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HomeMy WebLinkAboutFBMINUTES050609Friends of West University Place Parks Fund, Inc. Board Meeting Minutes Wednesday, May 6, 2009 Friends of West University Place Parks Board met on Wednesday, May 6, 2009, at West University Place City Hall, 3800 University, in the Chambers. The following were in attendance: Board Members Executive Director Guests Joni Fichter Donna LaMond Anne Freeman Judy Bouillion Courtney Archer Sue Hanna Beth Lane City Councilman Robin McGowan Chuck Guffey Chair's Welcome - Joni Fichter • Joni Fichter called the meeting to order at 11:40 am. • Thanks to Debora and her husband for hosting the super fun Friends cocktail party!! • Thanks to Sue, Stephanie and all of you who volunteered at and or cleaned out your closets and garage then donated items to our second annual WU Garage Sale! Thanks to Susan and her husband for taking all the leftover items to others who could use them. Nasty weather but it was a great success! • Congrats to Susie and Nick on their Star Award. We attended council and cheered them on! • Donna and I met with Elizabeth to get a PR plan in place and are appreciative that Susan Sample has said she will help Elizabeth. • Thanks thus far for the great press this year! Donna is putting a calendar together. • Daily, we are getting notes at myparks.org and that is helpful to council and the parks board. Continue to encourage friends to make comments. • Get out and vote on May 91h if you have not early voted! Be conscientious of those who are pro- parks! • City Council approved our funding plan for Huff ington so that is underway. Approval of the Minutes and Sign-In Sheet - Judy Bouillion A motion was made by Beth Lane and seconded by Robin McGowan to approve the April minutes as sent. The motion carried. Parks and Recreation Report - Tim O'Connor No report Executive Director's Report - Donna LaMond • Park Lovers' Ball 2009 - Working on closing out the books. Had some issues with expired certificates and replacement certificates from the auction, but most of these issues have been resolved. Mission Impossible took place recently and I heard it was a big success. This was a sociable from the ball. Cinco de Mama sociable was held last night at Adrienne Vanderbloemen's home which was also a sociable from PLB. Next we will have Spooky Party coming up in October. We need help spreading the word about this party which will be the fourth annual Spooky party to be held! • Park Lovers' Ball 2010 - The chairs continue to investigate venues, bands, and dates for PLB2010. My understanding is that Mardi Gras will be in full swing if we do Feb. 13 and it is also a three day weekend for many schools. So, unless any of you can come up with a good reason why NOT to do Feb. 20, we will go with that date. 1 will leave the rest of any reporting on the ball to the chairs. • Friends Garage Sale was a huge success on April 18th in spite of inclement weather. Congratulations to Sue and Gary Hanna and to Stephanie Roman for putting it all together. Lots of other folks volunteered their time to help with set up and to help at the sale. Thanks to ALL! It was a great event and raised $6000 for our parks! • Friends Cocktail Party, April 30th. Thanks to Debora Connelly Piccolo for planning and hosting the cocktail party for Friends and spouses in her home. Thanks also to her husband, Frank, for his assistance and endurance. The party was held in an effort to provide an opportunity for everyone to get to know each other better. • Pack 266 Cub Scout meeting - The den leader for this group of 8 year old boys asked me to come speak at their den meeting and talk to the boys (and their parents) about our community and our parks on April 21. They asked me to address the new West U Fitness Center and the plans for Colonial Park. I asked Janine Schueppert to accompany me to the meeting and she brought along some big renderings and drawings which the boys were fascinated by. • Trees at Colonial Park - A $400 donation was made recently by Nancy Heagney for a tree or trees to be planted at Colonial Park in memory of Jurgen Sager, a friend who passed away. From what I understand, the wife of the deceased, Mrs. Judy Sager and her two sons reside on Marquette in West U. Eagle Scout candidate, Andrew Martin, from Troop 55, incorporated the planting of these trees in his Eagle project recently. I have notified Mrs. Heagney that the trees have been planted and that we are ordering a tree dedication marker. • Club 2012 - A hefty donation is being made to Friends of West U Parks by Club 2012 in the amount of $3406.70. They are getting a paver installed at Friends Park, and the remaining funds are purchasing a new drinking water fountain at Huffington Park. A dedication plaque will be installed on the fountain. We are working on arrangements for a picture for a check presentation and press releases. • West U Arbor Day took place on April 4 at Colonial Park - Thanks to Beth Lane for taking care of the Friends booth and selling blankets and providing information about Friends. • Susie Garofolo and Nick Ro were presented with Star Citizen Awards at the City Council meeting on April 13 for chairing the 2009 Park Lovers' Ball and raising so much money for the parks. • Met with Courtney Archer, Anne Freeman, Susan White, and Leigh Ylanan on April 22 to start planning the next Father & Flashlights event. They will provide more information in their report. • Thanks to Leah for organizing the Friends Guild coffee on April 22 at the lovely home of Amanda Dearborn. This is the last coffee for this school year. Tim O'Connor and Janine Schueppert were on hand to provide information about the design of Colonial Park pool. • Met with Joni Fichter and Elizabeth Karkowsky on April 29 to discuss plans for Friends PR and establish priorities. Elizabeth suggested that she would like to have someone else help her with PR and Susan Sample has stepped up to the challenge and agreed to help Elizabeth with Friends PR. • Joni Fichter, Sue Hanna and I had lunch with Patricia Snyder of Amegy Bank on April 23. Patricia is interested in providing banking services for Friends. She was able to get Amegy to donate $500 to the 2009 ball. • Working on 2008 Friends tax return. • Continuing to