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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2014 04 Friends Minutes Friends of West University Place Parks Fund, Inc. Board Meeting Minutes Wednesday, April 9 , 2014 Friends of West University Place Parks Fund, Inc. (“Friends”) Board met on Wednesday, April 9 , 2013 at 11:30 AM at the West University Place Recreation Cente r, 4210 Bellaire Blvd, West University Place, TX. The following were in attendance: Board Members Amanda McGee Ting Bresnahan Sara Edgecomb Katie Hill Christina Milligan Megan Morris Christine Parker Christi Young Mark Prescott Grace Ebaugh Kristine Ma rtinez Kara Schaefer Ma t thew Foytlin Susie Boyce Michelle Huth Executive Director D onna LaMond Staff Tim O’Connor Councilman Dick Yehle Visitors: Adrienne Vanderbloemen Miche le Still Judy Cheng Dee Dee G ilder I. Call to Order The meeting was called to o rder at 11:3 3 AM . II. Welcome, Opening Remarks and Approval of Minutes (Amanda McGee ) APPROVAL OF MINUTES A vote to approve the February 19, 2014 board meeting minutes was called by Grace Eba ugh and seconded by Mark Prescott . It was approved by unanimous vot e. OPENING REMARKS The West University Elementary School is updating their playground. This endeavor will be funded by the WUES Foundation. Amanda brought to the board that she would like to donate $5 ,000 from Friends to assist them. Although the City of West University Place does not fund or maintain this space, it is used by many of the West University Place residents (a fact that is noted on the Parks Master Plan) and is located within our City limits . WUES has always been a great partner for Father’s & Flashlights and after our first year of F&F, Friends donated $1 ,000 to the WUES Foundation. After a short discussion, Sara Edgecomb made the motion for Friends to donate $5 ,000 to the WUES Foundation for use in updating the WUES playground. Megan Morris seconded the motion and it passed with a unanimous vote by the board. III. Treasurer’s Report (Christine Parker ) See attached reports. IV. Fathers & Flashlights 2014 (Judy Cheng and Dee Dee G ilde r) We are pleased to announce the 8th annual Fathers & Flashligh ts will be held Sept 27th and 28th. Unfortunately, Ashley and Sam Gumbert are moving out of West U and will not be chairing with us this year. Registration will be online again this year and we are still discussing ways to improve on last year's registra tion and residency checks. We anticipate registration being around August 20 - 22 but we are still discussing those dates as well as the registration fees for 2014. We are getting our list of last year's campers together to send out a save the date notic e this week. We have begun reserving the activities for the event and are reviewing these costs so that we may update our Underwriting and Sponsorship contract with the hopes of mailing those mid -May. In the meantime, we will begin to personally contact past sponsors and work on getting our committee together. V. Park Lovers’ Ball 2015 (Michele Still, Adrienne Vanderbloemen, Christi Young) We’re excited about chairing. PLB 2015 will be on Feb. 7th. We’ve signed the contract for the Omni and think the spa ce will be great. We are working on theme, logo and invitation, entertainment and should be able to share more soon. We are also putting together a host committee. Please let us know if you are interested in serving on a committee. VI. Parks and Recreation R eport (Tim O’Connor) See attached. Tim first talked about the Executive Summary of the Parks Survey (see attached). There were no questions, but it was mentioned that the average age of respondents was 54. There will be two more Townhall Meetings to disc uss the results of the survey. Tim then opened the floor to discuss the possible need to put restrooms in some of our neighborhood parks. This is driven by calls from residents as well as from waste found in the parks. The three parks most likely to be a ffected are W ier Park, Judson Park and Huffington Park. Historically this has been an unpopular idea among our residents. If this idea were to take shape, a company called Corworth Solutions has some promising products. These self -locking units would be op en from 7am -10pm each day and would be cleaned twice a day, seven days a week. They are estimated to cost $55,000 -65,000. A discussion among the board members brought up pros and cons (ease and convenience for park attendees vs. increased traffic, sanitary and safety conce rns). The feedback was general concern for the unintended consequences of such a facility , although many did not e the benefits. Tim took an informal vote and 3 members thought it was a good idea, while 12 did not. Lastly Tim passed out th e attached list of tentative requests from the Parks and Recreation Department for consideration of