Minutes

September 6, 2007
Adirondack Mountain Club, Inc.
Laurentian Chapter
Executive Committee Meeting minutes

Executive Committee members present: Tom Ortmeyer, Rose Rivezzi, Gene Kaczka, Betsy Tisdale, Geri Ames, Pat Mueller

Others present: Carolyn Kaczka, Susan & John Omohundro

Opened meeting at 7:05 PM. The Minutes and Agenda were approved.

Officer Reports:

Education/Rose Rivezzi reported that she is currently putting the Outdoor/Indoor series together. She said there was a question that came up last year about providing hospitality for speakers that come from a distance. Carolyn suggested an honorarium be paid to the speakers to cover expenses like gas. Though Rose did not use the money allocated this year, the amount is not enough to cover an honorarium. It was decided to increase the budget next year for Education to cover this new expense. It was decided that when hospitality is necessary that Rose contact the membership for anyone who may is available to provide hospitality.
Treasurer/Betsy Tisdale said that we are in good financial shape with $2177.80 in our account. Betsy will put more money in the fund for postage. She also said she is still receiving money for the patches.
Conservation/Gene Kaczka said there is not a lot of local activity right now. What is coming from ADK pertains to the Catskills' Bellaire project. Tom said that the town of Parishville is slated to vote soon to open their roads to ATVs. There is activity in the Jefferson county area to push for more rapid movement to open the trails. clubs say no substantial progress has been made.

Gene reported that Betty Lou Bailey and Bob Wakefield have attended recent hearings representing ADK's interests for the re-licensing process of eight hydroelectric dams on the Oswegatchie River.

Publicity/John Barron's email has changed to johnbarron@sympatico.ca.
Membership/Geri Ames reported that as of April, there were 455 members and as of September, there are 484 members with 267 households.

Newsletter: John and Susan Omohundro discussed their proposal to remove the insert in the newsletter and replace it with a page that says "cut here," or a center foldout. It will save time stuffing the inserts, save on printing costs and provide more space for copy because we won't need the second header. It was decided to allow John and Susan to decide which will work best or if they wish, ask the readers. John and Susan also reported that they changed the header by taking out the shadow and rescanning it to remove the fuzziness. John said that the colors of the newsletter represent each season, blue for summer, yellow for fall, white for winter and green for spring.

A suggestion was made that there should be ratings for the bicycle and canoe trips not just the hikes. Tom said he would discuss this with Armond.

E-letter proposal from Dick Mooers to expand the scope of the E-newsletter:

(the text below is pasted from Dick's email)

Background
The Chapter is adopter of the Red Sandstone Trail and the Stone Valley
Cooperative Recreational Area. Planned sufficiently in advance, trail work
on these Chapter projects is included in the quarterly schedule, and
therefore can be included in E-Letters. Although trail work indeed is being
performed by individual Laurentian Chapter members when invited by a trail
coordinator, those occasions generally are not included in the published
schedule of outings. From time to time individual members who have an
interest in trail work are called together for specific jobs, such as one
organized for today to work with a Boy Scout troop on the Red Sandstone
Trail. Numerous calls must be made in order to put such work parties
together. Cancellations due to adverse weather is another task to be done by the coordinators.

Proposal
Getting information, announcements, invitations and cancellations to
potential participants is very well suited to the E-Letter's function. As
Editor, I can do that for conservation or education announcements, for
example, but I cannot do that for outings unless they are pre-approved, due
to liability concerns. Short-notice invitations to work on Red Sandstone
and Stone Valley projects currently do not fall within the approved scope of
the E-Letter because they do not lend themselves to the required lead time
for Chapter approval for the outings schedule. It is requested that the
Chapter Executive Committee discuss and give generic approval for
invitations to participate in work parties on Chapter-adopted trails to be
included in the E-Letter when requested by our trail coordinators. Only
work parties on Chapter-adopted projects would be announced in the E-Letter.
At this time I believe that would be only the two trail projects.

This would give John and Mark the authority to schedule work days and get the word out to the membership. Tom said that there is a bylaws issue because trips need approval. The Outings chair would need to be notified first. The E-Letter would cover the requirements of the insurance carrier for liability purposes. Currently, when we ask for volunteers we are not covered by liability. If we use the E-Letter, we would have to use the liability form. It was decided that a request for volunteers for trail work should go to the Outings chair for approval with one weeks notice so Outings has time to respond. The announcement would then go out to the membership by way of E-Letter and web page. The liability form would be used. If the Outings chair is out of town, the request should go to the Executive chair. Rose motioned to pass this proposal, seconded by Gene. All approved.

Nominating committee: Tom thanked Carolyn for chairing the committee and Betty Peckham and Geri Ames for their work on the nominating committee. Carolyn said that most of the officers were willing to serve a second term. John Barron will replace Pat as secretary and David Trithart will continue as director with Armond Spencer as alternate director. Carolyn thanked all for their willingness to assume leadership roles. The candidates' profiles will appear in the next newsletter.

Distinguished volunteer nominations: After the floor was opened for nominations, the selection was made and will be announced on November 4^th at the Fall Potluck. Betsy currently has the pins that are given to the recipients of the award and will get them to Tom before the potluck.

The ADK Executive Director, Neil Woodworth, will talk about advocacy issues at the Fall Potluck.

Donation to the Club: Since the positions were not filled for the HS trail crews, the $500 budgeted is available. Betsy said that we currently have $3,000 in a CD and $1,144 in the savings account which gives us around $6,000 total. Carolyn said that the chapter has given as much as $1,000 in the past. Betsy said that in December of last year we sent $600 to the Paul Jamison fund. After the discussion about how much to donate to the Club, the motion was passed to use the $500 unused funds from Education to donate to the trails fund for the Club. Motion by Rose, seconded by Gene, all approved. It was suggested that at the end of the year we consider sending $1,000.

Next meeting Thursday, November 8, 2007.