Mid-Atlantic Exotic Pest Plant Council
Thursday, May 17, 2000
10:00 - 4:00

Meeting was held at The Nature Conservancy's Pennsylvania Field Office, Conshohoken, PA.

In attendance were:

1. Lisa Smith, Western Pennsylvania Conservancy facilitated meeting
2. Art Gover, PA State University, Roadside Vegetation Management
3. Betsy Lyman, The Nature Conservancy, Pennsylvania Chapter
4. Carol Jelich, Maryland Native Plant Society
5. Daniel Barringer, Natural Lands Trust
6. Fred Grau, Atlantic Seedsmens Association, American Seed Trade Association
7. Karen Budd, The Nature Conservancy, Pennsylvania chapter
8. Kerrie Kyde, Hood College for Catoctin Mountain Park
9. Wayne Tyndall, Maryland DNR
10. George Mayo, Maryland Nurseryman's Association
11. Kevin Munley, Penn DOT
12. Joseph Demko, Penn DOT
13. Tony Goreski, Penn DOT
14. Mike Glenn, Bowman's Hill Wildflower Preserve
15. Jim MacKenzie, Octoraro Nursery, PA Nurseryman's Association
16. Tom Doughouty, FPC PHILA
17. Virginia McDaniel, The Nature Conservancy (Maryland/DC Chapter)
18. Floyd Yoder, NJ Dept. of Agriculture
19. Donnelle Keech, The Nature Conservancy (Maryland/DC Chapter) took minutes

Old Business

1. Election of a new Co-Chair

At the 3/9/00 meeting, the departure of John Beckman was announced and it was agreed that we should identify and elect a new Co-Chair to serve with Faith Campbell. Kerrie Kyde volunteered to be considered.

No other volunteers stepped forward, and no other nominations were made. A vote by those present was unanimously in favor of Kerrie's appointment to the position of Co-Chair (Kerrie abstained from the vote.)

2. Bylaws and Founding Board

We had an extended, detailed conversation about the bylaws, which were in advanced draft form, thanks to the efforts of Lisa Smith. After discussion and final changes, the assembled participants voted unanimously to accept the revised bylaws, and to solicit all EPPC participants for volunteers to form the founding board.

Discussion included the following Articles and items:

Article VI:

size of founding board, and or board of directors (FB will be self selecting, limit BOD to 21 or fewer, to be determined by FB)

how is FB appointed (ask for volunteers) - plan to hold first BOD elections at August 2001 meeting

board members = person, not an institution (i.e. can't replace your board member if they resign)

full membership should vote on board members; allow voting by mail/email ballot

strong support for term limits, strong support for 2 yrs. (rather than 3) - provides more impetus to get busy, not too long if you have a bad egg on the board

Article VIII:

committees are standing, task forces are ad hoc

pros and cons of assigning 1 Director to each committee: unwieldy/burden on Directors; quality control for committee; improves quality of Directors (forces them to be more active) - decided in favor of this provision

The adopted bylaws are available on the Website: http://www.se-eppc.org/MA/mabylaws/mabylaws.html

3. Decision re: SE EPPC 501(c) (3) application

Discussion of applying for 501(c) (3) status in conjunction with the SE EPPC continued. Lisa Smith attended the SE EPPC board meeting in March, and attempted to address some of MA-EPPC's questions/concerns addressed. She reported that SE EPPC does not have any "agenda" or "motive" (as a few folks had wondered) - they are just making a generous offer to help MA EPPC get started. The SE EPPC folks at the March meeting were not able to answer our questions. They asked us to decided if we want to pursue the joint application, and if so to send them a list of our questions/concerns which they can then address at their July/August meeting. Their application will happen in July or August.

It was pointed out that we can refile on our own in the future.

We appointed a committee (Kerrie Kyde, Lisa Smith, Betsy Lyman), and voted unanimously to invest them with the power to investigate the group's concerns about liability, timing and financial issues, and reach a final decision on the question of whether or not to apply for tax exempt status with SE EPPC.

4. Report from Regional List Committee (Art Gover)

Art reported that he had received the information that John Beckman compiled before his resignation from MA EPPC. His goal for the breakout session of this meeting was to develop a mission statement for the list, and assign pieces of that to various committee members.

5. Review Draft Brochure

Carol Jelich has a draft of the MA EPPC brochure, and the goal to have a few hundred copies printed for the Millersville conference in June. Some comments where given, kudos to Carol. Deadline for additional comments is 5/31.

6. Outreach to nursery and landscaping trades (Kerrie Kyde)

Has made a couple new contacts: Stanton Gill of University of Maryland Cooperative Extension Service; someone from Benkes Nursery. Has a list of organizations, but not necessarily contacts - would like to discuss during breakout session.

Jim MacKenzie comments: this is a hot issue in the industry; these are good people in a good industry.

Fred Grau comments: promoting natives is subtly different from addressing invasive species. Let's be aware of/ clear on our philosophical foundations.

Lisa Smith comments:  Thanks to all the new faces and constituencies that have come out to support and participate in MA EPPC.

New Business

1. Proposed "introductory letter" for MA-EPPC

Purpose is to bring new participants into the group, give them certain basic information about our mission and history, tell them where to find minutes and announcements (on website). Carol Jelich volunteered to draft, and will send to list serve for review.

2. Reports: SE EPPC symposium and board meeting; Formation of Maryland Invasive Species Council (MISC)

SE EPPC: Lisa Smith brought brochures, participants list, symposium program to share. She met and talked with Charles Bergeron (webmaster) - he is willing to accept slides and other educational materials and distribute them on the website.

MISC: Kerry Kyde attended first meeting. MISC meeting is very similar to MA EPPC, but with a research component. There was much discussion about early detection and rapid response.

3. Announcement, vote on supporting funding proposal to CSREES

Kerrie Kyde, Faith Campbell, and Jil Swearingen worked on a funding proposal for this grant program, originally including Weeds Gone Wild (NPS website), Weedbusters handbook and a research proposal. The timing was tight, and they decided to apply as part of the SE EPPC proposal. The final proposal submitted was for $1 million, and included funding for a SE EPPC executive director; website development; $23,000 for 50 fact sheets (Jil's project), and $40,000 for research on privet and microstegium (including $23,000 over 4 years for a demographic study on microstegium to be carried out by Doug Boucher of Hood College and Kerrie).

MA EPPC is not in the funding chain (we will never have or pass through any funds), but we are listed as a supporting partner. The assembled group voted unanimously to "bless" this supporting partner role.

Brian Bowen of SE EPPC had send an email asking us to submit a letter of support for the proposal. The group voted to have Lisa Smith draft and send such a letter (timing would not permit review).

BREAKOUT SESSIONS

4. Presentation and Discussion of August 2001 Conference

Bob Gutowski of Morris Arboretum gave a presentation about the 1999 Conference, and led a discussion which got the ball rolling for planning the next conference. We agreed upon an August 2001 date, discussed the need to a theme and title, underwriters; and the issue of whether or not to use the conference to gain visibility and/or raise funds for MA EPPC.

A list of interested conference committee members was taken, and a conference call was scheduled.

Meeting adjourned.

Minutes prepared by Donnelle Keech.