Friends funding in 2015. VII. Other Reports and Announcements (Donna LaMond) We continue to bask in the success of the recent ball. Thanks again to the event co -chairs Megan and Drew Morris, Nancy Kate and Mark Prescott, and Kara and Dax Sanders. We had a follow up meeting on March 4 and they had some good suggestions for consideration going forward. We will be honoring these wonderful couples at the upcoming M ay 7 Star Citizen Awards luncheon to be held at Allusion, 3810 Law Street, just off Bissonnet. We will hold a short board meeting beginning at 11:30, then at noon we will have lunch and proceed with the awards presentation. We are also honoring Steven Mu rray and Direct Energy at the luncheon as Friends 2014 Corporate Sponsor. He will receive a Star Citizen Award as well. I will be emailing out more information as the date approaches. The luncheon is being underwritten by both Allusion and Corner Bakery Café. We are very thankful for their wonderful spirit of community. Fathers & Flashlights is primary on the radar now and it is a pleasure to continue working with Judy and Comfort Cheng and Dee Dee and Jamie Gilder on the 2014 campout. We will miss As hley and Sam Gumbert. Last year’s event netted $86,000, but if anybody can beat their own record, it’s these co -chairs. We met last week to regroup and start working on the 2014 event. This will be our second year to offer online registration, thanks to Christi Young. Friends is participating in the Spring Festival on Saturday, April 12, which is an event hosted by West U’s Parks and Recreation Department on the fields here by the Rec Center. Thank you to Christina Milligan and Kara Schaefer for worki ng at the Friends table during the event which is from 9 am until 11 am. If you are out there with your families, be sure to stop by Friends’ table on the Easter Trail. There will be a variety of vendors on the trail promoting their services or products. Tim mentioned that instead of a traditional Easter Egg Hunt, the City is hosting a trail. This allows for all kids to acquire the same amount of eggs and addresses issues of safety that sometimes occur with traditional hunts. There will also be entertai nment and has been an “easy sell” to sponsors. Met with the PLB2015 co -chairs on April 1and they are off and running as their report indicated. We are delighted to have Michele and Charles Still, Adrienne and William Vanderbloemen and Christi and John Y oung at the helm for the next ball. We have already had a site visit at the Omni and the deposit has been made. We are good to go. We have hired the same live auctioneer we had last time, Jack Gibbs. I have a meeting scheduled with Frost Bank on April 30 to talk about areas for improvement with check in and their involvement for the 2015 ball. They will be working check in for us again, prescanning the credit cards, etc. Anna Stewart is going with me to the meeting. If you recall, Anna is the wonderf ul volunteer who stepped up to oversee check in and then helped me after the event with reconciling everything. More exciting news! I am thrilled to announce that Sue and Gary Hanna have agreed to be the Honorary Chairs for PLB2015. The reason that we as ked Sue and Gary is that Sue co -chaired the ball in 2006 with Diana Brown,and served on the Friends board for years, including serving as treasurer for many years, and Sue currently serves on the advisory board. Sue and Gary have been very supportive of F riends through hosting events at their home, working Big Board, and making very generous donations over the years. It is with great pleasure that we will honor them at the 2015 ball. Matt Foytlin and I have met several times since our last board meeting a bout park pavers and outstanding orders, and ways to improve and make paver orders easier. We do currently offer pavers on the Friends website and they can be ordered and paid for all online. Matt and Jeth Jones are working on ways to publicize paver sal es along with Christina Milligan who is working on finishing up a banner that promotes pavers as well as a banner that promotes stork sales. I have made arrangements with BKD CPAs and Advisors to prepare the Friends 990/tax return for 2013. Paige Gerich is the tax partner there that I am working with. The return is due May 15. You will each be emailed a PDF of the final return. Please continue to refer to the weekly reports that you receive via email for an ongoing update on other Friends activities as well as all Parks and Rec activities. This concludes my report. VIII. Adjournment The next meeting of the Board is scheduled for Wednesday , May 7 th at , 2014 at the Allusion Apartments at 3810 Law Street . It will begin at 11:30am and be followed by a lunche on. There being no further business, the meeting was adjourned at 12:38 PM . Respectfully submitted, Katie Hill Secretary