newsletter/Membership - Judy Bouillion Spoke with former Friends board member, Katy Holt, regarding software for the newsletter. She recommends Pagemaker or Quirk. We will be looking at printers and graphic designers in the next couple of weeks. Discussed distributing the newsletter via email and the Friends website to save printing and mailing costs. Note: After the meeting Margaret Wallace, a Pagemaker master, volunteered to complete the newsletter with assistance from Donna and Judy. PR/Marketing and Development - Susan Sample ■ Fun Run - Vernon Tyger discussed cost of approximately $5K, which is usually can be covered by entry fees. Look for corporate sponsors to raise funds. Bayou City Roadrunners is a group which organizes races, cost is approximately $2,500. Vernon will discuss fun run with Donna LaMond and Tim O'Connor, check with police to see if it is feasible to host in West U. Garage Sales can be wildly successful! Susan will look into having a garage sale in the fall and possibly at the West U Rec Center facility, in the gym. We would like to use teenagers who need service hours to price, tag and sort. Susan will work on dates and areas for storage. She will coordinate with Donna. See if TRAPS has a fund since we are fresh on their minds as well as other donors - follow up on list. Would like to contact Bellaire Parks and find out who their contact person is at the Wortham Foundation which is donating a $250K match for Bellaire Parks. Wish UsUGiving Tree and Special Events and Projects - Maria Elena Herbst & Vicki Grams It was reported that Vicki did decorate the display cabinet at the community center. Business Partners - Lynne Goddard Joni reported that there is a non-profit online travel group. Donna will investigate and share with Lynne. Contracts, Nominations, and Bylaws Review of by-laws at some point needs to be addressed. Parks Guild - Leah Raigel No report, but Donna did report that Leah hoped to have the quild up and running in the fall of 2007. Old Business ■ Friends Park Ribbon Cutting in summer and Dedication in fall ■ Lewis check New Business ■ Be thinking toward the 25th anniversary of Friends and a gift to the community Next meeting, we often skip June and July and just let committees meet. The next meeting will be Wednesday, August 1 st at 11:30 a.m. at the West U Rec. Center. There being no further business the meeting was adjourned at 12:45. Respectfully submitted, Judy Bouillion