January 6, 2015, 6:30 PM, St. Croix Falls Library

Members Present: Kathy Fredrickson, Paul Fredrickson, Cindy Collins, Brian Collins, Angelique Edgerton, Michelle Carlisle, Chet Anderson, Katelin Holm, and (by phone) Steve Betchkal

Brian Collins signed paperwork making his office of Secretary official.

Some by-laws were re-worked:

The fiscal year, for purposes of 501c3 and National Audubon preferences, the fiscal year begins July 1.

Our annual meeting will now be called an “Annual Summit”.

Newsletter and Outreach

Robin and Brian will finalize the newsletter quickly, pending Brian’s finalization of the speaking location and time at UW-Stout. Currently, we are having little luck getting a return email or call...but UW-Stout is not in session yet. We will also want to add to the back-bottom of the membership form our list of upcoming events.

Chet shared with us some pricing and options from The Copy Shop in Saint Croix Falls. It is not much more expensive to print an inside leaf page. As we grow our newsletter, the price for 900 of them will only go up about $20 to have two 11 X 17 fold pages rather than placing a single 8 X 11 sheet.

What could we add…

  • A Martin Mart form coming from Steve Betchkal
  • A more detailed explanation of the Feb 22 Keynote Talk
  • Birds, Bugs and Blooms Bash Advertisement

The Copy Shop and Shipping and Handling prefer this work by email, so we can “deliver” as soon as the work is proofread and complete.

As our membership has greatly increased at the National level.This year, National Audubon credited us for $1427.25 current National members. We will be reaching out to nearly 200 recently expired National members as well in hopes of generating a large group of Local memberships. This is a worthwhile risk / investment.

We continue to look for officers to step up and hope to get some volunteers at the Annual Summit.

Steve discussed the importance of teaming up to phone call people, clean up our lists, and get more involvement from our membership. This is the best season to do so, the cold season of the year for “cold” calling.

Eventually we will want to publish more often and reach out to people more often with electronic newsletters, updates, and maybe even more printed material (?).

When we print newsletters, we should also be printing many, many extras to have them available at libraries, visitor centers, bird seed stores (hardware stores), etc.

Promotion of the Annual Summit will also require newspapers (news releases). Steve will contact the media people, Brian will write the press release and deliver it to Steve. Steve may also look into one source of television media (?). Steve cautioned that, unless you know someone at the paper, you never really know what you are going to get. Blanket email (swarming the info) everybody to try to get as many hits as you can. Not just newspapers! Also DNR offices, local bird clubs, libraries, Hunt Hill sanctuary, grassland action partnership, etc… People will pass things along word of mouth!

Business for the Annual Summit

The by-laws do mention that we need to have nominee names one month in advance of the annual meeting (annual summit).

Paul Fredrickson mentioned he would be willing to throw his name in for Treasurer.

We are still looking for at least one nominee for President.

We discussed the order of events for the Annual Summit.

It is commonly viewed as courtesy to guests and the keynote speaker to allow the speaker to go first.... We will follow this, as we have heard about this more than once as constructive criticism or strong advice from experienced people.

Order of events:

1PM -- President introduces Keynote Speaker;

2PM -- Questions

2 - 2:30 PM -- Break and Social

2:30 PM -- Business Meeting

--Welcome

--Treasurer’s Report

--Year’s accomplishments

--Looking forward: Summit Plan -- Steve will talk about Birds, Blooms and Bugs Bash

--Looking forward continued:

WBCI : March 2015

Welcome Back Bird Day: May 2015

Bird Hikes in May (May 16 and 17)

Martin Mart

Swift Night Out: August

Fall Warblers and Sparrows

CBC: Dec 2015

--Bylaws report and elections to make changes ; Verified by vote

--Officer Nominations for Treasurer and President

3:30 PM -- End of Meeting, Collect emails and phone numbers, etc…

What do we need to bring:

Shade Grown, Bird Friendly, Fair Trade -- Cameron Coffee, Farmer to Farmer Coffee

Scotcheroos

Brownies

Blueberry Sugar Crumble Bread

Brian will bring:

Speakers, Speaker Wire, PC Laptop, Charger, Back-up PC Laptop, Back-up Drive

Arrive by NOON

Brian will call UW-Stout to finalize plans and will inquire about:

--Parking

--Food and Hot Water for coffee

Birds Blooms and Bugs Bash (B-4) Event Discussion

We discussed the Birds, Blooms and Bugs Bash grant form, our organizational responsibility as a grant agent in this, and signed it… Kathy Fredrickson signed line 2, and Brian Collins Nina has put a tremendous amount of work and energy into the project and will succeed beyond the grant’s basic requirements. It sounds like a great opportunity and would likely be pursued or continued for multiple years.

We did have some concern over the Visit Eau Claire grant, as it is a reimbursement grant. For this we may not be able to find enough up-front funding. Being able to support the deliverables for this grant will be dependent upon some purchase sources being willing to give us an invoice instead of requiring payment.

We discussed that an event such as Birds, Blooms and Bugs Bash (B-4 from here on) should require payment. Payment gets people to commit, and overall participation will be better (not worse). Funds can be earmarked for the next year’s event. Generally, programs still in their birth year should charge less, as there is some uncertainty...but the keynote speakers, etc. can command the price. A good reference site would be the Ashland Birding Festival or the Chequamegon Bay Birding Festival. Perhaps, go ⅔ the price of Chequamegon Birding Festival. Keep prices similar from year to year. B-4 is a three-day event. People should pay accordingly (per day perhaps).

Cindy discussed current finances and suggested that we would need to pay another $100 to WAC for the loan they gave us. As of December 31, we had $3142.58 in the bank account.

Added Territories Map for the Website

We will soon have a map of the new territory of GNAS. Bill and Michelle are working on it currently. Michelle is currently working on the GIS but will also get a quick map from National Audubon’s contact, Rebecca.

Katelin wants to bring up on the next meeting agenda the possibility of Gaylord Nelson Audubon partnering as an umbrella for Saint Croix Valley Bird Club. They can use our 501c3 status for International Migratory Bird Day to get donations, etc… and we can use their events status in reporting our annual performance.

We will meet again on Monday, February 9, 6:30 PM, Saint Croix Falls Library

We adjourned…but will remain in contact via email! Cheers!