Mid-Atlantic Exotic Pest Plant Council
Board Meeting

May 8, 2002
Black Hill Regional Park, Boyds, MD

In Attendance: Art Gover, Michael Schwartz, Kerrie Kyde, Carole Bergmann, Carol Jelich, Faith Campbell, Emily Grafton, Marc Imlay, Lisa Smith, Debbie Cornwell, Jeff Wagner (guest)

  1. Call To Order

    2. Meeting called to order at 10:15 am by Art Gover

    Lisa introduced Jeff Wagner with the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy. Jeff is interested in serving on the board, and will be on the slate of candidates at the annual meeting.

  2. Review of Agenda

  3. Approval of Minutes from January and March, 2002

    4. Amendments to March minutes: Kerrie is replacing Laurie’s vacated term, and is therefore not subject to membership approval. She does need to be re-elected at the annual business meeting however. We will announce the replacements when the new nominations list for the August 2002 Business Meeting is circulated. Emily motioned that we approve the March minutes as amended. Michael Schwartz gave a second to the motion. March minutes approved.

    Approval of January minutes tabled to give board members another opportunity to review them.

  4. Organizational Status

    1. Treasurer's Report

      2. Current balance is $7,464.04. There is an $11.00 discrepancy that cannot be identified. Kerrie suggested that the mistake might have been the August bank charge.

      Taxes: Tax forms were submitted to the IRS. Line 20 on the tax form was discovered to have a mistaken amount Kerrie recommends that we send in an amended tax form.

      Vital Documents: Carol suggested we acquire some sort of fireproof place for our legal documents. Art suggested a safe-deposit box at the bank. Jeff suggests that we scan all of the legal documents in order to have an electronic copy. No board action taken.

      Lisa recommends that the President, the Treasurer, and the official address board member hold copies of all the official documents to include the five listed above.

      All official records will be kept at Kerrie’s home, as she is the address of record for the Council.

      Certified Articles; complete 501 C3 application; we have copy of by-laws but we had to send original with 501 c3 application; do not have letter from IRS that says we are tax exempt, Kerrie has a copy; have originals with all of the tax fillings, Kerrie has fax that came from IRS with our Federal tax ID number; Kerrie has an archive of minutes. Lisa and Emily will keep an electronic archive of the minutes.

      Kerrie motions that we spend the money to get a new copy of our exemption letter; Debbie seconds the motion. Kerrie has agreed to request a new Letter of Determination from the IRS. Faith will give Kerrie a signed check.

    2. Committee Reports

      3. Annual business meeting

      Will spend $200.00 on the annual meeting.

      Wed 8/7

      1. We will have a formal Board meeting in the evening starting at 5:00; will order in dinner for the Board; Social at 7:30.

      Thu, 8/8

      1. Business meeting, 8 am

      2. Report on year’s events, comments and suggestions, election. Opportunity to mention new invaders, Committee reports. Art will preside. Committee chairs will present their highlights. Lisa will solicit committee inputs and Michael will develop an integrated PowerPoint presentation to highlight committee activities, 2-3 slides for each committee. Committees will have additional details available for review

      3. Rod Bartgis talk

      4. Dr. R Fortney, -- removal plan for I. pseudacorus submitted to Canaan Valley State Park. Pre work day in July. Bad invasion – first sign of plant in park 10 to 12 years ago, now extensive. Has jumped to other bogs in park. Close to Dolly Sods, need to be careful not to destroy ecosystem in removal effort, but primarily observe what is involved with the project. Probably will not spray during Annual Meeting. Committee will work on plan. Objective: volunteers understand they can carefully use herbicides. After lunch, go to field then home.

      5. Speaker expenses discussed

      6. 8:30 – 9:30 business meeting

      7. 9:30 – 10:30 Rodney

      8. 10:30 – 11:00 break

      9. 11:00 – 12 Dr. F, then lunch

      10. Attendance estimate? Meeting room holds 100, don’t expect more than 50? Paying for one meeting room, reserved 15 guest rooms. 17 board members

      11. Food: Say no to junk food, we want tasty healthy food – veggies, fruit for snacks, on our own for meals. Restaurants within ˝ hour drive. Go ahead get food from the Inn -- $200 for food for breaks, based on what Faith read from sheet. Bring our own lunch, rooms have a refrigerator?

      12. Room rent -- $200 for room.

      13. Guest room - $72/single, to doubles and quads. Deposit due July 7, room reservation by July 7. Includes guest room discount.

