Minutes of The December Regularly Scheduled Meeting of
The Virginia Master
Gardener Association, Inc.
December 8, 2001
Ashland, VA
Attendance
(Arlington) Marti Klein, Alice Nicolson; (Chesapeake) Kerry Goldmeyer; (Fairfax) Charlie Hood; (Fauquier) Frank Reilly, Pat Reilly, Jim Scibek; (Gloucester) George Simpson, Mary Simpson; (Hanover) Pamela Armstrong, Judy Durant, George R. Golding, Mary K. Golding, Cheri Haggerty, Roddy Jones, Evelyn Parker; (James City County) Ailene Bartlett; (Lynchburg, Amherst, Campbell) Catherine Powers, Karen Sacasky, Susan Wingfield; (Prince George) Cheryl Elmore; (Prince William) Julie Cochran, Scott Cochran; (Rockbridge) Caroline Norrington, Chuck Norrington; (Shenandoah) Chuck Walters, Sally Walters; (Suffolk) Pauline Price; (Virginia Beach) Paul Campbell, Jessica O’Connor; (Virginia Tech) Sarah Lineberger; (York) Sybil Przypek.
Call
to Order
President Pat Reilly called the meeting to order at 1000.
Introductions
Pat thanked the Hanover unit for a stupendous job on
decorations, all of the fruit, the gifts, and lunch prepared from recipes in
their cookbook. She introduced
Hanover Master Gardeners Cheri Haggerty, Evelyn Parker, Pamela Armstrong, and
Bill Bonwell. Bill is the president
of the Hanover MG’s and told us about their projects at the new county park
and Bayscapes Arboretum. Then
others present introduced themselves.
Minutes
The minutes of the October meeting were approved as corrected.
Treasurer’s
Report
Treasurer Sybil Przypek reported a total balance of $18,900.93. The Treasurer's report was accepted as presented. The newsletter expenses will be split out from the president’s expenses.
Some money has come in for the endowment fund and is currently in the checking account. A motion to set up the actual endowment account was tabled until more information is available.
President’s
Report
· Pat Reilly announced that the meeting with Dr’s Barrett and Umberger was postponed .
Pat also announced that the value of volunteer hours, per the Virginia office on Volunteerism, is $18.93 per hour.
Pat presented new stars to Peter Warren, Guy Mussey, Charlie Godman, Chuck Hoysa, and Frank Sweet. All are agents who helped with the November training. Stars were also presented to Lenore Plissner, Debbie Hamilton, Roddy Jones, and Scott Cochran.
COMMITTEE REPORTS
Education
Ann Gorrell was not present. Pat reported that the November 17th training in Charlottesville was a big success.
March 16, 2002 is the tentative date for the next education program.
Newsletter
Pat announced that we have lost another newsletter editor and that she will assume that responsibility.
Membership
Julie Cochran is the new Membership chairperson. The other members of the committee are: Sallie LaCava, Sharon Corbin, Deb Watson, Debbie Williams, Mary Seikel , and Louise Livinghouse. They are currently working on the new directory and it should be available about the 1st of the year.
As of November 30th the VMGA has 335 members, 50 of which are life members. About 35 members have renewed twice and are now known as “Renew for 2”.
New membership cards have been sent out. They are laminated and future renewals will be with stickers to attach to the cards.
A copy of the membership form is available on line.
A proto type of a recruiting brochure is also being worked
on.
Members: Julie Cochran, Cheri Haggerty, Alice Nicolson, Janis Stone, Shelby Snyder and Chair - Frank Reilly.
1.) Since the October Regularly Scheduled Meeting there have been 7162 visitors to VMGA.net.
2.) Since the October regularly Scheduled Meeting, the web page has been updated on 17 separate occasions.
3.) The Hort Updates provided by Chuck Hoysa, Fauquier County Agent have ended for the season, but archives of both last year and this year are available – thanks to Julie Cochran and her high-speed access for keeping this page up to date throughout the season.
4.) The most popular pages in the last three months have been Meeting Schedule, Current Minutes, and Membership.
5.) Alice Nicolson is currently accepting changes to the calendar. The popularity of this page is dropping off. I think this is mainly because there haven’t been any additions since the last meeting. I know your Units have activities, and this is advertising that is free for the asking. The more dates we have, the more people will visit the page, and perhaps your events. If you find submitting calendar updates to Alice too slow or cumbersome for your event, you are always free to place announcements on the VMGA.net forum page. You can find a link to that on the front page.
6.) Cheri Haggerty maintains the links page. If you have any interesting gardening links to add, send them to her. She’ll get them, and edit the page accordingly
7.) Membership Applications are available on-line at the Membership page.
8.) Shelby Snyder has graciously volunteered to start a MG On-Line Photo album. Please send her scanned pictures via email, or even hard copies of pictures. She will scan them and get them back to you. We would love to see what MGs are doing around the state. Or if you have MG College pictures, we’d love to mount them as well.
9.)
The Communications Committee is also preparing a CD Presentation of MG
College. Right now we have a
problem with the production of the CD. Apparently
the CD won’t play as recorded except in newer machines.
