Those in attendance: MC Edwards, R. Rada, A. Rebelowski, R. Robinson, C. Thompson, D. Trudeau, J. Winslow
Excused Absences: B. Ballard, Carole Leininger
Guests attending: B. Edwards, Phil Paquette, Bud Larsen
Action
Items:
1)
Debby to work
with Chairman Robinson on the 2006 Budget for presentation at 3/2 Board meeting.
2)
We still need to
find a volunteer to be a Trustee to the Manchester Foundation.
3)
Carol Kowalski to
find a leader for the Recreational Venues action group.
4)
Bob Edwards to
prepare a proposal to handle approval on routine financial disbursement
approval, for review by the membership.
5)
Phil Paquette to
discuss hosting of a spring Clean-up event with the MCA.
6)
Ron Rada to
invite Fire Chief Senter to speak at the 2/28 general meeting.
7)
John to assemble
a list of Ex. Bd. Member contact information for the Board members.
8)
Ron Robinson to
schedule a strategic planning session for the Board.
Minutes:
The meeting was called to order by Secretary, John Winslow at 6:45PM due to Chairman Robinson’s delayed arrival. Minutes of the previous meeting were approved as written.
Old Business:
Follow-up items from previous meeting:
In a review of action items from the past meeting, the following was reported:
1) John reported that several sub-committees had expressed interest in holding their meetings on the third Thursday of the month at the Library 6:30-8:30. For the time being, that will be the regular available meeting time for sub-committees. Any sub-committee chair may reserve the meeting room at a different time for their purposes, following the normal reservation procedure with the Library staff. As noted below, no payment will be required, but proper reservations are necessary.
2)
It has been
decided that the proper approach for pursuit of the 501(c)(3) tax exempt status
will be via the creation of a Manchester Foundation. Ron Rada is pursuing the details with our
attorney. He will bring the final
proposal to the full membership after our attorney has fully reviewed the
proposal and provided recommendations.
3)
John reported
that Carole Leininger has volunteered to take on the task of sending letters of
welcome to new members. Treasurer
Trudeau will send data on new members to both Carole and John.
TREASURER”S REPORT: Debby reported our current balance is $801.03
and 35 members have paid their 2006 annual dues. Disbursements for the past month were: $54 to
John for a meeting room reservation and photocopying for the past several
months, $100 donation to
Debby presented several proposed
budgets for 2006, depending on estimated membership; this will be firmed-up for
the 3/2 Board meeting.
Carrilu brought up the subject of
potential pro-rating of dues payment for members joining late in the year. It was decided that this should be brought to
the membership at the 2/28 meeting.
In further discussion on the
Manchester Foundation concept, Bud Larsen reported that he and Bob Edwards have
agreed to represent the Crime Prevention group to the Foundation. The MCC will be represented by Chair Robinson
and a yet to be selected volunteer from the membership.
New mail received included our first bank
statement from Washington Mutual.
Chairman Robinson arrived at the
meeting at 6:55 and took over leadership of the meeting.
SEWERS SUB-COMMITTEE REPORT: Ron Rada reported that the Public Works
Department is currently reviewing the group’s proposal for LID#9 to pursue a
newer technology approach to reduce the cost of the system. In summary, this approach would use small
pump/grinders, maintained by the County, which would eliminate the need for the
large pump station in the Haida area and allow smaller diameter pipes which
would not have to be buried deeply.
CRIME PREVENTION SUB-COMMITTEE REPORT: Bud Larsen reported the group continues to
meet weekly with frequent guest speakers.
They are planning to host a booth at the Salmon Bake (6/18) to emphasize
emergency preparedness. The group is
looking for volunteers and donors to help support this activity. It was agreed by the Board that emergency
preparedness would be a good topic for a future meeting of the general
membership.
