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Native Plant Society

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August 8, 2015 CoNPS Board Meeting Minutes

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Colorado Native Plant Society
Board Meeting Minutes

Location: Denver, CO
Regis University Library, Tracy Center
3333 Regis Blvd. (corner Regis Blvd. & Lowell Blvd.)
August 8, 2015
9:30 a.m. – 12:30 p.m.

Call to Order (Charlie Turner) at 9:47 am. We had some trouble with the phone-in system.

Present – Charlie & Jan Turner, Jen Bousselot, Lenore Mitchell, Barbara Fahey, Nanette Kuich, Jack & Martha Carter, Jenny Neale, Jim Tolstrup, Sara Copp, Mo Ewing, Jessica Smith, Irene Shonle, Richard Bunn, Ronda Koski, & Denise Wilson

By Phone: Linda Smith, Stephen Stern, and Samantha Clark

Announcements

  1. Introduced Jack & Martha Carter, who have moved back to the Denver area.
  2. Introduced Jen Bousselot who is our new Membership & Marketing Coordinator and Robert Bunn, SE Chapter President.
  3. The deadline for Colorado Garden Foundation Grant is August 30; http://coloradogardenfoundation.org/grants
  4. Survey/evaluation after the Annual Conference to see what worked and what did not
  5. Board member, Betsy Bultema, resigned because she is taking an out-of-state job.

Business Requiring a Vote

  1. Formalize our Collaboration between CoNPS and Plant Master® Program with proposal (See attached) (VOTE) (Barbara Fahey)
    1. Market each other through website, brochures (they mail our brochures), course descriptions, and course announcements.
    2. New Student membership rate $17.
    3. Encourage students to get books at our bookstore (Mo reported that we undercut Amazon 90% of the time.
    4. Free workshop space (for the time being) at the CSU Extension Natural Resources Building in Longmont.
    5. NPM is co-sponsoring Annual Meeting for $100 & donating a NPM $90 course.
    6. Jan made a motion, Jessica 2nd, for mentioning NPM partnership on our website. This will be a “Partners” tab under “About Us” – Motion Passed.
    7. Jim made a motion, Jan 2nd, that this reworded proposal will be voted on as a MOU at the next board meeting – Motion Passed.
  1. High Plains Environmental Center Letter of Support (VOTE) (Jim Tolstrup)
    1. High Plains Environmental Center presented a PP and is:
      1. Seeking public funding to build a visitor center focusing primarily on native plants and habitat conservation.
      2. HPEC is seeking a letter of support from CoNPS highlighting the value of the HPEC planned visitor center; to include demonstration gardens, wetlands, propagation facilities, classroom and meeting space, as well as related programming. The HPEC facility will be offered as a meeting space for organizations with related programs such as Colorado Native Plant Society and CSU Native Plant Master Program. The facility will also function as both a meeting space and a facility for native seed cleaning, storage and propagation for the Southern Rockies Seed Network.
      3. Jim made a motion to get a CoNPS letter of support, Charlie 2nd – Motion Passed.
    2. See attached plan
  1. Awards at Annual Conference (VOTE) (Jan Turner)
    1. Vickey Trammell and Jack & Martha Carter were voted on from last year; they will receive their awards at this year’s Annual Conference.
    2. Dave Anderson from the Colorado Natural Heritage Program sent in an email nominating Jill Handwerk; we need to vote on his proposal and, if passed, decide whether Jill should receive the award this year or next year. Mo moved we give her the award next year, Irene 2nd, because we don’t want to dilute importance – Motion Passed.
    3. Jennifer Ackerfield will be acknowledged on the publication of her Colorado Flora.
  1. Donation to Southern Rockies Seed Exchange (VOTE) (Denise Wilson)
    1. The Southern Rockies Seed Network is holding their Annual Seminar and Meeting on Dec 3rd.  This will be a day- long event held at the Loveland Ranch with a keynoter and speakers in the morning, lunch on your own, and partner and board meetings in the afternoon.  They are looking for sponsors, and are requesting $50-$250.
    2. Can CoNPS sponsor this event? Denise moved CoNPS donate $100 to co-sponsor this event; tabled until after Financial Report, presented below. Sara Copp amended motion to $50, Jan 2nd – Motion Passed.
  1. Field Trip Waiver Form (VOTE) Proposal to add two new statements: 7 & 8. (See Attached Wavier Form) (Charlie Turner)
    1. Comments – Charlie we should have proof that the person signed off. Nan said they are not likely to sign. Jim said let’s talk to insurance company so we get the wording correct. Charlie will follow-up with insurance comepnay.
  1. Proposal to form a Field Trip Standardization Committee (VOTE) ( Charlie Turner)
    1. Charlie would volunteer to be Chairperson of the committee unless someone else would like to chair it.
    2. A Plug-in program for the website was reviewed by Mo & Charlie such that when a person signs up for the field-trip, the attendee acknowledges that CoNPS is not liable; can sign-up as member or non-member; it will look-up whether or not person is already a member; blind copy; ties to workshops; overall more complete options.
    3. Charlie moved formation of this committee, Irene 2nd – Motion Passed.
    4. See Attachment for draft thoughts for the standardization.
    5. Erica Cooper has prepared a checklist for field trip leaders.

