Minutes of the Regularly Scheduled Meeting of
The Virginia Master Gardener Association, Inc.
December 9, 2006
York County

Attendance
(Arlington/Alexandria) Vivian Ballard; (Bedford) Bob and Patty Gamache; (Brunswick/Mecklenburg/Lunenburg, Nottaway) Linda Logan; (Chesapeake) Pinky Derieux; (Fairfax) George Graine; (Fauquier) Jim Scibek; (Gloucester) Florace Arnold; (Goochland/Powhatan) Chuck Miller; (Hanover) Cheri Haggerty, Christy Brennan; (Isle of Wight, Southhampton, Surry) Betty Hendrix; (James City County/Williamsburg) Anne Odle, Angela Cingale; (Loudoun)Linda Shotton; (Newport News) Eugene B. Foster, Peggy Fox, Anita M. Smith; (Norfolk) Don Snipes; (Northern Neck/Northumberland) Pat Rogers; (Portsmouth) Sylvia Heaster, LuAnne Copeland, Bill Smoot; (Prince George) Cheryl Sebera; (Prince William) Frank and Pat Reilly, Bill Scott; (Roanoke) Kathryn Debnar; (Rockbridge/Bath) Ted Jenks; (Suffolk) Betty Freedman; (Virginia Beach) Mary Ann Kincaid, Fran Shelton, Betty Villers; (Virginia Tech/VCE) David Close, Dawn Lerch; ( (York) Margaret Cotton, Jackie Lohr, Sybil Przypek.Lanna Rackley, Carol Tate, Nancy Thompson, Patricia Winters

Call to Order
President Cheri Haggerty called the meeting to order at 10:00 a.m. and introduced York’s Unit Representative, Jackie Lohr

Welcome
Jackie Lohr, York County Unit Representative, welcomed everyone and introduced the hosting team members. She gave a report on their new project, “Charlie Brown ParK” with wetlands trail, which is also a Tree Steward Project

President's Report – Cheri Haggerty

See items under new business.

Minutes – Angela Cingale
No corrections were made to the October minutes and were approved as posted on the VMGA website.

Treasurer's Report – Ted Jenks
Report accepted as read. The full Treasurer’s Report is at the end of these minutes.

Standing Committee Reports

Education - Fran Shelton and Pinky Derieux, Co-Chairs
Members - Al Thompson, Chuck Miller, George Graine, Pinky, Kathryn Debnar, Lenore Plissner, Debbie Hamilton, 

and Nancy Drewry

Fran Shelton reported that the Fall Educational Program at Maymont in Richmond netted $700 with 89 attendees. The Committee is looking at further educational opportunities like Montpelier, Glen Burnie, Green Springs, etc., where due to the long distance it would be a 2 day affair. Kudos were extended to the Educational Committee for their work on coordinating the Maymont event.

Newsletter - Florace Arnold, Editor

Florace stated that the latest newsletter edition, December, is ready to send out. Articles that are sent to her are saved and will be used at a future date. She is appreciative of the unit reps help in gathering articles for her perusal. Everyone is receiving their electronic newsletter without a problem. Hard copies of the newsletter are sent to members without e-mail but they are very few.

Membership - Mary Ann Kincaid, Chair

Mary Ann Kincaid reported that 507 members received their directory. Total membership is 517. We have 363 active, 10 auxiliary and 144 lifetime members. This is an increase of (43) members since October even though 157 members have not renewed. The Maymont program signed up 27 new members and 3 renewals. A question was posed as to the expiration date of new memberships.  Pat Reilly and others noted that, in the past, for new members joining between January 1 and May 30, their memberships were good until the second May 31 following that date.  It was agreed to continue this practice. The official membership year is from June 1st to May 31. It is also helpful if the unit reps to encourage new memberships, especially the new trainees, by informing them how VMGA helps the individual MG’s and MG units throughout the state.

Communication/Unit Support - Frank Reilly, Chair
Unit Support /Website Members: Pat and Frank Reilly, Pinky Derieux, and Karen Sacasky

No activities were reported since last meeting.

