Minutes of the August
Regularly Scheduled Meeting of
The Virginia Master Gardener Association, Inc.
August 14, 2004
South Hill (South Central)
(Draft)
Attendance
(Amherst, Campbell,
Lynchburg) Bill Morton, Karen Sacasky, Al Thompson; (Brunswick) Cynthia Gregg;
(Chesapeake) Pinky Derieux, Pauline Price (Fairfax) George Graine; (Fauquier)
Jim Scibek; (Goochland/Powhatan) Chuck Miller; (Halifax) Bill McCaleb, Grace
Elliott; (James City County/Williamsburg) Angela Cingale, Ann DeForest;
(Northern Neck) Jinny estell, Pat Rogers; (Prince William) Frank Reilly, Pat
Reilly; (Rockbridge) Ted Jenks; (Roanoke) Kathryn Debnar; (South Central) Lola
Edwards, Barbara Matthews, George Pace; (Virginia Beach) Fran Shelton; Betty
Villers (Virginia Tech) Dave Close, Max Bales; (York) Jackie Lohr
Call to Order
President Bill
McCaleb called the meeting to order at 10:00 a.m.
Introductions
President McCaleb
welcomed us all to the August board meeting in South Hill. He then introduced
Cynthia Gregg, Extension Agent, Brunswick County, who works with MGs of South
Central VA (Mecklenburg, Lunenburg, and Nottoway counties). She thanked
everyone for coming out in such bad weather with the hurricane due to arrive later
in the day. Her MGs have volunteered 2300 hours and made 10,000 contacts. Some
of the projects include youth and senior programs, the horticulture hot line,
and home visits. From roses to tomatoes to water gardens the MGs have added
volunteer hours valued at $134,000 to South Central Virginia. Attending with
her were Barbara Mathews (Mecklenburg); Lola Edwards (Lunenburg): George Pace,
Celia and Dick Elway (Nottoway).
Treasurer’s Report
Treasurer Pat Reilly reported:
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Checking Account Balance as of 6/8/2004 |
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$3,161.92 |
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Income |
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Deposit - Membership |
$2,506.00 |
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Donations to EEF |
$507.75 |
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Total Income |
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$3,013.75 |
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Checking Account Balance |
$6,175.67 |
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Expenses |
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Membership |
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$44.85 |
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EEF Recipients |
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$600.00 |
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Newsletter |
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$682.63 |
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(June & Aug printing, June postage) |
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Bank Expense (May) |
$9.95 |
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Total Expenses |
$1,337.43 |
-$1,337.43 |
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Checking Account Balance |
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$4,838.24 |
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Money Market |
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$5,435.28 |
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CD Balance |
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$6,396.51 |
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Relf Endowment Fund |
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$4,200.91 |
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Total Overall Balance of Accounts |
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$20,870.94 |
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Will maintain checking account daily collected balance above
$2,500 to eliminate bank charge. Suggested we put some of Money Market balance
in checking account to avoid the charge.
As membership numbers are rising she would like to introduce an option
to pay dues by PayPal which we can link to our website. It is secure and a lot
of people use it. As people do banking online, they can pay their dues on line
as well. On the website at the membership page to pay by PayPal one would click
on the PayPal icon, that takes you to PayPal site where you enter some
information. It generates all that information to Pat that the deposit has been
made to the VMGA account and then Pat will notify Pauline (membership) the
person has paid dues and transfer any necessary information such as name and
address. Cost is 65 cents per transaction. Anticipate there will be options for
people to contribute to the endowment fund. Will save us time and we'll have
more accurate records. Can have it up and running next week.
Motion made and carried to accept Treasurer's report as
presented. Motion made to accept PayPal
as part of our payment program. PayPal report will indicate what person bought,
dues, life membership, etc. Amendment to motion - VMGA will accept membership
payments via PayPal. Members can still
pay by check.
Minutes
The June minutes were
accepted.
Committee
Reports
Education - Fran
Shelton and Pinky Derieux, Co-Chairs
The Education
Committee met while at MG College on June 11 to discuss plans for the September
18 Continuing Education trip to the State Arboretum of Virginia at Blandy Farm. Margaret VanWinkle will be
handling the registration form for the newsletter and website. Joan Clements
will be responsible for the continental breakfast on the morning of the seminar
and will be asking for help from the MGs located in that area. Debbie Hamilton and Louise Livinghouse will
handle all registration forms and monies for the Blandy trip. Cut-off for
registration will be September 6th, must notify Blandy number of MGs attending
in order for them to provide sufficient guides. Program cost more than usual as
we are giving a donation of $200 to Endowment Fund of the Arboretum, a $75 gift
certificate to Dr. Carr (for a book company), and paying $75 for tent set-up.
We will provide lunch for speakers and bottled water for all those attending.
MGs will have to purchase sodas for lunch as they were not provided in cost of
lunch. Need 45 attendees to break even.
