St Charles County Master Gardeners

St Charles County Master Gardener

 

Steering Committee Meeting Minutes

 

Friday 10 January 2020

 

Attendees:  Kevin Minard, Jan Carron, Rebekah Davis, Joe Walker, Justin Keay, Alex Reichert, Cindy Platzer, Waneta Parmenter, Bonnie Winkeler

 

Call to Order:  Kevin called the meeting to order at 9:04 AM

 

Confirmation of newly elected officers and Overall Garden Lead:  President- Kevin Minard,  Vice President- Jan Carron,  Secretary- Rebekah Davis,  Treasurer-  Joe Walker,  Overall DG Lead- Cindy Platzer.  Motion for the nominated officers to be elected was approved.

 

Secretaries Report:  Steering Committee Meeting Minutes for 13 December were approved as written.

 

Treasurer’s Report:  Joe reported the net monthly change for December.  End of December 2019 cash in bank was identified and compared to be almost twice the amount as last year at the same time.  Unallocated dollars were shown.  Remaining Demo Garden allocation was shown.  Joe also provided physical copies of Steering Committee, Coordinator Roles and Responsibilities as a refresher due to officer turnover.

 

MU Horticulturalist Specialist:  Justin reported the St. Louis Extension will be doing a Sustainable Garden and Kitchen Seminar/workshop March 14 on the UMSL campus.  Arrangements are being made for a February 22 irrigation workshop, with the event being considered as Advanced Training.  Justin is currently in discussions with a St Louis colleague about possibly planning a Regional Project Volunteer Day with the purpose of uniting St Louis and St Charles County Master Gardeners and Master Naturalists to work together on a project.  Justin also reported that he will be working with the International Institute in St Louis over the course of three years to train them for their farming initiative.

 

MU County Engagement Specialist:  Alex had no new developments to report with regards to the creek project.  Alex mentioned the Extension Council is working on exploring more long-term partnerships with SSM Hospital and the Community Strong Initiative in St Charles.  He suggested this might be something that Master Gardeners could plug into.

 

 

Committee Reports-

 

Membership:  Waneta reported the total volunteer hours for 2019 (13,231.94 hrs) to be about 2,000 more than last year.  The hours broken down by category and projects were shown. 

 

A list of 25 Master Gardeners who didn’t meet the hourly requirements to maintain active status was shown.  A motion was made and carried for exceptions to be granted if total hours of 26 were met in 2019.  This decision was made with the understanding of revisiting the hourly requirements and their categories at a later date.  In the end, 16 of the 25 MGs were classified as inactive.

 

Bonnie and Waneta talked about ordering pins for the yearly volunteer achievements and bricks to commemorate 1,000 hours.  The question was posed if a MG should receive an engraved brick for every 1,000 hours.  A motion was made for a one-time acknowledgment for exceeding 1,000 hours with a commemorative brick.  This motion didn’t carry.  Another motion was made and approved to acknowledge the initial 1,000 hours with a commemorative brick, with each additional 1,000 hours acknowledged with a certificate, meeting announcement, and commemorative pin.

 

Demo Gardens:  Cindy pointed out the way volunteer hours are reported makes it difficult to tell what is actually going on in the Demo gardens.  Alex commented how he would like to see the hours reflect more work done offsite in the community.  

 

The Demo Garden budget requests for 2020 was shown and the amount of $8,879 was approved.

 

Greenhouse:  The propane tank was filled.  No other reports.

 

Plant Sale:  The January seeding party was well attended.  The party was scheduled from 10:00 AM – 3:00 PM however work was completed by noon.  No other reports.

 

Speakers:  The Paul Hendricks Award will be presented at the January monthly meeting.  A schedule of speakers organized by Val Mertz was shown for the meetings of January through April.  No facilitators had been assigned yet so Cindy and Jan volunteered to host the January meeting.

 

Kevin suggested inviting Elliot Schneider from the St Peters Earth Centre to speak at a meeting.  Joe also proposed inviting Gateway Greening to speak at a meeting.

 

Hort Line:   The Hort Line is currently inactive for the winter season.  Call-ins are being handled from out of houses.  One of those call-ins, Amy Miller, introduced herself as the new Supervisor of Horticulture for St Charles County Parks.  The current relationships between the County Parks and Master Gardeners were discussed and concluded with the decision to invite Amy to the February Steering Committee meeting.

 

Education:  No updates from Mary Medina.  The Steering Committee continued discussions on organizing an Education Committee to address future Dig-ins, education and programs collectively.  Justin agreed to work on defining the roles and responsibilities of this proposed committee.

 

New Business: 

-“Help Save the Gardens”:  A special meeting was held on 8 January where Alex informed the Master Gardeners on the creek project.  The results were a motion brought forth to the Steering Committee for the Master Gardeners to pledge $5,000 to the Extension Council for the creek erosion control project.  This pledge details the amount to be earmarked as a special allocation separate from unallocated funds to be used only if the erosion project occurs.  The motion carried.

 

-Future EC Support at Brown Road Facility:  Joe suggested that with the future less than certain for Master Gardeners to remain at the Brown Road location, the Steering Committee should consider authorizing an ad-hoc committee for 2020.  The Steering Committee decided to schedule a special meeting to address what the goals or plans of the committee going forward should be.  This meeting is scheduled for Friday 24 January.

 

-Extension Council:  Cindy Platzer, named Community Partner from MG- Reported that the Extension Council is reducing its number of Secretaries from 2 ½ to 1 ½. 

 

-MOMGA membership and dues for 2020:  Kevin will receive a list of members from Waneta to be turned over to MOMGA for filing.  A motion was approved to authorize the renewal of MOMGA membership for the St Charles Chapter whatever the final dollar amount may be.

 

Old Business:  The library classes were discussed.  Justin suggested creating a flyer for events like the classes to encourage the public to contact the Master Gardener organization.

 

 

Meeting was adjourned at 12:19 PM

 

Respectfully submitted,

                                                Rebekah Davis

 

 

APPROVED                14-FEBRUARY-2020