GCWG Board Meeting Minutes 3/31/05

The Board met at the Stahls house for a pot luck dinner followed by the Board Meeting. Board Members in attendance: Joan Shaw, Carolyn Manly, Marshall Haith, Sue Jackson, John Ehlen, Joyce Clair, Mary Bernard. Absent board members: (Also in attendance: Roger Shaw, Sue Haith, Ed Jackson, Leah Ehlen, Jim Clair, Jim Bernard, Al Rothenbach, Jerry & Carolyn Stahl.)

The President called the meeting to order at 7:00 p.m.

Joan Shaw welcomed Jerry Stahl and Al Rothenbach who were appointed to the Board at the special February meeting and will be approved by the membership at the Spring Meeting in April.

Joan acknowledged the work that the Group did over the winter months:

• Volunteers for Wilderness Workshop- Nov. 5th at the USFS District Headquarters in Lakewood.  7 members attended. GCWG was honored with the Stewardship Award. (3946 volunteer hours must have contributed to it) Mike Ricketts USFS and Joan Shaw presented a Power Point program on the activities of our group with displays, handouts, graphs and t-shirts.
• Forest Service Christmas tree sale. 25 members participated
• The Audobon Bird Count. 14 members involved
• The White Deer Party. Tom and Karen Givlin did a great job of hosting that party and a good time was had by all those that participated

Secretary: Mary Bernard read the minutes from the September 30, 2004.

Treasurer's Report: Carolyn Manly gave the president a written financial report. (A copy is included with these minutes.) Since September, the Group has spent $550.36 and has deposited $571.75. The Balance on March 7, 2005 was $1147.35.

Annual dues are due at the spring meeting, however, some members choose to pay in the fall.

Fund Raising: Joyce Clair gave the president a written inventory report of t-shirts, bears, polos, etc.. (A copy is included with these minutes.) Joyce noted that we are now selling more polo shirts than t-shirts to both members and others. John Ehlen noted that he has some shirts from the Junco cabin at his house.

Membership: Carolyn Manly reported that the group has 117 members. She will get more official name tags from the Forest Service for those that need them.

Volunteer Hours: Sue Jackson will continue to collect the volunteer hours. The process she used last year seemed to work well and she will use the same process this summer. Chairmen will report the volunteer hours for the activities of their committees. Individuals will keep their hiking hours. Sue has already recorded 316 hours for winter activities, even before we start the hiking season.

Publicity: Joan Shaw noted the excellent article about GCWG in the local paper a few months ago. She also commended Marsha Brady for sending announcements of GCWG activities to the paper.

Spring Meeting: The spring meeting will be held on April 17th at 5:30 at the Summit Building at Snow Mountain Ranch. There will be no speaker. Joan Shaw will give a 15 minute power point presentation about the GCWG to familiarize newcomers with the purpose and activities of the group. Jerry Stahl will give a brief summary of the educational aspects of GCWG. .Each of the chairmen will give a short pitch about the work of their committee The main dish will be catered. Mary Bernard will get prices from local caterers.

Goals for 2005: Joan Shaw outlined the goals for GCWG for the 2005 summer season.

• Maintain what we are already doing and continue to do it well
• Welcome and orientate new members to the Wilderness Group

Cabin Hosting: John Ehlen reported that more than 200 volunteer hours were put in hosting at the cabins last summer. This year we will start hosting on June 18th and continue until September 11th. John will try a web site for access to the schedule, hoping that will make it easier for people to sign-up for hosting and keep track of the schedule for the entire summer. John told the board that he is resigning from the Board. He will continue to coordinate hosting activities at Junco this summer and he is willing to train someone to take over as coordinator for the cabin hosting for next year.

Monarch Cabin: Ann Feucht will coordinate the cabin hosting for Monarch Cabin again this summer.

Trail Hosting: Carolyn reported that she will continue to schedule trail hosting in the same way as she did last year. She wants to encourage all members to participate.

Noxious Weeds: Judy Shetler will coordinate the group's efforts to eradicate noxious weeds at Monarch Lake.

Registration Boxes: Roger Shaw reported that we will still have a registration box at Byers Peak and we will add two new boxes at the new trail heads in the Experimental Forest.

Grant for the National Forest Foundation: The grant application needs to be in by April 17th. The grant is for improvements for 8 trail heads. 4 trail heads to have new signs and 4 trail heads to have more extensive upgrades including picture displays. The grant requests $810 from NFF and requires a matching $810 from our treasury. The work will be finished by October 05. The members that are involved in writing this grant are: Helen Keesey, Roger Shaw and Donn Manly.

Joan Shaw will be ending her term as president at the Spring Meeting. She outlined a few things that she would like to see the Wilderness Group tackle in the years to come.

• Continue to find and apply for grants like the one we are applying for this year
• Publish a volunteers handbook

Nominating Committee: Jerry Stahl, Al Rothenbach and Joan Shaw have been nominated to fill three of the four positions we have open. We need one more nominee to take John Ehlen's seat. That position is for one year. We will ask for a nominee from the floor at the Spring Meeting.

New officers Board members will meet briefly at a time designated by Joan Shaw to elect officers for the next year.

A short discussion followed about having the expectation that the vice-president will take the president position after one year. There was also discussion of having an official person (perhaps the vice-president) designated to be liason with the Forest Service.

The meeting ajourned at 8:15.

Return to list of Minutes