Hope to have next program
in Halifax/Danville area as it is very central in the state. Education
committee is trying to move the programs around to different areas of the state
to get more MGs involved statewide. More information at October meeting.
Newsletter - Florace Arnold,
Editor
Florace was not in
attendance. The deadline for the next issue is September 1. Looking for handy
tidbits, local units and members who receive awards should let others know
about it.
Membership - Pauline Price,
Chair
We now have 636
members and 107 Life members. It should be noted that 239 have not renewed.
Pauline passed out a list of those not renewing and asked those attending to
check for names in their unit and contact them. If they are not renewing, ask
why. As an organization it would be nice to know why people are not renewing.
Communication/Unit Support -
Frank Reilly, Chair
Unit Support
Members: Pat
Reilly, Karen Sacasky, Kerry Goldmeyer, Cheri Haggerty and Frank Reilly and
whomever else we need.
Communication Committee
Members: Cheri Haggerty, Pinky Derieux, Kathryn Debnar, Shelby Snyder
and Chair Frank Reilly and whomever else we can get. Since the
June regularly scheduled meeting, there have been 15,082 visitors to
VMGA.net. About 65% of our visitors
visit the front page during their stay. New stuff gets mentioned there
State Fair - Christy Brennan,
Chair
No report. Calendar is on
website, there are still a few empty slots. The State Fair will again be in
Richmond from September 23 - October 3.
Unit Reports
The Unit reps
attending presented written reports or have e-mailed them to the secretary.
They will be posted at www.VMGA.net and in the next newsletter.
During
the unit reports the VCE Civil Rights Compliance Review came up. President
McCaleb stated every extension office maintains records showing they are trying
to reach out to all facets of the population and as MGs we need to do the same
as we advertise for our classes.
Extension Liaison - reported by
Dave Close, MG Coordinator
MG Name tags - MG
nametags can be ordered quarterly; March, June, September and December. All
this is contingent on the budget. As long as there is money available you will
have nametags and there doesn't seem to be a problem this year. The nametag
information was forwarded to Pat Sobrero, new Extension Director, and Dave is
waiting to hear from her when to issue nametags to volunteers. Once he gets the
final word, he will let us know. Pat Reilly reminded Dave the number of
nametags will go up as the requirement that they be issued to volunteers of
continuing responsibility is dropped.
Dave will make sure Pat Sobrero is aware of that. Final word should be coming out soon.
State record keeping system - The process
will start early next spring as Dave sits down with programmers to overhaul the
state system to iron out bugs that have been persistent since the beginning.
Will take 12 to 18 months as they look for something new for everyone to work
with. It will be improved, different
program language, interface will be a little more user friendly. Asking
everyone to keep sending comments and suggestions. Local units will still send
hours for service awards. Looking at July 1, 2006 for new system to be in
place.
Sudden Oak Disease (SOD)- There is a
national effort to get MGs involved as front line detectors of SOD. They're
asking each state to develop a plan to deal with increased samples and
diagnosis. Dave met with a 40 state
teleconferencing group and a state group is meeting August 31. This group will
develop the framework for Virginia. Another nationwide training
teleconferencing will be scheduled for October. Initial training will be
offered to MG coordinators and agents who have some level of responsibility
with plant diagnostics.
MG College -
There were 225 to 250 MGs attending this year, the largest group ever. Send
photos to Frank Reilly or Dave. Hope to top 300 MGs attending in 2005, June
22-26. A group will meet in September to review comments from this year's MG
College.
Listservs -
There is a MG coordinator's listserv (MG coordinators or record keepers
of the local units) and a MG volunteer listserv (187 MGs currently). Just send
email to Dave if you want to be on the listserv or signup online. Purpose of
listserv - MGs to talk among themselves within entire state to share ideas and
get suggestions on how to do projects that you might consider for your
unit. Good way to get information
quickly from all parts of the state.
New faculty - Director
of Cooperative Extension, Pat Sobrero came on board July 1. President McCaleb
has already sent her a welcome message from VMGA. She has already had
interaction with MGs in the state and is impressed with the strong leadership.
New Director of Agriculture Resources, Jim Riddell assumed role as Associate
Dean and Director of Agriculture and Natural Resources (ANR), August 10.
Leadership Development Newsletter - Newsletter is being redesigned, new look, new
format, new title (In Season), cover in four colors. Should be out in next few weeks. If you're in state record keeping
system you should be getting it. Dave
plans to visit all the local units across the state in the next 8 to 9 months.
He will also spend some time overhauling the VaTech website to make it more
visible.
Pest Management Guide - There was an in-service session in Hampton Roads in
July where comments and recommendations were made. Joyce Latimer is the
Extension project leader and will coordinate changes. Because a different
individual wrote each chapter, each person will be contacted to adjust their
chapter based on recommendations as they come in. Questions about search
engines on VaTech website, contact Dave directly with problems. The PMG is
going online. There will not be any hard copies until 2005. Dave will check to
see if there are any copyright issues in copying the PMG.
