Narragansett Chapter Board Meeting
January 10, 2017
235 Promenade St., Providence, RI

Call to Order - 6:00

Attendance: Russ Miller, Mike Krabach, Debra Huntington, Chris Shafer, Gregg O’Brien, Matt Putman, Linda Pease, Barbara Flagg, Ed Poyer

Business Meeting Russ welcomed the new members and had everyone introduce themselves as this was the first board meeting with the new members.

Proposed Rail Line Straightening Russ discussed the proposal to straighten the Amtrak route which would cut through Carter Preserve, Grills Preserve and Great Swamp. Ed gave background on the proposal and commented that there has not been or he is not aware of an environmental review of the project. Ed also commented that he understands that DEM knew about this and is disturbed by the lack of transparency to the public on the project.

After much discussion, it was decided that Linda will draft a letter voicing our concerns with the proposed project. She will send it to Susan Arnold at Joy St. and let her know if she doesn't hear back by mid-January, we will forward it to Jack Reed's office and NEC Future. NEC FUTURE. US DOT FRA, 1 Bowling Green, Suite 429, New York , New York. 10004. She will also ask to be included in any further correspondence. The reason for going through Joy St is that the chapters are to remain non-political and this may be treading over the line.

Coventry Land Grant and Trails Committee - The trails committee is building a bridge and have a grant for the construction. The grant will not come in until project completion. The Coventry Land trails committee has asked if we could lend them the money, $2,700, so that they can start the project. They expect to repay by summer 2017. It was voted and approved to lend them the money contingent on satisfactory documentation from Coventry.

Trails Committee Budget - The budget was passed out to the board and reviewed. Ed asked about the $525 for training and wondered if it would be better to include it as a separate line item. There was a discussion about the accounting of it.
Which lead to a discussion about WFA/CPR and whether Bob Tessitore is still certified as a CPR trainer.

Budget - Matt said he needs to get budgets from all the committees. He will send out last year's budgets to committee chairs for their review and updates Service Dog – Gregg told a story about being on a hike with another leader and someone had requested to bring a service dog. She had a question about the AMC policy involving service dogs and if leaders were aware of the policy. Noting that there two distinctions of service dogs: ADA and comfort dog.
She referred to the AMC leadership handbook.
The handbook states that there are two questions you can ask a participant who would like to bring a dog. This is taken from the AMC Leadership Handbook.
(1) Is the animal is required because of a disability?
(2) What work or task has the animal been trained to perform?
Ed proposed that he create an email to send to the committee chairs on this policy because it is not well-known.

Facebook - The discussion on Facebook was tabled to next month.

Webpage - Mike discussed that he intends to leave his role as webmaster as the website is transitioned to the new AMC site. He will have more information next month after the summit on the details of that transition. He is committed to stay on as webmaster through the transition. As of February 1st, he will change the links on our page to forward them to the outdoors.org.
He is asking people to send him suggestions on what they would like on the webpage.

Incentives for Leaders - Russ asked if the incentive program should continue. Chris commented it hasn't worked as well as hoped in getting new leaders to lead activities but he would like to continue it for next year.
Chris said he will contact the people (13) that qualify for the award to ask them if they want the benefit and ask what type of membership they have, and its expiration date. He will let the treasurer know and coordinate with the treasurer on getting the memberships paid. Gregg asked that they got the benefit in 2016 and lead the qualifying number of trips in 2017 would they get it again? Yes, they would. Gregg commented that we should be more specific on the dates that it covers.
It was voted on and approved to continue the incentive program for another year.

New Business

Spring Gathering - Gregg asked the board if it is worthwhile to continue having the spring event. The goal is to bring in new members and show newly minted members all they can do with the AMC. She commented that although valuable and fun it hasn't been as successful with bringing in new members as she had hoped. The board discussed it and the consensus is to have it again. She proposed having it at Warwick City Park. She asked whether it should be the Saturday before Memorial day. She will work on firming up dates.

New Leaders Meeting - Gregg would like to have a meeting of all leaders to brainstorm how to get new leaders and younger members. She will look at a Sunday in April being aware of WFA/CPR, Easter etc.

Motion to adjorn = Next meeting will be February 21st.