Narragansett Chapter Board Meeting

June 9, 2015

235 Promenade St. Providence, RI

Call to Order – 6:00

Attendance: Bob Tessitore, Mike Krabach, Debra Huntington, Chris Shafer, Gregg O’Brien, Russ Miller, Linda Pease, Dav Cramer, Bill Rafferty

Business Meeting

Minutes - Chris commented on that the ‘shed’ should read ‘shelter’ in the trails report. Minutes were approved and passed as amended.

Treasurer’s Report – Bill distributed the treasurer report. There were a few questions and some concerns regarding the membership budget. Bill pointed out that there is money in the budget to rebuild the membership budget. The budget was approved and passed as amended.

Chapter Chair Report – Bob thanked Gregg and everyone who put together the membership event. There was a meeting on the fall gathering. Bob mentioned that another individual has approached him to be part of the committee. There will be a 2^nd meeting on July 21^st. They are ahead of the Joy St. project calendar, he is still working on getting in touch with Alton Jones to setup a onsite meeting.

Bob also mentioned the chapter fall festival at Cardigan Lodge, October 2-4. He explained that in years past he had participants book their room directly through the Lodge. He would like to have the chapter collect the money so that we can control the costs and use the funds to pay for the band, pumpkins etc. He asked if it was possible to setup a PayPal account. There was a discussion regarding setting up an account and how it would be implemented. Mike volunteered to look into setting up an accoun

Vice Chair Report - Russ reported that he is working with the Vet’s and Pets program. He would like to have training hikes for the Veterans. Bob suggested that they speak with Joy St. on any legal ramifications. There was a suggestion that he could contact the local hike leaders to get co-leaders. He will be meeting with the Pets and Vets group later this week and will discuss expanding it to include hiking and Veterans without dogs.

New Business

Linda reported that she sent a thank you note to her boss for donating the paper goods. She created a letter-head, she will send it to Debra H.

Committee Reports

Communication: Mike reported that there hasn’t been any updates on the outdoors.org website. The Connecticut chapter will be the first to join the outdoors.org site. Other chapters are waiting to see how their transaction goes. Bob asked if there would ever be a time when we have to make a decision to join. Mike explained that not in the foreseeable future. The overall objective is to have redundancy in the webmasters as well as to maintain similar branding between chapters.

Conservation: Linda reported that she is working with Anne Piascik to schedule a conservation event at the end of October. It will be on tree farming.

Membership: Gregg reported that we are up another 15 members. The recent event had 46 members, 10 non-members and 7 people who came in late. Total $166.95 ($116 for ice cream truck) Food was excellent and activities were well received. Thoughts for next year will be to hold it on the West Bay and perhaps the year after that on Colt State park or a similar item.

Gregg had to leave but there was a discussion on how to encourage new members. Mike brought up that we should have more events on Meetup because that is where people are looking.

Trails: Chris reported that they had a successful event on National Trails days. They did two days of trails work June 6-7. They got quite a bit done in the Arcadia and Ell Pond area trails. They also worked with people that may become leaders. There is also plans to have a work day in July on the Wood River Bridge project. It will be unloading materials from the delivery truck.

Another project is the shelter on project on Ben Udder trail, near Step Stone trail. They will also have a trails recognition event in the fall, the event will be November 13.

Other Business

Russ discussed ideas he has for a speaker at the annual meeting. He also asked Bob for contact information. Bob read an email from Ed, on a suggested speaker. Bob will send the email.

Adjourn 7:15