      14. Registration: charge small fee to offset for food and materials == $15/person? $20 after July 7, for room rate. Adding up prices for food/head for each meal plus social, encourage room sharing.

      15. Transportation to site – carpool, don’t need bus. Parking adequate at site.

      16. Publicity, flyer to native plant societies, put info on list serve right now, reserve the date. 1-page flyer May 15-20, get mailing labels to Emily Grafton, 456 West Virginia Ave, Morgantown, WV, 26501. Egrafton@labyrinth.net. Target homeowners who have I. pseudacorus on their property.

      17. Mailing to members – do it electronically, Carol will make sure all members are on MA-EPPC list serve.

      18. Emily will get flyer announcement to board list serve, and membership list serve. Marc & Carol = Maryland NPS: Faith = VA NPS & FICMNEW list serve & other weed people; Lisa = PA NPS, WPA botany society, SE-EPPC list serve & other EPPC's. Jeff Wagner - WPC & local watershed groups; Art= Penn State coop extension listserve, NEWSS, PA Noxious Weed Task Force; Kerrie & Lisa - Millersville. Betsy - The Nature Conservancy list serve.

      19. Lisa and Michael and Carol will join committee, Marc will be help coordinate workshop activity.


      (2) 2003 Conference – Agenda is fairly well set as far as speakers

      (3) Meeting with MD DNR Secretary – May 20th meeting with DNR Secretary Chuck Fox in Annapolis to encourage the State to further pursue the issue of invasive species removal relative to early intervention of invasives in State Park, support for the state to request matching Federal dollars for invasive species control management plan.

      (4) List – Art proposes to use only lists that people can have access to. Art needs feedback on the text associated with the list.

      (5) – Speakers Bureau update. Lisa has prepared a draft power point presentation based on the programs she has received. Lisa proposes to have that power point presentation ready at our annual meeting. Maybe show the Power Point during the Social. Lisa will send it via email to Board Members for review after the committee submits final edits to her.

      We will approve the budget for the Power Point at the Annual Meeting.

      Bill Curran at Penn State has created a website resource guide on invasives in the northeast called Weeds of the Northeast Region. We may get this on the MA-EPPC website.

      (6) On-the-ground-workshop – The original plan was to organize annual workshops throughout the region on invasive species removal. Also get the message of the organization. Lisa is asking the Board members to solicit people to organize an event or to solicit input on events that will be happening so that we can have an EPPC person there. Purpose is to formalize and build consistency with our message.

      Lisa will send an email asking for feedback on the on-the-ground planning sheet by a given deadline. Lisa would like to aim for 12 workshops by the end of the year. The workshops can be organized around identification as well as removal. Lisa wants to know if anyone wants to do another identification workshop.

      Elections: Candidate list needs to go out 60 days prior to the business meeting. Kerrie moves that we nominate Olin Allen to replace Karen Bennett on the Board in an interim manner. Approved.

      (7) Website – Has been no progress on the website. Kerrie will send out her outline and request input. The main thing that is needed now is content. We need to send content to Kerrie. Anything we think should be on the website needs to be sent to Kerrie. Links, tools, strategies, etc. Michael volunteered to be the web master once it is up. Marc has offered info from the Maryland Native Plant Society Web Site.

      Carol reported that someone came on our site from the U.K. There are 159 subscribers to the list serve.

      (8) Meeting Attendance Compensation: Art suggests we review the document Faith sent. Carol suggests that we determine an annual budget.

      The St. Louis Declaration is out. The draftees will meet in October to revise the document. Faith suggests that we and other groups like us endorse the document. We should send comments to Faith on this declaration. We should draft a letter of support and send it to the committee. The draft statements are on the Missouri Botanical Garden Web Site.

      1. Old Business

        2. Liability insurance – Board of Directors insurance discussed and no action taken. In the absence of any motions, pursuit of Directors and Officers insurance will not occur. Board members will have to decide on their own whether or not serving on the board is a source of undue liability risk.

      2. New Business

        1. Appointment of Nominating Committee. Faith reminded us that we circulate a request for nominations for the Board. The President requests that the officers serve as the nominating committee and that the rest of the board funnel their nominations to Art. June 1 is the deadline for submitting nominations. There are 7 people whose terms end this year. There are 7 positions open. We will not cap the nominations other than the 21 in our By-laws. Art will send an email out to solicit nominations.

        2. Next meeting date set for July 2, 2002, Michael will make arrangements for Harpers Ferry. This meeting will run later than the usual 2:00 pm, to accommodate unfinished business from this meeting.