Business Not Requiring a Vote

  1. Finance Report (See attachments) – (Mo Ewing) CoNPS is on track to lose $2500 this year. Several expense line items are over budget, with some of them due to the timing of payments. Mo advised caution in spending for the last 6 months of the year.
  1. CoNPS Membership & Marketing Coordinator – PP presentation given by Jen Bousselot.
    1. Idea presented for CoNPS to play a sub-contractor role in developing and implementing competitive bids for individual landscaping projects using native plants. Request for Jen to bring back a written skeleton proposal to the Board of what the job looks like and how Jen would work and get paid, especially in addition to the expected goals of Membership & Marketing. General feeling within Board was that jumping on a current opportunity on a one-time basis would serve to give us a better vision of how this activity functions. It was pointed out that several native plant non-profits make $60,000 – $100,000 on their annual plant sales, and that could be an on-going source of revenue to fund this position into the future.
    2. Marketing – Annual Meeting is a main focus now.
    3. Coordinating Members & Volunteers through CoNPS E-News to maintain engagement through MailChimp for up to 2000 email addresses for free. It gives analytics, manages subscribers and archives. CoNPS must have one coordinated source for emails outreach.
  2. Update on Canopy (Sara Copp) The canopy has not yet been purchased.
  1. Update on Annual Conference (Jan Turner, Jessica Smith, Lenore Mitchell, Jen Bousselot, Linda Smith) Registrations of 36 reported by Linda, and we have already made back the expected expenses. Each board member took 2 brochures to post.

The meeting adjourned at 12:24pm.

These items were included in the tentative agenda, and are treated as announcements here:

  1. Report on MeetUp (Lenore Mitchell, Samantha Smith)
  1. Request from Friends of Red Rocks for Weed Crew with Knowledgeable Leader (Jan Turner)
    1. There is a new garden in front of the Trading Post
    2. Need weed team but it is important to have a trainer who can distinguish native plants from weeds. Maybe Jen could get weed pulling volunteers from a company. We will also need an expert
  1. Update on Workshops & Signs (Ronda Koski)
  1. Black Forest/Pineries Open Space Update – Field Studies Committee (Steve Olson)
  1. Wildflower Hikes Book (Jan Turner)
    1. Request by Chris Kassler to ask members for suggestions of wildflower hikes for the planned Falcon Guide, Colorado’s Best Wildflower Hikes – Jan Turner
    2. Do we want to post her request to ask members to suggest good wildflower hikes?
    3. Concern about hiking areas that are not already overrun
    4. Pam Irwin’s books will not be reprinted; we sell her book through bookstore
  1. Sensitive Field Trip Information on SEInet ( Linda Smith)
    1. Concern by Judy King about plant poachers finding information about cacti and desirable medicinal herbs from the plant lists from field trips on SEINet
    2. Linda Smith said she can make records of rare plants and others invisible to public
  1. New Chapter Presidents – (Charlie Turner)
    1. Who is responsible for finding new chapter presidents?
  1. Native Plant Conservation Campaign http://www.plantsocieties.org/ See attachments – (Jan Turner)
  1. Chapter Presidents – State of the Chapters Reports (if anything to report)
    1. Boulder Chapter (Erica Cooper)
    2. Gore Range Chapter (Nannette Kuich)
    3. Metro-Denver Chapter (Samantha Clark)
    4. Northern Chapter (Ronda Koski)
    5. Plateau Chapter (Stephen Stern)
    6. Southeast Chapter (Richard Bunn)
  1. Committee Reports – These reports were treated as attached documents to be read independently:
    1. Media Committee Report
    2. Education & Outreach Committee
    3. Conservation Committee

OTHER BUSINESS

Next Board Meetings:

October 24, 2015

December 5, 2015