FRIENDS OF DONALD PARK, INC. MONTHLY MEETING OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS: 1/14/03.

IN ATTENDANCE: BOARD: B. WOODBURN BY SPEAKER PHONE, P. HITCHCOCK, D. HARTMAN, S. O'NEILL, N. MILLS, S. ROYSTON, D. HUGHES, D. THOMAS, AND S. GAUGER WITH K. IGNATIUS AND B. GEIMER ABSENT. GUEST: MARSHA COOOPER, BOOKKEEPER FOR HORSE TRAIL COMMITTEE, RECORDING SECRETARY: V. ANDERSON

PRESIDENT: S. ROYSTON, RECORDING SECRETARY: V. ANDERSON

CALL TO ORDER THE MONTHLY MEETING OF THE MEMBERS: by President Royston, 7:10 p.m.

MINUTES: MOTION by Hitchcock/_________ to approve the minutes of the 11/19/02 meeting with the following corrections/additions: In Louise Goldstein's presentation it will take both the DC ACT and FoDP, Inc. approvals for the Trail Steward Program. Motion carried unanimously. MOTION by _________/_________to approve the minutes of the 12/17/02 meeting with the addition of the names of any absent board members. Motion carried unanimously.

PRESIDENT'S REPORT: Royston presented the following Administrative Clarification and the asked the Board to vote whether of not each point is a true statement:

Does the Board feel that these Administrative Procedures should be or are in place?

* That the only Binding Votes are ones taken at Board Meetings where a quorum has been reached...i.e. this means no binding issues may be decided without full notification of the Board of an issue that requires a vote. Unanimous vote "yes".

* That all funds raised, donated or acquired by dues must be deposited through the FoDP treasurer and deposited into the F of DP designated bank. Clarified:

The officeholders of Royston, Ignatius, Gauger and Woodburn, as signatores of the bank card, are the only individuals authorized to sign checks from the FoDP, Inc. bank account. These four individuals and one other, David Hughes, are authorized to make deposits. All receipts of financial transactions shall be transferred to Treasurer B. Woodburn as soon as practicable. Unanimous vote "yes".

* That checks written to vendors should go directly to the vendor when the check is written by the treasurer or authorized treasurer assistant. First sentence needs to be ironed out because it seems impractical to some with Treasurer living out-of-state to require all checks to be written by treasurer or authorized treasurer assistant and with four officeholders authorized to sign check.

The correct mailing address should be presented when the bill is presented for

approval and payment. Unanimous vote "yes" to second sentence.

* That all requests for funding or matched funding from Dane County must be formally approved by the Board and the request signed by the President or Vice President of the FoDP to clearly signify to Dane County that these requests have been through the FoDP Board process. Unanimous vote "yes" with suggestion that such requests be submitted on FoDP stationery.

* That Board votes authorizing performance, spending (over $500) or fundraising shall be kept either in a vote log by the secretary, or, by each committee head for retrieval upon request, or, any other suggestions? Unanimous vote "yes" with suggested procedure for recording secretary to create an excel spreadsheet log of all motions as an attachment to monthly meeting minutes.

Info:In the Dane County Parks and Open Space Plan, 2001-2005, Donald Park holds the first priority in Land/Easement Acquisition. Contact person is Laura Guyer, Conservation Fund Specialist for Dane County Parks.

Distribute: Louise Goldstein's e-mail regarding First Get-together of Friends Groups for all Dane County Parks. S. O'Neill attended and briefly reported on it. Save the date of Sunday, March 30, 2003, 4-7:00 p.m. The first event will serve as a retirement party for Ken LePine, "Friends' Farewell to Ken LePine", "A Friendly Farewell to Ken LePine", etc. O'Neill is researching plaques and volunteered us to bring hor's d'oeuvres.

TREASURER'S REPORT BY B. WOODBURN: Report dated 12/31/02 faxed to meeting showing a balance of $35,484.10. DISCUSSSION: Bookkeeper for Horse Trail Committee, Marsha Cooper, to be in direct contact with B. Woodburn via e-mail at coopm@chorus.net. Reiterated that deposit slips go to B. Woodburn and membership contributors' names and mailing addresses to B. Geimer for membership cards/thank yous and names and mailing addresses for other non-membership contributions to K. Igatius for thank yous. Suggestion to include a "wish list" in next Newsletter. MOTION by Hughes/Gauger to approve the year's end treasurer's report. Motion carried unanimously.

