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HomeMy WebLinkAboutFBMINUTES010307Friends of West University Place Parks Fund, Inc. Board Meeting Minutes January 3, 2007 Friends of West University Place Parks Board met on Wednesday, January 3rd, at 11:30 a.m. at the West University Place Recreation Center, 4210 Bellaire Blvd. The following were in attendance: Board Members Judy Bouillion Susie Boyce Joni Fichter Vicki Grams Lynne Goddard Maria Elena Herbst Katy Holt Sue Jensen Executive Director Others Donna LaMond Penny Grams Joni Fichter called the meeting to order at 11:32 a.m. President's Report -Joni Fichter ■ Welcome to Judy Bouillion who has been appointed to our board and will serve as our Secretary. ■ PLB Chairs and committee have been hard at work getting the invitations to press, donor commitments, making follow up calls, and getting final plans tied up. • Special thanks to Laura Moser for designing our invitations! ■ Water bill flyer about PLB was in this month. ■ We're glad to know that Sue Hanna is doing just fine. • Please come on Friday night from 7-9 to our home, 3733 Arnold, for the party honoring our Friends Board, Advisory Board, and Parks Board members and their spouses. Be sure to RSVP to Donna if you have not. Please bring a bottle of wine for the PLB auction package. ■ Sherry Gift will host a similar party at her house on 1/11 at 7 pm for all PLB committee. • Thank you note from Donna for her cross for her birthday in November. Approval of the Minutes and Sign-In Sheet - A motion was made by Lynne Goddard and seconded by Susie Boyce to approve the November 1, 2006 minutes as sent. Note that there was no December meeting. The motion carried. Parks & Rec Report - In Tim O'Connor's absence, Joni Fichter reported: In Tim O'Connor's absence, Joni Fichter reported: • New Chair of Parks Board is Russ Schultze who brings experience and contacts to the group. ■ City is moving forward with looking for land to be purchased in the appropriate area with the passing of Prop 3 and how to address needs at Colonial and the Rec Center (regarding Prop 1 & 2) • Friends Park - geophysical testing underway; still uncertain of the ground breaking date. • Park-ners Adopt a park program - Bluebonnet planting at Liberty Hill went great • "Music Under the Stars" is in the works • Alcohol Permits are under discussion and review (this will be for adult parties at the RC, CC, SH) and parties in the parks (where waivers have been given in the past so that we do not have to go outside WU to host fundraising activities.) Executive Director's Report - Donna LaMond Attended the City Council meeting on December 11 and a Council Workshop on November 27. Ar interview for our newest board member, Judy Bouillion, with Council members was arranged. Needless to say, she has been appointed to the Friends Board and will be serving as our Secretary. She already has her Friends notebook in hand and is ready to get started. Welcome to Judy! Will get a picture of her today and send out a press release announcing her appointment. We did receive the Lewis check for $111,825.25. These are the matching funds for 2005. An acknowledgement letter has already been sent to the Lewis Family. Linda Lewis and her family cannot attend the ball on Feb. 10 due to another commitment with another organization that Linda is heavily involved in. She sends her regrets on behalf of her family. A reminder to the Friends Board, Friends Advisory Board, and to the Parks and Rec Board, we do have a social gathering this coming Friday evening, January 5, at the home of Joni and Mark Fichter. Spouses and a date or guest are also included in this invitation. Please remember to bring a bottle of red wine as your donation to the PLB07 Wine Cellar. Sherry Gift, a former Friends Board member and Ball Chair, is hosting another similar party for the PLB committee on January 11 to collect white wine and champagne. Worked with Leah Ragiel to get the PLB07 water bill inserts ready and delivered to the mail house. Leah did a great job coordinating this. Received mine in with my water bill in Dec. Thank you, Leah! Spoke with Richard Cole of AT & T and have been in touch with Senator Kyle Janek's office regarding the AT & T $20,000 sponsorship in Senator Janek's honor. AT & T wants all amenities associated with their $20,000 to go to Senator Janek. We have to be somewhat discreet about this sponsorship, so the ball program and other printed materials will not state that this is the situation. It will just show AT & T as a $20,000 underwriter and then they requested a page in the program that says something like "Thank you Senator Kyle Janek for your outstanding community support of West U parks!" Friends of Kyle Janek are also donating $2500 (a straight donation). Penny and Vicki will elaborate more on underwriting, but this is a special set of circumstances and wanted to be sure we are all clear on them. A large amount of time has been spent on underwriting, signing letters, receiving payments, faxing and emailing donor contracts, entering payments and commitments into Auction Tracker, and so on. Also, using our collected email addresses to aggressively follow up and contact past contributors to secure underwriter commitments. A report will be prepared this week and emailed to the board showing the underwriter commitments to date so that you can have this information as you make your follow up phone calls, etc. There is some new IRS forms and paperwork required for some corporate donations. Working with Walter Thomas to be sure all paperwork is completed fully and accurately. Houston Endowment just sent us two checks: one for $1,000 from D. Kent Anderson, and a check from Houston Endowment for $2,000. They match on a two-for-one basis and, with the Lewis match, this amounts to $6,000 for Friends! Worked with Ball Chairs, Joni Fichter and Laura Moser to finalize invitations including using not for profit mail status. A new credit card processing system is currently being evaluated which is offered by Northwest Software, and is finally ready for use. Sue Hanna, Penny and Vicki Grams, and I will compare to what we have done in the past and decide on best system for our group. This is the same company that owns Auction Tracker. City