Doc. #2010-
CAYUGA LAKE WATERSHED NETWORK
Steward's Report
December 2009-January 2010

You last heard from me in early December 2009, so what follows is a summary of Network doings since then, with a bit of looking back over 2009. The December '09 to January '10 period continued as very busy for the Network, for Board involvement, and for the work we are doing on behalf of the
Network and Cayuga Lake. Welcome to our new Board members and THANK YOU for joining us!

Newsletter

We mailed out a third 2009 newsletter in late November 2009. (The second 2009 issue, published during the summer, had 12 pages instead of our standard 8, to make up for the springtime gap.) We want to issue four in 2010, so I am now collecting articles and news items for the February issue. The changes I have made to the newsletter over the past year are to include
upcoming events, short articles about 'sister' organizations, information about memberships and donations, and links to our Web site and other online resources. Your suggestions and contributions of articles, news items, and new concepts, etc, are invited.

Membership

During 2009, I and our two main interns, Rachel Singley and Jade Cassalia, worked to bring a confusing membership database under control. Right now we have it in Excel, which precludes certain fancy data uses, but is stable and easily used. We now have a digital Drop-Box so that Jade or I can make
updates from our separate home computers or at the office.

Our Annual Appeal was, and I apologize, sent out late (in early December), so we are still receiving donations that should have been received during 2009. However, the good news is that membership and donation contributions are flowing again. In February of '09 when I came onboard the Network, many
weeks went by without a single check in the mail, so the situation is much improved. I may have irritated some folks over the past year with too many appeals, but that will settle down in 2010 now that the member database is cleaned up and leaner. We are going to try to send out membership renewals
requests on an individual basis as memberships expire (not sure we can do this, due to time and labor limitations, but we'll try). I think that the greater prominence given to membership and donations in the newsletter is having a positive effect.

Keep in mind that healthy nonprofits receive 70% of their income from their membership. There's a lot of potential as yet untapped for us, and I want to work on this in 2010, with interested Board members and volunteers. We can receive trainings and support from River Network for this, and I know that we have several board members who know their way around membership development. We have created a good thank you/charitable donations letter and card for speedy response.

Also, as part of our year-end efforts, the Network received over $600 in donations for our participation in the 2009 Ithaca Alternative Gift Fair (IAGF). I had to put in a lot of upfront work to develop gift cards for this effort, so the actual return was low if you count my time; but if we can develop a volunteer base to work at events such as this in 2010, the costs will drop. Thanks you Ruth for your help in getting us involved with the
IAGF. In other good financial news, we got a budget passed for 2010 with time to spare - thanks to Deb Grantham for her big efforts to get this task on track during 2009.

Community Visibility

The IAGF leads me to a related topic - our visibility in the community. By this I mean in Tompkins, Cayuga and Seneca counties, and at the regional Finger Lakes and Great Lakes levels. As the new kid on the block, I have spent a lot of time this past year introducing myself, and re-introducing
the Network, with its new advocacy stance, to organizations and leaders in these areas. I showed up with our display to many public events, and attended many meetings. This is yielding results with new opportunities for partnering on grant proposal writing and in cooperative efforts to protect our lake and adjoining lake watersheds. Happily, we are working more closely with the Floating Classroom as well. Right now, I or John Mawdsley are attending the FC's Board meetings and they are invited to send a representative to ours.

Please let me know of ways to further widen our visibility and
participation. Would any of you be willing to offer talks to service organizations, etc. about the Network, the lake, and its watershed, if we can develop a brief and interesting power point presentation?

Interns

While we have not received a renewal of our 2008-09 intern support grant from Emerson (see more on grant efforts below), we did receive a year-end donation of $1000 from Marty Hatch (Dryden; Cornell) earmarked for intern support, so that we can continue to pay Jade Cassalia a modest hourly rate to help me with office work and to help with collecting and formatting lake-related data and reports for an online database the Network maintains on Cornell's eCommons Web site. Marty has further suggested that we seek matching grants from Emerson, members and other entities to help this funding source grow. We'd like to be able to support a paid summer intern as
we did in 2009, and if possible (!!) find some funding to support my work as intern coordinator.

