Doc. #2010-
CAYUGA LAKE WATERSHED NETWORK
Board of Directors Meeting
April 13, 2010
Wells College, Aurora NY

Directors present: Ronda Fessenden, Deb Grantham, Dale Baker, Jim Clark, Amy Galford, John Mawdsley, Hilary Lambert. Excused: Keith Tidball, Brian Boerman, Ruth Richardson
Also in attendance: Hillary Lambert, Tom Casella, Cayuga County

The meeting was called to order by J. Mawdsley, Chairperson.

The minutes of the March meeting were approved (Jim moved, Deb seconded).

Business:

Spring Meeting – Review: Good speakers and tour but disappointing turnout. Good meeting location although a little out of town. Not clear why poor turnout. Refer to Issues to consider.

Creek Clean Ups: Hilary explained how the first clean ups start the weekend of the 17 April but they will continue for several months. Details of when and where on our web site.

Rivers Network - Board Training: Rivers Network offer Board training for organizations like ours that help with raising money and defining strategic plans, etc. They are willing to offer to us but cost $7-10k and require all of Board to be there for at least a day or two. A Michigan Group will also offer training but they offer grants to offset up to 75% of the costs. Following discussion Exec Comm. was encouraged to talk more to Rivers Network and the Michigan Group to come back with a firm proposal to Board.

Park Grant Application: Hilary gave feedback on meeting with Park staff. They seemed encouraged by the progress we had made so far with the work funded by Park in June 2009. A motion to submit a new application to Park within the week if possible that extended the work program from the first grant at the two locations and added a third location, possibly Seneca Falls, was proposed by Dale and seconded by Deb and was unanimously approved.

2010 Program: There were several activities that still did not have a nominated leader. Leaders were proposed: Ruth for Alternative Gift Fair, Deb for Annual Appeal, Dale for Ecocruises, Jim for North End monitoring with Keith to help, and Amy for New web site. John proposed that in place of the Road Show talks we consider a 4 week series of 2 hour talks to be held at our offices, probably in July/August that gave more information on the watershed, the threats and new developments. There was some concern whether people would come out for talks in mid-summer (10-20 were needed) but he was encouraged to develop the idea further and try to assess likely demand. It was thought it should be free to members.

New membership Initiative: More members of all categories are needed. It was suggested that we target smaller companies by letter (John and Hilary to write) offering them some benefit to membership such as listing on our web site, in the Newsletter. The large companies should be approached by two Board members. Jim offered to approach Seneca Falls, Dale - Cargill, John - AES, and Deb - Borg Warner. For individual members new letters for lapsed and non-members to be developed.We should send out a mailing to non-members in one zip code with weeds booklet or similar to recruit new members. Costs to be estimated for this mailing and if acceptable to Finance Committee then the mailing should be sent as trial to assess how effective it is in attracting new members and how cost effective.

Other Business: The future Board meetings for 2010 will be held at Wells except that the July meeting will again be a social event for Board and partners and the August meeting will be preceded by the Annual Meeting again as last year. Jim brought up concerns in Seneca Falls concerning a switch to chloromine for water treatment and the frequent violations of the sewage treatment works. There was discussion of the first issue from Amy and Deb and an offer to add them to our Park grant application if the community wanted help with either.

Reports - Questions and Updates:
Chair: No report
Watershed Steward: Report to be sent out
Committees:
Finance: No report
Community Relations: Sunset event to be held on Friday the 22 October 2010 at same location as last year. All other dates and other suitable locations were already booked. The same band has been hired but upstairs will be used this year for bar etc.
Issues: No meeting held
Program: Dale Baker has been appointed to chair this committee. He will hold a meeting soon.
Nominating: Nothing to report

Next meeting: May 11th, 7 pm at Wells College in Aurora

Hilary Lambert, Steward, Cayuga Lake Watershed Network