QUICK REPORT/ENDOWMENT STATUS BY O'NEILL: MOTION by O'Neill/Hitchcock to pursue the goal of starting an endowment fund with sum of $10,000.00, $5000.00 from J. Woodburn's matching funds challenge and $5000.00 in independent donations to the endowment, to be collected from the donations to-date and with the balance from the general fund, with the stipulation that all funds from the general fund shall be reimbursed with the proceeds of the specific endowment appeal. DISCUSSION: J. Woodburn got it rolling with $5000.00 matching fund. If we used the $1000.00 from the United Way award we would be almost there. B. Woodburn, with S. O'Neill agreeing, believe we should not use the United Way award monies and should go after funds specifically donated for the endowment. We can achieve this goal. We only need time. The plan is to publicize an appeal in the next Newsletter in which, Ann Casey of the Madison Community Foundation will write an explanatory article, " How Endowments Work". Borrowing money from the general fund is a short-term fix, a bridge loan, towards the bigger goal of starting an endowment from which we will be able to draw 5% one year from now. The particulars/strategy of the endowment appeal to be discussed. Motion carried aye-8, no-0, 1-abstain.

COMMITTEE REPORTS:

HORSE TRAIL BY D. HUGHES, D. THOMAS, M. COOPER: (Jean Warrior unable to attend.) Overview of horse trail progress report. Ques.: In all cases should the horse trail be described as the multi-use trail? For the purposes of these minutes the term horse trail will be used until clarification.

Volunteers: Cooper, Hughes, Thomas and Warrior are the four individuals primarily responsible for making the horse trail happen. Breakdown of total horse trail volunteer hours in 2002(1707 hours) indicate that approximately 8 individuals are responsible for 741.5 hrs./40% of total hours. The remaining hours donated by 79 other volunteers totals 965 hours or 12 hrs./per volunteer. A tremendous amount of time and energy is required to organize these volunteer efforts. The horse trail workdays will remain as the first and third Saturdays of each month. Volunteers are always welcome. Some of the general Tuesday morning volunteers have worked on specific horse trail tasks and are more than willing to continue to do so. In the future, cross-country skiers could be enlisted for this trail work, too. At this point in time, it appears that volunteers specific to the horse trail prefer to work only on horse trail projects.

Membership: Of the 100 FoDP, Inc. members, 42 members were drawn to the park via the horse trail. Horse trail flyers, newsletters, etc. continue to encourage membership in the FoDP, Inc. in addition to specific horse trail activities, with the message that the trail is part of the bigger Friends.

Funding Flow: M. Cooper, bookkeeper for horse trail, and B. Woodburn, FoDP, Inc. Treasurer, to set-up direct communication via e-mail. Up to this point M.Cooper would collect donations and D. Hughes would deposit monies into the bank, forward the deposit slips to B. Woodburn, and forward membership name/address to B. Geimer for membership thank yous. A double recording system between Cooper and Hughes provided a safeguard for money handling. Ques.: Is it correct that horse trail thank yous would be written by their committee rather than K. Ignatius?

Grants: Horse trail committee has successfully received the following grants for specific projects: River and Trails-$4200.00, Recreational Trails-$5000.00, and WI State Horse Council-$1000.00. (Note: sorry, I don't know the parent organization of two out of three of these grants.) Generally, the affiliation with the non-profit FoDP, Inc. is required and the FoDP, Inc. Board President signs-off on them.

Newsletter: It was agreed that the horse trail newsletter is great and makes us all look good. The horse trail is a marketing tool for the whole park. It is another medium in which affiliation with FoDP, Inc. and DCP is always highlighted. At this point in time, in lieu of merging the mailing list for the horse trail newsletter with the FoDP, Inc. mailing list, when the general park newsletter will be mailed in the spring, the horse trail committee will prepare labels for the non-members that receive the horse trail newsletter.

