Board Meeting Minutes
Location: Denver, CO.
Regis University Library, Tracy Center
Date: October 5th, 2013
Time: 9:10 a.m. – noon
Attending – Crystal Strouse, Jan & Charlie Turner, Connie Gray, Bernadette Kuhn, Jeanne Willson, Jenny Neale, Brian Kurzel, Steve Popovich, Denise Wilson, Chris Prah, Betsy Bultema, with Ed Roland attending by phone.
Introductions/ Announcements – Meeting brought to order by President, Crystal Strouse with a Welcome to New Board Members. For this meeting for voting purposes, keep Board members until individual replacements are voted in. Jan, Jenny and Brian will stay on until replacements are found, as soon as possible. Three more Board members are needed to be recruited. Charlie Turner’s Board tenure is expired. Jenny is willing to stay on if voted in today.
Chapter Reports
Boulder Chapter – Chris Prah: new winter meeting room at Alfalfa’s at 7pm for Nov onward.
Metro Denver Chapter- Jeanne Willson: new meeting location, not Englewood Library. Various fieldtrips are scheduled; Castlewood Canyon tomorrow.
Northern Chapter – Connie Gray: meeting at Gardens at Spring Creek, now alternating with High Plains
Environmental Center for meetings; first meeting Thurs night. Speakers have been arranged and included in Aquilegia; they are getting more botanists and professionals to join.
Plateau Chapter – Dr. Stephen Stern – not attending
South East Chapter – Ed Roland: 9 fieldtrips; new program manager for next year. Doing classes with Extension Center in Pueblo; focus is on Plant Genetics Class and other classes
Gore Range Chapter – Nanette Kuich – not attending
Committee Reports
Conservation – Mo Ewing – not present; Report submitted to Denise and distributed, but tabled this until Mo is present
Education/Outreach – Jim Tolstrup – not present
Field Studies – Steve Popovich: 2013 Field Studies held were Coral Bluffs Alliance and Steve Olson fieldtrips; nothing planned for this season; struggle for leaders; goal 2-3 geospatially placed field studies projects for 2014
Horticulture/Restoration – Megan Bowes; Connie Gray filling in for Megan: Working on getting garden centers to sell native plants; Bath Garden Center and Nursery has a great native plant list; intervening with list of criteria offering CO natives labeled correctly;
acknowledge noxious weeds list and not sell these plants.
Media – Jan Turner: Fall issue recently with good feedback of color and content. The winter issue deadline is Oct 15th coming out sometime in mid-late November; good research article on Pinyon Pines; Amy Yaeger and Ed Gilbert on SEINet. Setting up the newsletter with multiples of 4 pages is tricky; last issue more expensive with 32 pages.
Membership – Linda Smith – not present
Research Grants – Jan Turner: has asked Catherine Kleier to take over as Chair and she agreed. Call for proposals deadline Feb 15th 2014.
Sales – Linda Smith – not present
Workshops – Linda Hellow – not present
Financial – Mo Ewing, not present: three reports were submitted to and distributed by Denise Wilson, who read the Financial Committee Report dated Oct 5, 2013. This report explained the Sept 15th cut-off date and items which were significantly higher or lower than in the original budget. On income items, Donations and Membership Dues were higher than expected. On expense items, Board of Directors fund higher due to recognition awards; Media higher due to five editions this year- Jan Turner said six editions by the end of the year. Workshops expenses are over budget because fees (income) for these workshops were recorded in 2012. Other reports distributed were the Balance sheet dated Sept 15, 2013, and Budget to Actual dated Sept 15, 2013.
Old Business
a) How members feel about conservation and CoNPS role – Brian Kurzel: he is out-going and no longer on the Board; wants a consensus from the ongoing Board that if this goes through we may change some activities. Who will take on responsibility from here; Brian will find some candidates, and Survey Monkey will be used to expedite the process. Brian will chair a temporary committee, Conservation Committee is logical and Mo can lead the discussion from here onward. Motion given to pursue survey on conservation by Connie, Bernadette seconded, 10 voted in favor of continuing. Right now focus is on education, and do we want to shift focus with more conservation and advocacy, and Brian presented this at the Annual Meeting. There was not time for a forum, but Brian wanted to inform members that they will have a say in this issue via the survey. Cannot assume every member has read the article in Aquilegia. Content of survey: define stewardship and advocacy; open to changes of wording; how satisfied are people with where we are and how committed are they in conservation; worried about shifting focus; and what are members willing to do to contribute. Bernadette says intro long; one paragraph and a link to the Article so folks can proceed immediately to survey. Ed wants to see explanation of what is happening in development in the state that justifies our concerns. Crystal says it is appropriate to have a folder that folks can access to be fully educated before they take the survey. Brian says there is a fine line between educating and leading them to answers. Ed says education will not be impacted – take this out of the survey, but a few people agreed that we need to see that this is what the membership wants. Jenny thinks we will need more resources; Brian agrees. Ed uses example of Audubon Society with a balanced approach. Hard for effort to be sustained without a paid position, so do we have the capacity to not take away from education, but get funds for a coordinator. Ed says there is a need for seed money to get something accomplished, and there is a void to fill at the state level. Ed says rework the questions so they are not leading, Example: “How would it change my activity”; and then list a range, and take out dichotomy. Send comments to Brian by Wednesday, he will make a revised survey and send it to Board, and Board will vote on survey to be sent to members. Survey should be emailed with Survey Monkey, or sent in a hard copy. Crystal: lets wrap up the survey and concern ourselves with funding afterward; get survey out in early November. Jeanne, “Have we considered membership levels?” Coordination with other groups such as Environment Colorado, VOC and WRV were suggested because they are established in the business of stewardship and advocacy. Bernadette: what about 5 questions and a focus on either stewardship or advocacy; Connie and Charlie both agree. Charlie was referring to the hiring of a “conservation coordinator” or whatever the title would be and use some of the funds that CoNPs has accumulated; that is he proposed freeing up some of the “mission grant” money on the balance sheet for this purpose (or present a “grant” to ourselves if the fund is somehow restricted). Ed points out that new members will be added because of our work, and he wants to convey a sense of urgency.