Communications Members – Cheri Haggerty, Shelby Snyder, Kathryn Debnar, Betty Truax, George Graine, Tom Bolt, Kathryn Debnar, Betty Truax, and Tom Bolt
1. Since November 12^th, marked our eighth anniversary as VMGA.net, this website has grown from a single page giving the minutes of the last meeting to a large website with more than 220 pages of content and more than 100,000 (131,460 actual) visitors annually. 2. VMGA recently switched service providers for our website. VMGA’s new “home” has allowed us much more space and increased services such as sub-domains which means that is easier to manage and better than ever to help a local unit incubate their site with VMGA.net. 3. Since the October regularly scheduled meeting there have been 6,645 visitors to VMGA.net. and the web page has been updated on 74 separate occasions. 4. The most popular pages in the last two months have been the Calendar of Events, Educational Events and the Membership page; but more than 58% of our page views come in through the front page. 5. Kathryn Debnar is currently accepting changes to the calendar. 6. Membership applications are available on-line at the membership page. 7. A merchandizing page has been added to the site to showcase our T-shirts. 8. The group is currently working on the MG College Recruiting presentation. The committee could use some photos of activities and Sunday going away picnic. The presentation will be distributed in January. .

Finance Committee – Bill Scott, Chair
The committee will meet in January and start the budget process for 2007.

Extension Liaison - Dave Close, MG Coordinator
Reported on the following: Replacement Nametags should be in local unit offices soon. AAG – statewide contest as final piece to campaign. Information will be on the AAG website. Photos and applications are to be turned in by September 1. Winners will be announced and presented with awards on Ag Day of the State Fair. State Record Keeping System – working on a data entry template/timekeeping sheet. Wildlife Chapter – VCE admin is has decided to keep this in house.
MG College 2007 – MGCAT met October 20. Dave also met with folks from continuing education and worked out budget for 2007. MGCAT will meet again in January; will be offering Water Steward Training – will be open to undergrad and grad students and junior high/high school science teachers. Working on a logo for our anniversary year and will have commemorative glasses for sale at the wine tasting event. Tour of VA – most recently in Franklin County; beginning to schedule more for upcoming winter: Washington County, Williamsburg, at least two more in the works. Handbook Revisions –met with Joyce Latimer in mid-October; reviewed list of potential reviewers and discussed a letter going through her signature to all the reviewers/authors; still intends to use VCE MG volunteers who want to help with specific chapters. Dave will be contacting reviewers by the first of the year. Misc. items were reported as follows: The fall issue of "In Season" was sent out via listserv on December 7 and snail mail will soon follow. Invitation to West Virginia in January to speak at leadership training for agents and local association leaders; trying to get statewide consistency in the programs. Dave will be putting together a poster for the Deans’ Forum on the Environment for February – will highlight all the Advanced Training modules as service learning modules that incorporate citizen science. MG Coordinator will be working with Cathy Sutphin on the JMG program since Joe Hunnings’ responsibilities have changed. Hahn Hort Gardens will have a full-time educational outreach coordinator beginning in a few weeks (Stephanie Huckestein will serve in that role; will be hiring a head horticulturist to keep the gardens up). Dr. McCann has purchased six easy-up tents with the VCE logo that can be checked out and used at events; reservations will be handled at the District level. International MG Conference – Little Rock, AR, May 2-5, 2007. Early-bird registration ends at the end of December. Rumen Conev was hired for the ornamental plant breeder position; interviewing for a vegetable specialist for the Eastern Shore. In 2007, PMGs can be ordered through local agents. While attending a national Consumer Horticulture Forum hosted by the University of KY, he met and spoke with the MG Coordinator from Mississippi, Lelia Kelly, to discuss VA MGs going to MS in October, 2007 to work on Operation Rejuvenation projects. Nova Scotia sent a copy of their online MG training, based on VA's MG training manual. Dave’s department can now begin to explore an online version for VA.

Introductions around the room followed.

VMGA T-Shirt fund-raiser – Betty Villers

Betty had T-shirts in all sizes and sold them for $10.00 each. VMGA can purchase the T-shirts in multiples of 144 pieces. The break-even point is sale of 75 pieces. The T-shirt comes in S, M, L, XL, and XXL and can be used as a gift. The beige and maroon colors are also Virginia Tech’s colors. Proceeds will benefit the MG Coordinator Endowment Fund.

State Coordinator Endowment Committee-Pat Reilly, Chair
Members - Angela Cingale, Dave Close, Kathryn Debnar, Carol Dixon, Jane Pratt Schilling and Jim Scibek, Bill McCaleb, and Max Bales, Director of Development for CALS.
The committee will be looking at attempts of what committee members can handle as far as speaking to MG groups throughout the state. So far, there is $213,904.75 in pledges in the MG Coordinator Endowment Fund. Dogwood pins are carried out by Max Bales for the 5 years for $50 program. Participating members in the Food Lion program must renew in December for the 2007 year and should be encouraged at our unit meetings. We have received $56.53 for this quarter. Jim Scibek is checking into the Bloom & Bottom Dollar stores to see if they have a similar program as Food Lion. A Powerpoint presentation is available if anyone would like to show it to their unit. Units can promote the endowment fund thru their local newsletter. All of this info is on the VMGA website.

