Washington Native Plant Society, Central Puget Sound Chapter
Regular Board MeetingMinutes
King County Library, Mercer Island– Meeting Room
February19, 2013
Action items
· The Board will switch credit card machine processing from Sage to NA Bancard as of May 1st.
· Rob will email a Treasurer’s report correction to Barbara.
· Rachael will schedule field trips for the week (weekends) of NPAW.
· Ted will forward the February action items to the Board.
· Ted will forward the February minutes to the Board.
Meeting was called to order at 6:00 pm
Board Members present were: Rob Smith: Chair, Cynthia Spurgeon: Vice-Chair, Ted Couillard: Secretary, Marcia Rivers-Smith: At Large Chair, Deb Gurney: Education Chair, Gary Smith: Stewardship Chair, Rita Moore: Plant Sale Chair, Becky Chaney: Field Trips Co-chair, Conservation, Tom Johnson: Nursery Chair, Rachael Mensching: Field Trips Co-chair.
Also present were: Barbara Harrell, Office and Program Assistant
MINUTES and TREASURER’S REPORT:
January minutes review and approval: The January minutes were sent to the Board by email. Board members emailed their corrections, and the corrected minutes were sent back to the Board. Gary makes a motion to accept the minutes as corrected. Rita seconds. The January minutes will be recorded.
Treasurer's Report: The Treasurer’s report was submitted by email to the Board. There is one correction that Rob will email to Barbara. Other issues:
· Membership dues collected at Plant Sales have been reported as an expense. Rob has rectified this problem.
· Search for Treasurer: Sue Summers has still not been able to come to a Board Meeting to test her interest. She may be able to come to the March meeting.
OLD BUSINESS/ACTION ITEMS:
Approval of change in credit card processor:
Comparison chart shows that NA Bancard is a better deal. Another advantage of NA Bancard is that they approve transactions on the front end, so we shouldn't lose money on rejection transactions as we have with Sage’s backend processing.
Proposal: We terminate the Sage contract and have NA Bancard in place for the May 11th plant sale. NA Bancard will give a rebate based on volume of sales in the first month of contract, so there is an advantage to starting in May. Rita makes a motion to switch credit card machine processing from Sage to NA Bancard as of May 1st. Tom seconds. Motion passed.
NEW BUSINESS:
Conservation Committee Guidelines:
Becky hands out copies of the proposed changes to the Conservation Committee guidelines regarding advocacy. This will assist the Conservation Committee in responding to issues in a timely manner. The Conservation Committee and other Board members have added their comments for this final draft. Discussion:
· Guidelines seem to apply to more than just urban forests. Urban community ecosystems may be a more appropriate title.
· How will these guidelines be applied? The Committee would employ the guidelines to formulate advocacy statements to be made on behalf of WNPS CPS. State WNPS will discuss this review process at the next State Board meeting.
· Following these guidelines, the Conservation Committee would go direct to the State Executive Committee for review.
· Adding line numbers would aid referencing.
Rita makes a motion to approve the Committee guidelines as modified. Deb seconds. Motion approved.
NPAW:
· Cindy has been discussing garden tours with Rita.
· NPAW will be the week of April 22 through May 4.
· The speaker is booked for the chapter meeting.
· Rachael will target that time period for potential field trips.
· Events both Eastside and Westside would be ideal.
· Press releases: we typically do releases in the newspaper. Should we add Facebook and Twitter? There is a press binder in the CPS office for reference.
Book Sales: Rob obtained Board feedback by email regarding the future book sales model. Discussion:
· An Amazon partnership (Worldwide Web sales) would be relatively maintenance-free.
· Perhaps CPS could still have a selection of popular books for people to look at.
· CPS will need to sell existing inventory including nonbook items such as notecards.
· The Board will need to draft a job description for maintenance of web sales and book inventory (when we decide on a sales model).
· Web sales will likely be our model.
March meeting and location:
· Rob, Marcia and Becky will not be here.
· The Mercer Library appears to be a fairly neutral to the remaining Board members regarding distance.
· The Mercer Island Library will be the site of the next meeting, third Monday of the month.
NEW TOPICS, STATUS, CONCERNS:
Chair: Rob had nothing to add.
Secretary: Ted had nothing to add.
Treasurer: Vacant.
At-Large: Marcia had nothing to add.
Plant Sale: Rita still needs a site manager for the Spring Plant Sale.
Botanist: Nelson was not present.
Field Trips: Rachel is open to ideas for field trips or field trip leaders.
Education: The WNPS Booth was recently set up at the Flower and Garden show.
Staff: Barbara had nothing to add.
Nursery: Work parties have happened steadily and the weather has been cooperating. Nursery volunteers have working mainly with bare root material. Rotten wood chips in the nursery were recently hauled away by EarthCorps.
Conservation: The Conservation Committee recently supported the Mountain-to-Sound Greenway project. This project is currently looking for supporters to contact Federal Representatives to support the Greenway for national registration. The Conservation Committee is considering sending a letter of support.
Becky recently spoke with Sandra regarding the Seattle Tree Ordinance. Becky will keep the Conservation Committee in the loop.
Stewardship: Joy Wood has been selected as the next Stewardship Coordinator. Classes start April 19. Gary has implemented the recommendations for WNPS CPS tasks (potential Steward volunteer items). The Board can schedule a Board member to speak to the stewardship class at the next Board meeting.
Meeting adjourned at 7:42 pm.