b) Collection ethic changes to bylaws – Steve, “Lets move forward by voting and passing it, and then get the training developed.” Then he went over Megan’s written comments; Steve’s suggestions: will add “and seeds” where appropriate; this is not a white paper, and these are ethics, not guidelines for activities; it’s not our function to tell them how. #5) “always …. preparing herbarium specimen with proper labeling.” USFS modifies Seeds of Success protocol when issuing permits. Ed thinks it should be online, and how do we certify it? Crystal went through each of Megan’s points, 1) keeping “ethics”, 2) not subheadings, 3) adding seeds and propagules, 4) make this document public when module is done, 5) see Steve’s insertion for #5 above; all with a form of certification included. Motion by Jenny, Jan seconded it, “In favor of wording.” Vote passed unanimously. Plant Collection Ethics policy would actually not take effect, or be disseminated to the membership, until after the training module was up and running. The Plant Collection Ethics policy would actually not take effect, or be disseminated to the membership, until after the training module was up and running. Include deed of transfer document by herbaria in the training. The final document is added to the minutes as an addendum.
c) Adopt a Rare Plant funding for data entry (need to vote on this) – Jenny or Bernadette. Bernadette: CNHP, CoNPS, DBG sponsored Adopt a Rare Plant Program which has 60 volunteers trained who gave back a lot of data, and help is needed to input this data. Denise “is this to be considered before or after Mission Grant?” Charlie, “what about the $36,000 in unrestricted funds?” Crystal: we will table until Mo, the Treasurer, can be part of the discussion.
New Business
a) Wrap up from 2013 meeting- how did it go? –Boulder Chapter. Megan Bowes and Mo Ewing to update annual meeting planning manual. Bernadette very happy with results. Chris Prah updating of manual with roles and responsibilities; plan if things fall through; donation solicitation, and thank you letter will be added to the notebook for future Annual Meeting Planning. Chris gave Dave Buckner his award at a field trip. Megan may have some more comments about what worked well and what can be improved. Steve gave report on Rare Plant Symposium, awards to Weber, Wittmann, and a big thanks to Steve for ten years of organizing and moderating.
a) 2014 Annual Meeting – who’s next – Crystal: Gore Chapter; they are not on the phone today.
b) Vote on New President- Crystal and Bernadette: nominated Charlie as President; motion by Bernadette, Connie seconded; voted unanimously in favor.
c) New website- Crystal: Crystal and Aaron will be creating a new website with easier ability to update; it is being designed with Yongli Zhou and should be up by 2014. Chapters, Chairs could update their own sections. Ed: training modules should include EOR’s.
d) Mission Grant – Crystal: waiting for Mo’s participation; Crystal passes this responsibility to Charlie.
e) Repository – Jan: complete collection of Aquilegia since 1976 is accessible.
f) Letters requesting Mt. Evans fund donations from general membership – Mo Ewing; tabled until Mo can participate.
g) Tattered Cover – Jeanette or Linda not present; tabled
h) Reminder to turn in plant lists from field trips – Jan: please turn in a plant list from leadership of fieldtrips to Betsy; she is willing to consolidate lists so that there is one plant list for each site. Jenny says SEINet is an existing tool for plant lists of herbaria specimens. Linda Smith and Yongli Zhou interested in photo repository. CoNPS has a Facebook page; Jennifer Ackerfield interested and will be approached by Jan. Facebook could be used more; Carol English was running announcements but we need a new Facebook manager. Bernadette suggested Flickr for photos, for different levels of copyright and will get help from Betsy. Steve brought up issue of rare plants’ locations being disclosed; needs a quality control process.
i) What are Chapters doing for advertisements- Jan: Ed’s Chapter in newspaper, Garden Centers and tables at events; email includes Master Gardeners. Connie does this also. Jeanne uses CO Mountain Club.
j) Colorado Get Outdoors – Crystal: we can post workshops and field trips here. Bernadette will ask Jim to get us up on this website; motion Connie, Betsy seconded, and passed unanimously.
k) Vote on last meeting’s minutes – Steve: Correction, the Ethics document was not passed. Tabled 30 minute training on Ethics at Annual Meeting. Motion to pass Jan, Bernadette seconded, passed.
l) Denise having a problem with Sent email errors on these servers: Mo with qcom,
Jeanne with Centurylink, and Megan with City of Boulder. Denise will work with
each individual to find solutions to email communication issues.
m) Date of next Board Meeting is Nov 2nd.
n) Thank you by and for Crystal Strouse and she adjourned at 11:55am.