We have a new intern for the spring semester (working for credit, Wells College), Mike Birklin, who will be helping us organize our spring creek cleanups around the lake (more on that in a separate email). We are also working with Bob Brower, CEO of the Institute for the Application of Geospatial Technology in Auburn. He has offered to partner with us in
supporting high school students to do GIS work on community projects, and I am trying to get that going in Dryden on Fall Creek.

Advocacy

In late December, the Network submitted comments to the Dept. of Enviro. Conservation on the draft Supplemental Generic Environmental Impact Statement which is intended to regulate environmental impacts of hydrofracking drilling in NY State. In a newsletter article, we also encouraged our members to submit citizen comments by the December 31 2009
due date. We are now being asked to help organize an information session for Ledyard Township and maybe Cayuga County - more on that soon. I think that the Network has approached this contentious issue in a considered, thoughtful way that helps inform the public while retaining and enhancing
our viability as a reliable, dependable, science-based organization. Good first steps into advocacy!

Program, Issues Committees

The Program and Issues Committees have developed a full but totally do-able plan for 2010, including a spring and fall conference at the north and south ends of the lake, continuing support of a traveling roadshow (Bill Kappel with his "Lake Levels" presentation is a continuing draw for the public, and
I am talking to a photographer about his ideas for a show) -- and probably another fund raiser dinner-dance. This big, rewarding project requires a large input of work ahead of time - it took most of two interns' time over the summer of 2009; so we need to be fully aware of the issues involved going into this for 2010, and need to get started on it soon. We'll also
need Board support and guidance, and could use a couple of energetic volunteers. Our experience gained in 2009 with "Sunset on Cayuga" will be valuable to help us build this event.

The Issues and Program Committees are developing a "Wetlands" conference for the lake's north end in the spring (April?). We will need Board and volunteer help soon to get the spring conference organized with a site, date, speakers and publicity. The Issues Committee is focusing on the
Dashboard concept as a way of better communicating lake health concepts to the public. At our recent Board meeting John Mawdsley invited new Board members to consider which committees they would like to help with - please contact him for more information.

Upcoming events

• Board meetings: February 9, March 9, second Tuesdays - at our Wells College office and other locations TBA, 7 - 9 pm.
• Bill Kappel's talk on "Lake
  Levels:" Feb. 3 at Wells College, April 4 in Lansing.

Please share any lake-related talks, events that we might want to attend!

Don't forget. Suggestion and Request from Niamh O'Leary

The Environmental Studies major at Wells College has two main tracks, science and policy.

Each student major must do one to two semesters of work that results in a Senior Thesis, and are often seeking project ideas. Niamh O'Leary has asked me - and I am asking you to help - come up with a Wish List of Network projects that qualified Wells College Environmental Studies majors, in either science or policy, could take on as a thesis topic.

Grant work, Fundraising

• Park Fdtn grant (ongoing) - We had a meeting with the Cayuga County sewerage expert (Enviro Health officer) in December re Ulysses Township concerns and will meet with Tompkins Co's Liz Cameron and staff in Feb.
• Emerson Fdtn - No response to our November pre-proposal. I have been told that they were inundated with requests this past year, so we will - try again!
• US EPA Enviro Education grant - submitted a proposal in December with City of Ithaca, Floating Classroom, CSI.
  * US EPA Great Lakes Initiative - we are submitting proposals this week re: the Dashboard and Canoga Marsh, and are supporting one by Roxy Johnston for the city of Ithaca.
• We have several other grant proposal efforts lined up following this one.

There's lots more going on, but this is enough for now.

My immediate goals: Get out the next newsletter, help organize the spring conference, get spring creek cleanups organized, work with Cayuga Co to present information to the public about potential watershed hydrofracking impacts, and coordinate a volunteer list of members willing to assist with
display and outreach events. And write grant proposals. Obviously, I need your help and advice in order to move all this forward.