______Chair Report (Rob Smith) ______
______Vice Chair Report (vacant) ______
______Past Chair Report (Brianne Zorn)______
______Treasurer Report (Clara Burnett and Linda Ellis) ______
______Education Chair Report (Jim Branson) ______
______Stewardship Report (Gary Smith) ______
StewardshipProgram – February 2013
Joy Wood Selected as the 2013 Native Plant Stewardship Coordinator
Joy Wood has been selected as the Stewardship Program Coordinator for the 2013 training program. She was among three candidates interviewed from 10 applications received. Joy graduated in the 2007 WNPS Native Plant Stewardship class and went on to the University of Washington’s School Of Forests Resources to complete a Master of Science Degree with emphasis in restoration ecology. She also holds a Certificate of Restoration Ecology from UW and has work experience with Forterra, The Nature Conservancy and People for Puget Sound. Currently Joy works part-time as an independent analyst for the Green Seattle Partnership (GSP) analyzing restoration monitoring data collected by Forest Stewards for sites throughout Seattle Parks.
In her position as Stewardship Coordinator, Joy will arrange and facilitate the 10-week/100 hour classroom and field training beginning April 19th. The training will include opportunities for GSP Forest Stewards to attend selected classes to receive advanced training in urban forest restoration. Following the class graduation, Joy will oversee the completion of six steward team projects in Seattle Parks through June 30, 2014 where stewards assigned to team projects commit 75 hours each to their team project. During this period, Joy also will be overseeing individual stewards completing their 25 hour volunteer commitment to the Central Puget Sound Chapter activities and events. Funding for this 23rd stewardship class is provided by Seattle Parks including a grant from the King Conservation District and support from the Chapter.
______At Large Report (Marcia Rivers Smith) ______
______Fundraising Chair Report (vacant) ______
______At Large Chair Vacancies ______
______Field Trip Report (Becky Chaney and Rachael Mensching) ______
______Program Chair Report (Franja Bryant) ______
______Conservation Chair Report (Becky Chaney) ______
February 18, 2013
Conservation Report
Conservation Chair: Becky Chaney
Committee Members: Franja Bryant, Gary Smith, Sam Israel, Janna Treissman
Committee Advisors: Janet Heubach, Janet Wall
New Members and Advisors
No new members this month
Meetings
The Conservation Committee has worked via email on preparing Urban Forestry Guidelines. A draft is ready for review by the CPS board at their February meeting.
Issues
American Alps Legacy Project (s): Listed as supporter
· No news to report
http://www.americanalps.org/index.htm
Mountains to Sound Greenway (c): Listed as supporter
· Calls/emails of support to Senators Cantwell and Murray, Representatives (DelBene), Reichert and Smith currently requested
http://mtsgreenway.org/heritage/contact-congress
Seattle Issues Update
· The Shoreline Master Program: adopted by the Seattle City Council; waiting review by ECY
· Revised Urban Forestry Stewardship Plan: provisional approval on February 13, 2013 by the Seattle Tree Commission; final approval anticipated in time for Earth Day (April 22, 2013)
· Tree regulation ordinance: a third proposal is expected mid-year 2013 with work commencing after the update of the Urban Forest Stewardship Plan
http://www.seattle.gov/dpd/Planning/SeattlesTreeRegulationUpdate/Overview/default.asp
http://www.seattle.gov/urbanforestrycommission/
CPS Board Action
The Conservation Committee will request the board to consider approval of the Urban Forest Guidelines at the February meeting. The purpose of the guidelines is to ensure that conservation issues are addressed consistently, thoroughly, and within workable timeframes.
______Nursery Program Report (Tom Johnson) ______
______Publicity Report (vacant) ______
______Plant Sale Committee Report (Rita Moore) ______
Plant Sale Meeting - Feb 6, 2013
Early this week 23 email invitation were sent out to other environmental organizations asking them to participate in our spring sale. The committee suggested local tribes and Urban Pollinators. Those invitations have also been sent.
Martha mailed flyers and information on the sale to organizations to post in their newsletters.
Rick has agreed to make the arrangements with the tree farm people to use their space for the fall sale. We will not be printing yard signs, we don't have the money in the budget. (PROMOTE signs - 12-18 signs, 18x24 1 color $3.02 double sided on corrugated plastic and $.75 per stake).
Rick also presented a mockup of the seed kit we plan to have for sale as part of the seed propagation educational program.
I bought an experimental ad from our Facebook page to see what kind of responses we get. (I will donate the cost of the experiment, $15)
Each plant sale member will review the area they are familiar with to reduce the number of places we have posted flyers in the past.
The committee saw a full sized draft of the sandwich board. We agreed to print 6 black and white signs that will go on 3 sandwich boards, which will go up a week or two before the sale in Mercer Island at:
• Island Crest and 40th
• Island rest and 68th
• East Mercer Way and I90
More talk about tables. We figure we need about 1000 sqft of table surface for the spring sale.
Tom Bowden's name was suggested as a possible site. Does anyone have his email of phone number? It is critical to fill the site manager and sign manager positions for the sale now.
We have a signed contract with Farmer's insurance to park 100 cars in their parking structure on the day of the sale.
Mercer Island has not yet given me formal approval but they said we can go ahead and advertise. I will bug the city to get formal approval.
I need to contact the church across the street for parking for volunteers on Friday and possibly using some of their space to count money.
We printed 4,000 plant sale flyers.
Rita will ask Catherine to get the agricultural permit.
______Staff Report (Barbara Harrell) ______
2/19/13 1 WNPS CPS Board Minutes