November Board Minutes

Board of Directors Meeting
Friends of Lake Norman State Park held at Visitor’s Center Tuesday, November 5, 2019
President Michael Polzin called the meeting to order at 6:06 p.m. Those in attendance and constituting a quorum were:
Present: Michael Polzin, Ashley Thompson, Kathie Kemp, James Pogue, Sheila Riddell, Jenni Wyatt, Vicki Taylor, Shannon Johnson, Katie Wurtz, ex-Officio Greg Schneider, and Ranger Chase Bennett.
Absent: Debbie Page. Visitors: None.
Current Business:
Meeting Minutes of September 17, 2019 were approved by President Michael Polzin and approved unanimously by all other board members.

• Shannon and Greg Johnson took the scrap metal from clean-up day to recycle and turned it into roughly $500 or so donated to FLANO funds. Shannon will provide Katie with the exact number but a BIG THANK YOU to everyone involved in the clean-up days and to both of you for taking this to recycle! This funding was a major boost to FLANO funds.
  
• Public Land Day Feedback: FLANO provided water and snacks for the event. We had a few volunteers that participated, and the boy scout group really enjoyed the trail maintenance. REI gave FLANO a roll of raffle tickets and some REI swag to give away. We had a wonderful mother/daughter volunteer team which we gave away some of the gifts to. FLANO has saved the remainder of the swag to give out at future events and we can use the raffle tickets in the future. We had a few people sign up to receive emails, but we did not get any new paid members from this event.
  • Smoke on the Water feedback: Greg reported there were 52 cub scouts and a good attendance from the public. FLANO posted this event on the website and Facebook page, thank you Debbie, and Jenni posted this on Nextdoor. Vicki went to Costco and purchased healthy snacks and more water, there is an excess of water which we will be able to utilize at future events. Vicki provided the receipt of $93 (need exact amount), to Katie and she was reimbursed. It was reported to be a good day, very educational, interactive, and informative. The fire did not burn as anticipated but it was still an educational day. There were a lot of children and Jenni asked if this was geared toward children and did we know this? We did not think
  

this was geared for children – for marketing purposes it would have been good to know but we think there just happened to be a lot of children there. Kathie took wonderful pictures that have been put on Facebook and she is going to get in contact with Ms. Newhouse to provide more pictures to them. Thank you to all who participated in this event.

• FLANO Hike lead by Greg Schneider: This took place on October 26th. There was a total of 13 people that attended. This was posted on our website and Facebook. I think people enjoyed the hike and afterwards I passed out FLANO flyers and encouraged people to join. Thank you, Greg, for offering these wonderful hikes!
  
• Group Camp Day/Grant Update: The first Group Camp workday will take place on Saturday, November 16, 2019, starting at 9:00 a.m. James noticed that the time was on Facebook starting at 8:00 a.m., I emailed Debbie and she will update same. Debbie has also this on our website. FLANO will provide water and snacks and Katie was going to inquire with Joy at REI to see if they would like volunteers to participate. We further discussed starting one or two of the camp sites then possibly having the kids working with Greg Cain on the subsequent sites after we figure out a couple first. There will be 8 bags of cement per site, 16 bags for that day. Greg and Katie will figure out the gravel for the 2 sites. Greg said they would flag the sites and try to pre-drill to make it a little easier. FLANO decided to see how this first day goes to see if we will include the kids that Greg Cain is bringing for volunteer days. Michael will bring doughnuts to the event.
  
• Habitat Enhancement Program Grant Update by Vicki Taylor: Vicki started with showing us the letter we received form the US Department of Interior dated November 5, 2019. The North Carolina Technical Review Committee (TRC) of the Catawba-Wateree Habitat Enhancement Program (HEP) has approved FLANO’s funding for the project in the amount of $6,075. Vicki let us know that the initial amount requested was $7,000. They did not believe the request for tools, specifically chainsaws, warranted an extra $1,000. It states we should receive the funds by early 2020. The TRC requires us to submit an annual report by September 1, 2020. They also request that FLANO provide pictures to document the different aspect of the project. Katie let us know we have enough FLANO funds at this time to start the project and we can reimburse if we need to when we receive the funds.
  o A big THANK YOU to Vicki Taylor for spearheading this program. Vicki and Greg worked closely together to get us to this point and we truly are thankful!!
  

Katie Wurtz provided Member Renewal Update and Treasure Report Update:

• Membership Renewal – Katie reported that we have a total of 23 members outside of the board. Preliminary discussions followed on how FLANO can obtain more members. There are many thoughts and we will table this until after the holidays and re-visit the outreach committee at our next board meeting to be held in January.
  
• A few of the ideas to re-visit below.
  

o Saturday in the park – set up our FLANO tent and serve coffee and flyers o Sheila had a great idea of a “Happenings Board” out front of the Visitor
Center.
o Kathy would like to take beautiful photos to entice people with nature and
post regular on Facebook.
o SheilamentionedawaytogetTarHeelTrailBlazersinvolvedinpromoting
FLANO.
o Katie and I discussed speaking to Jeremy Shaw the owner of Cedar Stump
Pub. A few of us now him and Greg mentioned his love of the park. Various
ideas for this, a hike then the stump?
o Vicki mentioned member appreciation day – party at our park.
o We will also re-visit our efforts to organize committees to improve our
networking, marketing, and community involvement ideas until after the holidays.
• There were really a lot of great ideas discussed and cannot wait to talk about them at the next meeting.

• Greg had an idea about a LANO history talk we discussed possibly in late February. He has been researching and has a lot of knowledge about Julia Clark’s background. Possibly include history of the Catawbas. We all discussed an artifact display and maybe a cultural resource talk. We decided to re-visit this discussion at the next board meeting.
  o Discuss dates for history talk o Popcorn machine rental
  
• We also discussed having a talk on the birds of LANO. I remember that Debbie covered a story with the Audubon Society and maybe we can reach out to someone there to discuss. *This will be on the next agenda as well.
  

• Greg Cain school group – First volunteer date is to be held on Friday, 11/8. There will be two (2) groups one from 9am – 11am and the second group will be from 12pm – 2pm. Shannon has agreed to supervise the morning group and Katie will handle the afternoon group. Thank you to you both for helping with this! Greg suggested to start with a clean-up day. Shannon will be there to help and direct the clean-up at the King Fisher shoreline.
  
• It was confirmed that the next board meeting will be held on Tuesday, January 7, 2020, starting at 6:00 p.m. Cannot wait to see what is in store for FLANO in the new year!!
  
• Meeting adjourned at 7:19 p.m.
  
• After the meeting concluded Katie and I opened the donation box. There was the check for the scrap metal for $63.75 and we took out $500 in cash. The total amount = $563.75. Amazing!!!