ACTION GROUPS:
Partnership with
agencies: Debby said that
the next meeting has yet to be scheduled, but she would shoot for 2/16. In the near-term, the group will be focusing
on communicating with the
Recreational
Venues: John mentioned that
he had discussed this group with Carol Kowalski and that she is pursuing a
leader for this group from amongst those who had expressed interest.
Village Commons: John reported that the group has met three
times since early December to begin planning for a community center/library. The group will next meet on 2/11. Efforts are focused on land availability/sighting,
design definition, communications, and fund raising.
Arlene Rebelowski reported on the web-site. She is currently developing a replacement for
the current site using the new software and expects the new site to be up and
running in about a month. Also, Arlene
reported on activity on the site.
Individual page “hits” were running in the range of hundreds to
thousands per month, with total “hits’ at about 8,000 per month. This was encouraging to all!
New Business:
In our current mode of operation, we are
taking all financial disbursements to the full membership for approval; this
was agreed to be unwieldy. Bob Edwards
agreed to bring a proposal to the membership to improve this process.
John reported that he discussed the
issue of room rental rates with the Friends of the Library (income recipients
of room rentals). They approved a
proposal that the MCC would pay an annual fee of $500 for use of the meeting room
in the Library. This will include regular
monthly meetings, Ex. Bd. Meetings, and meetings of the sub-committees. The rooms may only be reserved by the MCC
officers and the chairs of the action groups.
Reservations must be made in advance with the Library staff, and no
special priority will be given to the MCC groups. Final approval of payment is pending approval
of our membership.
Bob Edwards discussed his efforts on
creating a brief summary of parliamentary procedures to be followed by the
MCC. Bob will send the final draft to
all Executive Board members. Copies will
be available at the 2/28 meeting where the proposal will be presented to the
membership. In discussing this, Bob also
suggested that we may want to re-consider the Bylaws item on Quorums; this
could be problematic at any regular meeting following a meeting with massive
attendance such as our 8/05 meeting.
John mentioned that he will modify future minutes to include total
attendance and member attendance.
John Winslow brought up the issue of
planning for a spring Clean-up day. The
County is reluctant to hold another used paint collection locally, since the
event held on Bainbridge cost about $30,000 to conduct. The roadside litter collection was very
successful and needs to be continued; the County provides considerable help in
accomplishing this. In discussion, it
was agreed that the Clean-up should be a MCA hosted activity with volunteer
help from all the other local organizations.
Phil Paquette agreed to bring this to the MCA for consideration.
Ron Rada reported on his suggestion
of establishing a new Manchester Postal Zone which would allow mailing to
We next discussed potential future
speakers for our regular meetings. It
was agreed that we should invite Fire Chief Wayne Senter to discuss the 5/16
Levy lid lift measure. He will be
invited to speak at our 2/28 meeting by Ron Rada, who will suggest a 20-30
minute discussion (including Q and A time).
Carrilu asked if the Executive Board
members could have a sheet with contact information for all other EBd
members. John agreed to do this.
Arlene requested that John send her
the link to the Manchester Plan for inclusion on the web-site; which he did
after the meeting.
At the request of Chairman Robinson,
John prepared a list of MCC accomplishments toward the goals of the Manchester
Community Plan. This was reviewed with a
few suggestions on expanding the accomplishments, which John completed
subsequent to the meeting.
Chairman Robinson suggested that the
Board should hold another strategic planning meeting to refine our planning for
our efforts in 2006. A date was
proposed, but subsequent to the meeting, scheduling conflicts developed, so the
actual date is unresolved at this point.
Chair Robinson to pursue this.
There being no further business, Chairman Robinson adjourned the meeting at 8:06 PM.
Future meetings:
Our next regular meeting will be Tuesday February
28th at 6:30-8:30PM in the Manchester Library and the next Executive Board
meeting will be Thursday March 2nd at 6:30PM in the Library. The Board Retreat will be scheduled in the
near future.
Respectfully
submitted,
John
Winslow, Secretary-Manchester Community Council