Currents PLB07 article was finalized with assistance from Danielle Kemell who is helping the committee with PR efforts. The article turned out nicely and should have been received in homes prior to Christmas. George Boehme has offered us an in kind donation for advertising in the Examiner. We will have a few feature articles as well as an advertising campaign similar to what we had last year. George and his wife have also committed personally to be a $2500 underwriter. The PLB07 PR committee is meeting today following the Friends Board meeting to plan our articles and finalize a strategy for the final PR thrust. This campaign includes a flyer for West U Elementary School to be included in Monday folders. November 14th Auction meeting at Vicki's house had a great turn out! Continuing to receive Friends memberships and sending out acknowledgements with amenities associated with each level of membership as appropriate... Have received some through the website. Diana Brown has ordered the pavers for those memberships that qualified for pavers. We just got a new $1000 online membership from Gerald Spedale. Visited with Beverly Loftis, one of our honorary chairs, just before Christmas. She has had some health issues recently and expressed regret that she has not done more for PLB at this point. She promised to get up to speed. Board Reports Treasurer's Report - Sue Hanna No report. PLB - 2007 - Penny & Vicki Grams As of Tuesday January 2nd, we have a change in venue, the Houstonian Hotel. We were notified by Kleibert at the ZaZa that it would not be ready in time for our event and that they will not be scheduling any events till May. We have put a hold on the mailing of the already printed invitations. We will then insert a catchy change in venue sheet with the invite for mailing as soon as possible. The ZaZa will be responsible for any expenses resulting from this change in our invitations. They did provide us with two venues that are available for that evening. ■ On that note we will need to get everyone's help with some of the key areas we will be working on these next couple of weeks, notably Underwriting and Auction Solicitation. We will be working on a big push to sell out the ball with over 500 people. We have the following UW levels so far: 1 @ $20,000 4 @ $7500 2 @ $3000 11 @ $2500 14 @ $400 3 @ $1000 Total attending is 239 thus far based on level. We have basically another 300 to go. ■ We have not heard back from anyone on the three boards about the assigned call lists. Please resume calling your assigned lists as we are on the critical last weeks of this all important part of the fundraiser. Underwriting is key; doubling what is normally made. ■ We are scheduling the invitations to be received and street signs to go out about the same time. Southside resident's invites will be hand delivered, as we have not been successful in getting a mailing list in a timely fashion for them. We will be providing all Board members their yard signs at Joni's on Friday evening. ■ With regard to PR, we are possibly partnering with Aziza Homes, Rosann Rogers/The Buzz, and Village. ■ Discussing with the Buzz, Village Arcade and another entity to sell raffle tickets off for the playhouse. PLB will be featured in the Buzz in about a week with Aziza Homes. We will possibly be selling raffle tickets for $20.00. The Village Arcade has done this before for the Nutcracker and sold $15,000-18,000 before the event. Our goal is this, plus selling many more tickets the night of the event. This hopefully will prove to be a plus for PLB this year and possibly in years to come. Houston Community Newspapers will be also doing a tremendous amount of PR for us over the coming weeks. We will be meeting with our PR group following this meeting to go over these articles. ■ We will be meeting with Eric on Friday to outline the event and process. Will be comparing current prepay process with new package from NW software. They sound similar. ■ We will be using 5-6 marketing students to work the ball. These are very energetic types that currently work for the Houston Rockets. We will have them readily identifiable at the ball and they will be instrumental in selling casino chips, raffle tickets and helping us move the crowds where needed. We will be meeting with them prior to the ball to outline goals and objectives. ■ Auction procurement is of course vital and all board members are encouraged to bring in their share. We will be determining what is most needed and emails will be sent out for all to help. ■ Our timeline is as follows, we will begin packaging for the auction on Jan 23rd and the program will be given to Copy Dr. on Monday January 29th. We have a little room to play with these dates. ■ Two wine parties are scheduled over the next two weeks. One by Joni and Mark on Jan. 5m, for all three boards (Friends, Advisory, and Parks) in hopes of getting quality red wine for our wine cellar. The other wine party given by Sherry and Chip Gift on Jan. 11th, for the entire auction committee, to collect nice white wine and champagne for the cellar. ■ Need to know the status of alcohol at parks for sociables. ■ Discussed a wish list for additional auction items which include Rodeo tickets, Sleigh ride sociable, Spa certificates, Sports items and tickets, Golf, Travel, Vacation Homes and Jewelry. ■ Eva from Village News will publicize change in venue. E-store - Diana Brown No report. Admin Committee - Margaret Wallace No report. Sponsorship/Development Committee No report. Membership & Marketing/PR -Katy Holt No report. Committee will be meeting today after Board meeting. Resident Decorators/Special Project/Wish List/Giving Tree Maria Elena Herbst No report. Business Partners - Lynne Goddard No report. Contracts, Nominations, and Bylaws The recruitment of new members was discussed and board members were encouraged to look for prospective new members and follow-up on those previously mentioned. Parks Guild - Leah Raigel No report. New Business The next meeting will be Wednesday, Feb 7, 2007 and will be a working meeting to help PLB Chairs with last minute details. Time and place to be determined. There being no further business, the meeting was adjourned at 12:30 pm. Respectfully Submitted, Judy Bouillion