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HomeMy WebLinkAboutF Minutes 110310Friends of West University Place Parks Fund, Inc. Board Meeting Minutes Wednesday, November 3, 2010 Friends of West University Place Parks Board met on Wednesday, November 3, 2010 at 11:30 am, at the West University Place Recreation Center located at 4210 Bellaire Blvd in the Rec Center Conference Room. The following were in attendance: Board Members Executive Director Guests Staff Leah Ragiel Donna LaMond Heather Chilivetis Tim O'Connor Judy Bouillion Jennifer Debow Adrienne Vanderbloemen Anne Freeman Courtney Archer Amy Sahely Katie Hill City Councilman Susie Boyce George Boehme Sue Hanna Chair's Welcome, Report and Parks Board Report - Leah Ragiel Welcome and Calling of Meeting to Order at 11:34 Recent Events • We have had another successful Fathers & Flashlights event since our last board meeting. Thank you to everyone who was involved, especially Anne and Courtney, our chairs; Donna, our Executive Director, and Tim O'Connor, whose staff is very involved in pulling off this event. I am sure that Anne and Courtney will elaborate on the event and its proceeds during their report. • I've had a number of meetings during the month with a number of you to talk about strategy and progress in your area and was very happy to attend the first Guild meeting of the year. I think we are underway with lots of seeds of future success for Friends and I thank everyone for their efforts. • One of the tasks that I am undertaking currently is to have a look at our by-laws and make sure I understand them and with Matt Foytlin's assistance make sure they are current. They were reviewed a few years ago, but it has been some time. Organizational • I'd like to welcome our new board member, Katie Hill. Katie currently works in the marketing department of Chic-fil-A and she comes to us with a marketing and marketing communications background. She will focus on that area for Friends. • Additionally, I would like to introduce Heather Chilivetis, who Donna and I are recommending for our PR position on the board. Heather is a PR professional working for Cemex. • Donna and I have rescheduled our meeting with Sonny Brandtner, another board prospect, due to scheduling issues. We will meet him in two weeks. He has an accounting background. Parks Board Meeting • Parks Board has been asked by City Council to take a look at concessions at Colonial Park in terms of what citizens would like to see there and their level of satisfaction, so they will begin working on that. • Tim suggested in the last meeting that he is interested in having consistent signage at all our parks. Parks Board did not seem too enthusiastic about that, but Tim may be pursuing this directly as a PARD activity by getting some ideas from design firms. • It was determined that the fall hours for the Colonial Park Pool, which ran through Halloween, did not see a lot of attendance, so the pool schedule will be adjusted next fall. Approval of the Minutes and Sign-In Sheet - Judy Bouillion A motion was made by Amy Sahley and seconded by Adrienne Vanderbloemen to approve the October 2010 minutes as written. Parks and Recreation Report - Tim O'Connor • 2011 Budget has been approved. PARD Revenues are up and we had no significant changes in our budget request. Council took away the Retirement COLA benefit of the employee retirement plan. Merit only salary and wage increases have been budgeted - 3% overall. • WUPRC playground has been completed - keeping an eye on the artificial turf. • Huffington Park Playground safety base work has been completed. • Library Courtyard drainage project has been completed. • Community Building / Senior Center renovations are scheduled to begin after the first of the year. Budget is $250K • Staff, a Parks Board member and several Scout Leaders met with RUSSO Services at the Scout House. RUSSO will be submitting an estimate for interior and exterior renovations. • Staff has been meeting with KidVentures, negotiating their taking over the WUP Summer Camp Program. • Colonial Park wooden play structures - we have met with an interested Eagle Scout candidate to take-on this project and are waiting for his Board of Review to approve. • Fibar upgrades at the Colonial playground are complete. • Senior programming continues to steadily increase. • Judson Park re-development sub-committee has met initially. • Movies in the Park 10/8 - Mary Poppins and 10/15 - Swiss Family Robinson were a huge success, realizing record attendance at both showings. City Council - George Boehme • City Council is discussing concessions at Colonial Park in 2011. • Discussed Tagging/Graffiti that is appearing in West U. Believe it is "art" and unfortunately it is being painted on a porous fence which is expensive and difficult to clean. • Does WU want to open up the pool to others to generate more revenue? We have done well on the revenue side and do not need the revenues. Executive Director's Report - Donna LaMond As a reminder, I have changed the format of my board meeting reports. Since I really work on all friends projects for the most part, it is redundant for me to elaborate on activities that board members are reporting on. I will provide a brief overview instead. Also, the weekly reports forwarded by the Parks & Rec. Department includes information on Friends activities. If at any time anyone would