correspond with the IRS regarding a notice we got that Friends is being assessed a penalty for late filing of our 2007 tax return. I have been working on this with Walter Thomas, the former Finance Director for the City who had filed the return for us. He assisted me in writing a letter to the IRS appealing the assessment, and they sent another letter saying we still owe the penalty, but stated a new reason. So, Walter and I carefully backtracked through our records and feel we have a pretty strong argument against the penalty and wrote a new letter and provided additional information. I sent it certified mail last week and we are now waiting for their response. Met with Adrienne Vanderbloemen about her role on the Friends board. She has agreed to talk to Leah Ragiel about possibly taking over the Friends Guild. Leah will continue to work with Adrienne for as long as she needs her help. Lastly, for newer board members who have not been assigned specific roles as board members, please contact me to arrange a meeting. We will find the role that best fits you and you will receive your Friends board member notebook when we meet. Robin McGowan and I are meeting next week. • Julie Foster has submitted her board resignation due to the fact that her family is relocation to Austin. We are sorry to see Julie go. Treasurer's Report - Sue Hanna - • Balance Sheet and Income Statement attached. • Happy to no longer be managing the $1 M. • Compass Bank holds Friends Operating Account • Friends CD is at IBC • Making $175,000 annually is a lot of money. Board Reports PR/Marketing - Elizabeth Karkowsky, report presented by Donna LaMond • 1 met with Joni and Donna last week to discuss PR opportunities and upcoming activities. We identified 4 major events that will need PR support over the next 6 months 1.)Huffington Park Development 2.) Fathers & Flashlights, 3.) Park Lovers Balll 4.)Friends Guild • With so much activity by Friends and events/activities to cover, we decided to add a co-chair to my responsibilities. Susan Sample has willingly and graciously accepted to work with Elizabeth as PR Co-Chair. • On Wednesday, I am meeting with the two Fathers & Flashlights Co-Chairs - Anne Freeman and Courtney Archer to get various pictures/shots of their family, kids and dads for PR opportunities for Fathers & Flashlights. • A release was sent out with picture of Sue Hanna, Stephanie Roman and owner of JMH to inform about garage sale - we were on front cover of West U Examiner with pre-story about the garage sale. • 1 have put together two PR binders. They are at the meeting - 1.) Binder that includes all the communication write-ups and press releases I have developed for newspapers, City Currents, advertisements. 2.) News paper clippings that have been published. This one is organized by event - i.e. - Park Lovers Ball, park ceremonies, new board appointments. • 1 encourage everyone to start reading the weekly papers (if you aren't currently reading or skimming them) - Friends, West U Parks and City of West U is covered quite a bit. Membership and Marketinq - Debora Connelly No report Fathers & Flashlights - Courtney Archer, Anne Freeman Excited, registration fee is the same, increasing the number to 425, an increase of 45 children. Adding new activities, new food vendors, verbal commitments from sponsors. F&F letters going out in 10 days. The date is October Td & 4`h. If you have any potential sponsors, please let us know. Age of children attending is preferably 4 (and potty trained). Sending a save the date email and flyer to West U Elementary students. Development (Grants & Foundations) - Stephanie Roman No report. Park Lovers' Ball 2009 - Susan Garofolo No report. Park Lovers' Ball 2010 - Jennifer Gatto (not present) We still have the ZaZa reserved and we are waiting on an answer from Minute Maid. If they have the 20th available we would like to entertain that location idea. Daryl and I both saw the space and think it would be a good option. Special Proiects/Wish List - Susan Sample No report. Garage Sale - Sue Hanna Fun event, old board members came to help. Great community event Looking for a chair for next year Garage sale earned approximately $5,800 Expenses were $4-500 more than last year Business Partners and E-Store - Beth Lane • Sold blankets and T-shirts at Arbor Day • Kroger Frequent Shopper Card - time to do your annual update your account for the Neighborhood Donation Program. • Candalarias is opening May 18th where Paulies was. Interested in donating 10% of an evenings sales to Friends. Chick Filet and Skeeters also make these donations. • Cinco De Mama made $1800, great group, lots of fun. Thank you Andrien Vanderbloomen. Friends Guild - Leah Ragiel • Thank you to Amanda Dearborn who hosted our last Guild Meeting on April 22nd City Council Report - Chuck Guffey • The ordinance for front yard turnarounds on Buffalo Speedway to allow safer entrance to the street has been passed. • Council continues to pursue purchase of two lots adjacent to the Rec Center entrance as additional parking and green space. • Six candidates are running for the four council positions and the mayor is unopposed. Election is this Saturday and early voting indicates a slightly lower level of interest than the last city election when the mayor was opposed. • Design of Colonial Park as a family fun pool will be finalized tonight by the Parks board for approval at the next council meeting next Monday. • The disputed right-of-way easement on Weslyan that was part of the Marlowe house lawsuit is being studied to allow larger houses to be built on the 70 lots along the street. • Huff ington Park approved and renovations should be complete during the summer. Old Business Susan White has printed business cards for board members and were distribute. We have some for the PLB Chairs and F & F Chairs as well. These are designed so that you can just write in your name and contact information. They are printed in house so when you need more, please let Donna know. New Business The next Friends board meeting is scheduled for Wednesday, August 5, 2009 at 11:30 at West University Place City Hall, 3800 University, in the Chambers. There being no further business, the meeting was adjourned at 12:29 p.m. Respectfully submitted, Judy Bouillion, Secretary