Any questions?
SOD (Sudden Oak Disease) - Lynette Swanson in Norfolk is planning a training
session for her group. Fairfax and three or four agents/coordinators across the
state have already worked on some type of training for their units. President
McCaleb commented training is to make sure you can track source to final
recipient. There will be a 14-question questionnaire for MG running hort line
and when someone calls in and says I think one of my plants is showing SOD
symptoms - they can go through this questionnaire with them to determine if
homeowner should submit a sample. Concerned there could be utter chaos if media
gets hold of this. If sample is needed the MG will go through the process of
how to collect the sample. The major portion of the teleconferencing Oct. 26
will be how to go through the process and steps that need to occur. Already in
place in CA, MD and WA. Georgia has processed 1500 samples but they're not
seeing a large influx of samples based on folks calling in about it because
they've got the MGs out there as front line detectors and eliminating false
reports. Questionnaire developed by the North Central IPM can be viewed at www.NCIPM.org. Will be
taking five questions that Hanover has developed to the meeting in October.
George Graine (Fairfax)
shared two informational booklets received from the Fairfax agent. One is
Non-native Invasive Plants of Southern Forests, A Field Guide for
Identification and Control, USDA and James H. Miller. The other is Caterpillars
of Eastern Forests, Forest Health Technology Enterprise, USDA FHTET-96-34, Nov
97, Forest Service. .
Unfinished
Business
Education
Chair/member serving on MG college Advisory Committee: Dave reported the
Advisory Committee is made up of several folks from all cross the state,
including a couple coordinators, two extension agents, MGs and the president of
VMGA. Dave's feeling is the VMGA is
already represented and he prefers to keep it to one representative, but if the
president wants someone else to sit in his place that would be fine. Would like
to make sure representation on Advisory Committee is broadly across the state
and not just with VMGA.
Elective
Electronic Newsletter: Fifty new and renewing members responded to
receive the VMGA newsletter by email. Need to let people know they can receive
newsletter by email. Discussion followed on format and if on website, it can be
downloaded. Will put word out we're
looking for someone to take care of sending out newsletter by email. Frank
(webmaster) indicated he would not be able to handle this. Chuck Miller
(Goochland-Powhatan) recommended someone in his unit. Encourage people to use
the website and search engines as a great source of information and resources.
New Business
Endowment
Funding: Max Bales,
Director of Development of the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences said
the Endowment is at VA Tech. He has worked with other groups to put together
endowments. He has cleared this with the Dean of Agriculture and she is very
interested in working with us. The minimum for any type of endowment is
$50,000. If for some reason $50,000 is all that we raise, then we'll have an
endowment set up in place that will start growing. It will grow as VA Tech
Endowment grows and will pay 4.7%. Money will be used to offset cost of MG
Coordinator position. This endowment protects the position from being booted.
We have to reach $50,000 in five years.
If at five years we don't have the $50,000, we will have to take a look
at what we're doing. We can keep adding to the endowment, there is never a time
we can't accept an investment into the endowment. VaTech views MGs as being
worthwhile. He said you're telling Tech, we will have a presence. We need to
think about who to ask for monies. The endowment committee is meeting and will
need input and ideas from local units.
Lifetime
Membership Committee: The committee will make
recommendations at the December meeting.
VMGA Finance Committee: Treasurer
and representative from each of the standing and special committees will make
up the committee to put together a proposal for the budget as well as look at
our investments. Motion made and approved that committee members include Bill
Scott, Ted Jenks, Al Thompson, and Margaret VanWinkle.
Special License Plate VMG's: Proposal
that we have a specialized MG license plate. Would need to sell 300 with money
up front during a 12-month period, and have artwork done. After discussion, it was decided to drop the
idea. Pat Reilly proposed an alternative, plastic license frames. There is no
set up cost, they would cost us $3.40 each for 125 and could sell them for
$5.00. Consensus there was interest in plastic frame. Pauline Price and Pat
Reilly will look into this and bring back information to next meeting. Pauline
will also investigate providing a shirt that would say 'Virginia Master
Gardener'. Purchase can be tied with membership.
Increasing Unit Representation: President
McCaleb wants everyone to know what the state is doing and that is accomplished
by increased unit representation at VMGA meetings. VMGA represents all MGs. Two
of his goals for the year include keeping the Association financially solvent
and keeping communication running smoothly between VaTech and the Association.
Announcements
Next meeting
October 16, 2004 in Chesapeake. The following meeting will be December 11, 2004
to be held in the Northern Neck area.
The meeting was adjourned
at 1:57 p.m.
Respectfully submitted,
Betty Villers
Secretary VMGA