Development: 3 hour meeting between Chris James, DCP, and D. Hughes:

*County Board resolution prepared re: agreement between DNR and DCP for the park to extend a hiking trail across DNR land near Mt. Vernon Creek.

*Payments for our share of gravel bill at entrance on CTH G worked out. James had estimated a total bill of $16,500.00 and the final bill is $16,581.40. Our share is $8290.70, $4200.00 from River and Trails grant, $2455.00 from horse trail fund, and balance of $1635.70 to be paid from DCP horse trail fund.

*MOTION, with amendment, by Hartman/Hitchcock to approve the bills of: $178.44 to reimburse Jean Warrior for postage, copies, and newsletter expenses, $1635.70 from DCP horse trail fund for gravel at CTH G entrance, and $25.00 to renew annual membership in WI State Horse Council. Motion carried unanimously.

*DCP has not scheduled much of their limited time to our projects, but they will not leave anything hanging.

*Trails outside of Park: push is on to complete necessary segment by 7/03.

*Agreed that coordination is vital for upcoming projects-entrances and shelters in the Park.

FUNDRAISING BY S. O'NEILL, D. THOMAS:

*To enhance fundraising efforts/appeals, specific goals to be determined-$10,000.00 for one shelter, renew discussion re:Kozar print as requested by B. Woodburn, status of Scheidegger donation, etc.

*Facilities/Shelter, Signage, Toilets, Committee: D. Hartman, S. Royston, K. Ignatius, B. Woodburn, P. Hitchcock, D. Hughes, D. Thomas to meet Saturday, 1/25/03, 1:00 p.m. at P. Hitchcock's. Reminder: Committee may need to make a decision re: kiosk design submitted by B. Geimer and initially approved by C. James because the monies received from WI State Horse Council for this purpose may have to be expended by 6/30/03.

OLD BUSINESS:

WORK PLAN AND BUDGET: MOTION by Gauger/Thomas to submit the Friends of Donald Park, Inc. 2003-2004 Work Plan and Budget as revised tonight with the monetary figures changed per the 12/31/02 data as our end of January work plan and budget. DISCUSSION: The Board will try to comply with Darren's request for an aerial phot0 with projects marked, but was unable to prepare that by the submission deadline of 1-31-03. Motion carried unanimously.

Note: S. Royston has directed me to mail the document and cover letter dated 1/15/03 since many people could not open the e-mail attachment.

NEW BUSINESS:

WI TOP RURAL DEVELOPMENT INITIATIVES: D. Thomas and N. Mills volunteered to pursue information provided by M. Cooper re: a public relations event scheduled for 2/14/03 in WI Dells.

WEBSITE: B. Woodburn volunteered to monitor the status of the website since information is now out-of-date. Tim White, webmaster, does not have this responsibility.

GRANT MANAGEMENT REVIEW: O'Neill volunteered to monitor the up-to-date status report on grants. Please complete the template provided by Royston and return to February meeting.

NEW COMMITTEE STRUCTURE DISCUSSION: Agreed that outline presented by S. Royston to revise the standing committees to bring the organization into focus for better communication and fundraising capability should be discussed at a future meeting. Such a reorganization may be the vehicle by which the membership can step forward to serve on committees to avoid Board member burn-out.

WAIVE DUES: Per our agreement with DCP a policy to waive dues is required. S. O'Neill to research Friends of Schumacher Farm policy.

NEW DONALD PARK VOLUNTEER CHECK-IN LIST 2003:Please remember to complete these!!!

ADJOURN: MOTION by _____/______ to adjourn. Motion carried unanimously.

NEXT MEETING: 2/18/03, 7:00 p.m., in the bunkhouse at P. Hitchcock's. Due to primary election on 2/18/03 town hall and recording secretary unavailable. (Sorry S. Gauger). Items which may be discussed: Laura Guyer, DCP, presentation, Capitol Expenditure Report to DCT for 2004, Strategic Plan, Fundraising appeal, Waive dues, etc.

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED, VICKI ANDERSON, RECORDING SECRETARY