State Fair – Christy Brennan

State Fair will be held at the Richmond Raceway Complex this year  September 27- October 7th 2007.   Cherie has recommended that we start a State Fair Committee involving Master Gardener units closer to the Doswell location so the transition phase will be smooth when the Fair moves to the new location.

Unit reports
The unit reps were requested by our president to report on either an old or new project, or a planned project for 2007. Unit reports were given at this time. The individual unit reports can be found on the VMGA website.

Horticultural Horizons – Dawn Lerch
Dawn Lerch, Chesterfield County MG, working as Assistant Director of Development for the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at VA Tech, was present to meet with the MG Endowment Committee. Dawn also is a committee member of the ‘Horticulture Horizons…400 Years after Jamestown’ Symposium and reminded everyone of the date, Tuesday, April 24, 2007 at Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden, Richmond, VA. Registration will begin in February through the Chesterfield Extension Office, 804-751-4401, due to limited space.

Unfinished Business
Fund Raising – Cheri Haggerty
There are still some marketed items that we can pursue such as the licence plates which was initiated by Tom Bolt. Perhaps a unit can head up this endeavor. Volunteers for the Maymont Flower and Garden, February 22nd thru 25th, at the Richmond Convention Center, will receive free admittance the day they volunteer. Cheri passed around a sheet for unit or individual MG to sign up on their preferred day. She will coordinate the Hanover and VMGA volunteers.

.
New Business – President
Ways to promote Membership growth was already discussed. Sylvia Hoehns Wright ( the Washington(DC) Gardener magazine garden columnist) of Glen Allen is looking for photos of eco-friendly landscapes designed and grown by youth using the AAG theme. VMGA has replaced the secretary’s tape recorder. VESA (Virginia Extension Service Association) – at the General Assembly. Will set up a display during General Assembly to demonstrate to legislators the importance of funding VCE. The display will include real numbers on how we reach the constituency in our diverse areas. MG College will be held from June 19^th thru 24^th. We will again be awarding 6 scholarships on June 21^st. Goodie bags- each unit is requested to supply a goody bag item, especially if it is something special to their area. Cheri gave the meeting schedule with the unit and coordinator for the 2007 meetings. February- Prince George, Cheryl Sebera; April-Bedford, Patty Gamache; June-Blacksburg, Cheri Haggerty; August- Northern Shenandoah, Fran and Bud Gregory ; October-Fairfax,George Graine; December-James City, Anne Odle. She has units represented in each VCE District hosting the VMGA meetings. She thanked York Master Gardeners for being wonderful hosts.

Announcements
Next Board Meeting - April   -     Bedford -     Patty Gamache

Meeting adjourned at 1:45 p.m.

Respectfully submitted,

Angela Cingale – VMGA Secretary

		Data As OF:	11/30/2006
Overall Balance of Accounts
	Checking Account Balance				$4,623.44
	PDR Education Endowment CD Balance				$7,886.55
	Reserve CD Balance				$6,801.11
	Future Dues CD Balance				$4,154.20
	Total Overall Balance of Accounts				$23,465.30
	Checking Balance as of	9/30/2006			$5,084.27
		Receipts
			Coord Endowment Gifts	$111.48
			FY 08-17 dues	$108.00
			FY 07 dues (current FY)	$720.00
			Education	$2,747.50
			Fundraising	$0.00
			Gift for EEF	$0.00
					$3,686.98
		Disbursements
			Comm/Support	$0.00
			Coord Endowment Cmte	$0.00
			Coord Endow Gift Transfers	$0.00
			Education	$2,079.46
			EEF Gift Transfers	$0.00
			EEF Scholarships	$0.00
			Elections	$0.00
			Fund Raising Cmte	$0.00
			Fund Raising Gifts to Endowment	$0.00
			Lifetime Dues Transfers	$0.00
			Marketing	$175.00
			Membership & Roster	$1,392.92
			Newsletter	$238.43
			State Fair	$253.57
			Officers Expense
			President	$0.00
			Vice President	$0.00
			Secretary	$8.43
			Treasurer	$0.00
					-$4,147.81
	Checking Balance as of	11/30/2006			$4,623.44
Year to Date Income & Expenses to Budget FY 07
Income YTD
	Committee	Budget	Income
	Membership
	FY 07 (Lifetime/Prior Year)	$2,920.00	$2,852.00
	FY 07 (Current FY)	$2,000.00	$2,064.00
	Subtotal	$4,920.00	$4,916.00
	Education	$2,400.00	$2,747.50
	Fundraising