like more details than what is provided in the weekly reports, I will be happy to provide them. • Fathers & Flashlights, Hats off to chairs Courtney and Scott Archer and Anne and John Freeman for outdoing themselves and raising more money for West U parks than they did last year. Since this was their second year to chair the event, they set the bar higher and once the finance department settles the numbers, I am sure our net funds raised will exceed $50,000. Thanks also to the Parks and Rec Department. Without this fabulous group of hard working people, the event would not be possible. Follow up meetings have taken place and meetings with the new chairs will begin soon. Direct Energy was our lead underwriter for F & F and we had a photo shoot prior to the event and are making every effort to get them lots of mileage out of their underwriting. They have indicated they are anxious to get involved with PLB2011 also. • PLB 2011, underwriting campaign well underway and funds are coming in. Jennifer Debow and Amy Reeves are working hard to ensure the success of the event. We are ready to upload the auction tracker information to the remote server and Sue Hanna will begin inputting the auction items for us. Susie Boyce will be our reservations person again this year. • Friends board - Welcome to Katie Hill, our newest Friends board member who will be handling our marketing needs. Leah and I met with Heather Chilivetis on Tuesday of this week and are moving forward with recommending her for board appointment at the next City Council meeting. Heather will be handling PR for Friends. Leah and I still plan to meet with Sonny Brandtner, another board prospect. We have had scheduling challenges and are currently scheduled to meet on Nov. 15. • Friends Guild - planning for the 2010-11 activities; first coffee was held on. Oct. 28 at Rec Center, which is where we discovered Heather and found out about her PR background. Adrienne will elaborate more on the meeting and where we go from here. • Continuing to update new Friends website as needed. • Leah and I have been working together to prepare press releases in this interim period of being between PR people. Thanks again to Elizabeth Karkowsky for handling our PR need for the last few years. Thanks also to Susan Sample who worked with Elizabeth on PR and is now switching over to the Grants and Foundations committee. • Naming and sponsorship opportunities/donor recognition vehicles - meeting held last Friday. Steve Primrose will provide more information in his report. Treasurer's Report - Amy Shaley - attached to minutes. Rearranging of banking relationships Bank Of RO - checking Encore IBC Texas Citizens Bank Board Reports: EVENTS Fathers & Flashlights 2010 - Annr Freeman & Courtney Archer Great, fun, weather cooperated, no glitches, 4 people came off the waiting list the last week. Park Lovers' Ball 2011 - Jennifer Debow and Amy Reeves • 11/1 underwriting letters are all out • City Currents and Leisure Learning ad campaign • Underwriting so far at $17,000 • Auction items still coming in • Wine Pull Party at Little Matt's 12/1 at 7:30 pm with Christmas Shopping oportunities • Invitation is under design, one card, great artwork PROGRAMS Donor Recognition and Sponsorship Development - Steve Primrose During October continued work was done on the Honor/Recognition wall concepts for the Recreation Center and Colonial pool facilities. Originally, the desire was to incorporate digital media screens/systems but further investigation shows this to be cost prohibitive (minimum costs $15-20M). Given that, meetings were held with two companies: Partners in Recognition and BabendureWheat. Partners in Recognition: An experienced company out of Ohio that specializes in Honor/Recognition walls and provides some free consulting/renderings of potential ideas. I've shared with them our thoughts, website, background so they could put some initial ideas together. These renderings/ideas should be complete by early November and will be shared with key members of the Friends board, Donna LaMond, and Leah Ragiel for feedback. BabendureWheat: On Friday, Oct 29"', Donna LaMond, Susan White, and Leah Ragiel met with BabendureWheat (BWC) which is a creative firm here in Houston that has done a significant amount of work in this area. They also recently completed work at the new downtown YMCA which is a great example of their capabilities. BWC will be providing a proposal for some creative design hours and conceptual thoughts for us. This proposal will be ready in early November. With the initial ideas and cost proposals from both companies, the goal would be to gather a few key people and agree on the best ideas we have collected over the past few months. We would then review the proposals and look to do additional creative work with one of the two companies above. The work would ultimately yield renderings that could then be shared with other boards and city council to gather their thoughts/feedback/approval. At this point, the additional creative work and renderings are estimated to require $2-4,000 worth of funding from Friends. With proper approvals, these renderings would then be turned into construction plans to implement cost effective but impressive honor/donor recognition walls. The actual construction of the walls themselves could be $5- 6,000 dollars but with good thinking and planning put into the