We think that most units will show the CD using the “In Focus-type”
projector, and therefore have a newer laptop computer.
Does anyone have an idea of what the technical problem is? Do all of your units have access to a newer computer?
10.)
Virginia Beach MGs have availed themselves of our incubator offer.
They have mounted the beginnings of their web site on the VMGA site.
Jill Slippy is the web author, and has done a good job.
There is a lot of content there – perhaps too much.
Some of the materials there includes descriptions of gardens that MGs run
in the Virginia Beach area. Since
this material is about Extension projects and is not likely to change with time,
I wonder if that material is better hosted by VCE on their local page?
11.)
Shelby Snyder approached the committee about a Hort Therapy web page.
Although we have the space to host that page, we wonder what of that
material might be better served on the VCE Pages.
If we do host the pages, we need a volunteer to compose their page.
This small committee is slightly overwhelmed by the work we already have.
Consists of Kerry Goldmeyer and Frank Reilly and whomever else we need. In this case we needed Pat Reilly
Since the last meeting the Unit Support committee has had three activities to report:
1.) Pat Reilly Met with the Fairfax MGs to give instruction on the MG Hours reporting system.
2.) We provided information about incorporation and examples of By-Laws to the Central Rappahannock Master Gardeners. Apparently they have been unable to find any of those documents for their organization.
3.) We added the most recent list of Unit Representatives to the web site. Please check that information and let us know when any of it changes.
State
Fair
VMGA’s State Fair Chairperson Evelyn Parker sends her congratulations to all of the VCE-MG’s for a job well done at the Virginia State Fair. Evelyn says, “The 2001 State Fair was a huge success and many thanks for your help at the booth, answering questions from the public. Together with the MG’s knowledge and willingness to volunteer their time, the help of our Extension Agents, and the assistance of VPI & SU, we were able to educate the public.”
Evelyn reports that 105 Master Gardeners from all areas of the state worked at the booth, drawing the public in with the “Pea Brain Game.” Thanks to Ukrops food stores for donating all the produce that was used. Thousands of people stopped to guess the unusual fruits and vegetables and went away with new knowledge of VCE and Master Gardener volunteers.
The Master Gardener volunteers contributed a total of 495.5 hours over the ten days of the Fair. At the rate of $18.93 per hour the service that VCE-MGs provided carries a value of $9379.82. The value to VCE for raised public awareness is priceless.
The EEF committee consists of Chuck Walters, Susan Wingfield, and Bud Gregory.
They are currently working on an application form.
Pat Reilly will send a letter to Extension Agents and Coordinators explaining what the endowment is and how to apply for it.
Karen Sacasky reported that the committee is made up of Caroline Norrington, Bud Gregory, Gary Bill, and herself.
Part of the Unit Rep’s responsibility is to make recommendations of candidates to the committee.
Time line is:
January through February – discuss possible candidates
March 1st – have candidates selected
March 10th – announce slate, via email, to Board of Directors
March 10th to April 10th – get profiles on each candidate and prepare ballot
April 10th – mail, via 1st class, ballots to membership to be returned no later than May 10th.
May 15th to 20th – count ballots
May 20th – announce results to Executive Committee.
May 20th – advise newly elected officers of results
June 20th to 23rd – announce results of election
Committee consists of Karen Sacasky, Kerry Goldmeyer, and Frank Reilly. After the 1st of the year the committee will look at ideas such as staggering elections, etc. If anyone has any suggestions, pass them on to the committee. The committee will have recommendations for the June Board meeting.
Sarah Lineberger reported the following:
1.) There is a new brochure out on Virginia Cooperative Extension Educational Programs for people living in urban and suburban areas.
2.) There are about 5000 copies of 4-H publications called “Bottle Basics” containing information on making compost that are no longer used. These are available to anyone interested.
3.) The Horticultural web site has room to add program information.
4.) Master Gardener College will be June 20th thru 23rd. Registration is still $100.00 with daily rates the same as last year and discounts apply. Registration information should be available in March. Housing for a single will be $50.00 per night and includes meals, a double will be $40.00 per night including meals.
5.) Sarah has information on the North Carolina Cooperative Extension program “Trees of Strength” . The program intends to plant a tree for everyone from North Carolina who died in the terrorist attacks on September 11th. She will look into the details for partnering in this program.
6.) Service Award cutoff is May 1st.
7.) Mailing addresses for the newsletter are taken from the state record keeping system. Make sure this is kept up to date in order to receive the newsletter.
Unit Reports
Units present presented brief reports on what their individual units are doing. Pat will include this in the next VMGA newsletter. Units will be asked to give another report at our meeting in February. If you can’t be present then please email the information to Pat.
Unfinished Business
Test questions – Sarah said there is a question bank – anyone who has test questions that they would like to see included should send them her.
New business
There was no new business.
Announcements
The next board meeting is Saturday, 9 February 2002 in Stafford County.
The official meeting was adjourned at 1339.
Respectfully submitted,
A
Jim Scibek
Secretary
VMGA, Inc.