creative design work, we will be able to optimize the construction and on-going maintenance costs. These design and construction costs are ballpark estimates that we will refined during the month of November. With refined estimates, I will put together a recommended plan to proceed and present at the December Board meeting for feedback/approvals to move forward. Business Partners - Arlene Harper-Veith • REI booth at F&F was a success. REI is excited about our partnership and loved being involved in our community gathering. Took pics for future marketing efforts. • Promoting REI w/ Boy & Girl Scout Troops for upcoming Nov campouts. • Attended the recent Guild meeting. Spoke about Randall's & Kroger Tag, Bag & Snag grocery card programs and REI online shopping program. Handed out information on all. Received input for Guild attendees on online shopping "Wish List" for consideration on additional future offering. Pavers - Matthew Foytlin The following provides a brief synopsis of my work since our last meeting: Paver Orders - we received several new orders that will be processed. Additionally, residents that purchased pavers but have not submitted inscriptions will receive follow-ups so that we can install as many pavers as possible, thereby maximizing our return on a flat-fee installation charge. Finally, other residents have expressed interest or submitted preliminary inquiries regarding pavers. I will follow up with those residents, too. Pro-Modular (Paver Company) - David and I are working together to install a database for monitoring and approving paver orders. David also knows that we have several orders in the cue, so turnaround is important, as well as the implementation of the long-discussed system for tracking, approving and organizing orders. We are discussing the most time-effective manner for accomplishing these goals. Marketing Several ideas have been suggested to increase paver sales, such as periodic campaigns tailored to specific holidays or events. If possible, we would like to roll out one of these ideas in the Spring of 2011. On a related matter, I am also finalizing an inventory of available park space for paver installation, as well as areas that may be available for installation in those parks where current space is limited. Additional Vendors - I am also looking into competing vendors for the inscription and installation of pavers, so that we can have a better understanding of the market conditions and availability of other companies that offer competitive prices. Steve Primrose has suggested a company, and I will follow up with them regarding prices and methods of delivery/installation Stork and E-Store - Sold one stork Development (Grants & Foundations) - Stephanie Roman & Susie Garofolo After extensive research and review of numerous foundations and grant opportunities, it was decided that Susie Garofolo and Stephnaie Roman would file grant applications with the Belo Foundation for trees for Colonial Park; and with the Humana Foundation for shade structures at Colonial Park. Both co-chairs have started the applications, and will work closely with Donna LaMond and Leah Ragiel as they complete the documents. Friends & Neighbors Guild - Adrienne Vanderbloemen • First Guild coffee was held on the 28"' at the Rec Center. o Attendance was low. ■ Going to change the invitation going forward to show from the Guild email address. ■ Going to return to hosting the coffees in homes, instead of the City facilities. o Have not received very much feedback on the playgroups this time. • Will be emailing this week those who expressed interest last year to see if there is still interest, and get a volunteer leadership team together. • Next meeting to be in December at a home (Julie Jackson offered). o Sign ups for Guild membership continues. o Will try to promote this meeting even further out? • Agreed on $35 as a reasonable fee for joining the guild. • Spring meetings around the second week of February and second week of April. • Wanting to develop some routine events (i.e. Christmas party) that is a reason for some to join. SUPPORT FUNCTIONS Public Relations - Susan Sample Marketing - Katie Hill No report, yet. Special Projects and Facebook - Susie Boyce No report. Administrative and Master Calendar - Debora Connelly No report. Old Business None New Business The next Friends board meeting is scheduled for Wednesday, December 1, 2010 at 11:30 at West University Place Rec Center in the Conference Room. There being no further business, the meeting was adjourned at 12:55 p.m. Respectfully submitted, Judy Bouillion, Secretary Treasurers Report Nov 2, 10 ASSETS Current Assets Checking/Savings Bank of River Oaks Operating 50,000.00 Compass Bank Checking 44,900.99 Encore Bank Checking-Pay Pal 17,450.40 IBC Bank 98,298.38 Total Checking/Savings 210,649.77 Other Current Assets Blankets 1,690.11 Golf Shirt Inventory 681.94 Total Other Current Assets 2,372.05 Total Current Assets 213,021.82 TOTAL ASSETS 213,021.82 LIABILITIES & EQUITY Equity Capital Expenditure-Colonial Rec Center Distribution -314,336.00 Weir -159,381.00 Whitt Johnson -24,862.00 Capital Expenditure-Colonial - Other -513,361.00 Total Capital Expenditure-Colonial 1,011,940.00 Opening Bai Equity 553,322.67 Rice Pocket Park -100,000.00 Unrestrict (retained earnings) 750,271.54 Net Income 21,367.61 Total Equity 213,021.82 TOTAL LIABILITIES & EQUITY 213,021.82