Attending: Bob Gray, Chris Hoess, Anna Hull, David Ross, Henry Whitesel in person; Molly Anderson, Kent Wagner via phone 5:00pm at Lincoln University.

A) Key Dates

1. Our next board meeting is scheduled for Friday, January 8, 5:00-7:00 at Lincoln University, Room 235
Conference Dial-in Number: (716) 748-0224 (potential toll call)
Host Access Code: 445962*
Participant Access Code: 445962#

2. Hikes, Talks, Work Days and Other Commitments

Wednesday, December 30, Goat Hill (flag stumps), 10am – Henry leads
Sunday, January 3, Goat Hill Work Day, 10am – Henry leads
Sunday, January 10, Lower Chrome Work Day, 1pm – Molly leads

B) Action Items Going Forward

Molly Anderson
Will lead January 10 Serps Day at Lower Chrome

Mike Bertram:
Point person for our history initiatives

Bob Gray:
Will email a copy of the PPFF annual report template to remainder of board.
Point person for strategic planning initiatives.

Chris Hoess:
Will work with Tracy to follow up with PPFF to make sure that Henry receives his reimbursement [check has arrived] and that checks from the event have been cashed.
Will work with Tracy to schedule a time for members of the board to look at buildings at Nottingham County Park.
Will lead end of July 2016 walk; Board will incorporate as part of our Spring/Summer
2016 schedule

Anna Hull:
Will contact Joe to discuss Jim Herr’s offer to mow along the Rose Trail (liability issues?),
December 30 and January 3 work days, any concerns raised by encouraging expanded research access to Goat Hill,
our interest (and TNC’s in the timing of the BoF management planning)
potential Eagle Scout project involving camp sites
Will buy marking flags for December 30 workday at Goat Hill.
Point person for science and education initiatives.

Tracy Raymond
Will work with Chris to follow up with PPFF to make sure that Henry receives his reimbursement [check has arrived] and that checks from the event have been cashed.
Will work with Chris to schedule a time for members of the board to look at buildings at Nottingham County Park.
Will track down additional information about Evergreen Foundation.
Will work on organizing our contact email lists into categories to facilitate outreach to
different cohorts, e.g., workday volunteers, researchers, historians, politicians, donors.
Point person for membership and outreach initiatives.

David Ross:
Meet with Jay Gregg to discussing mapping and maintenance activity at NCP
Point person for administrative initiatives.

Kent Wagner:
Point person for recreational uses and trail planning initiatives.

Henry Whitesel:
Schedule a date (week of December 14) with Mike Bertram to remove rebar from scraped areas at Goat Hill.
Will lead workdays at Goat Hill on Wednesday, December 30 (10am) and Sunday, January 3, (10am) to flag and then remove stumps and rocks from sites 89 and 100.
Will obtain contact information for who is mowing in Upper and Lower Chrome.
Henry will share our thoughts about Eagle Scout project; Upper Chrome Kiosk or Goat Hill camp sites.
Point person for conservation/maintenance planning

C) Agenda Items Considered

1. Approved Minutes from Board Meeting of 11/01/2015
2. Approved agenda agreeing to tackle 10-16 before returning to 6 and 7
3. January board meeting date, time and location. Friday, January 8, 5:00-7:00 at Lincoln University, Room 235
4. Nomination and election of officers and directors
We elected for two year terms the following officers

Anna – Chair
Chris – Vice Chair
David -- Secretary
Chris -- Treasurer

We thanked Bob Gray for his service as Chair and expressed pleasure that he continues to serve on our Board.
We elected to a 2nd three-year term as directors

Mike Bertram
Henry Whitesel
Kent Wagner
Mike Waltz

We elected to a 1st three-year term as directors

Chris Hoess
Tracy Raymond

Bob, David and Anna have one year remaining on their first terms.

5. Discuss bylaws related to future officers / positions

We recognized that FSLSB record keeping between our our acceptance as a PPFF chapter in, we think, 2008, and 2012 was a bit limited leaving us with some uncertainty over the composition of the Board at that time. Chris Hoess led us through a reconstruction of our Board composition.
We agreed to maintain a Directors spreadsheet in Dropbox to keep track of terms served.

6. Discuss potential roles and responsibilities for 2016

Tabled to January.
Our current listing is

a. Conservation / maintenance (HW)
b. Science (AH)
c. History (MB)
d. Education (AH)
e. Recreation / trails (KW)
f. Membership / outreach (TR)
g. Administration (DR)
h. Strategic Plan (BG)

7. Setting goals for 2016 (see agenda items that follow)

We agreed to refine this list during January meeting
Exploring potential use of structures at NCP for FSLSB tasks and outreach
Organizing summer fund raiser and fall dinner
Riparian buffer restoration at Lower Chrome
Eagle Scout Project (Kiosk or Goat Hill camping sites)
GIS partnership with WCU; mapping at NCP
Implement expanded mowing regimen at Chrome and Goat Hill
Continued exploration of potential grants and preparation for a potential Americorps project in 2017
Develop a Serps maintenance schedule
Develop an Outreach/Education/Hikes schedule
Raising the visibility of the barrens in the research community
Coordinating with PPFF about networking/outreach opportunities
Refining our communications lists

8. Critical action items from Nov 1 board meeting
None

9. Reports from respective “leads” if not previously covered.
Tabled

10. Recap of member’s banquet

Chris relayed Tracy’s report.
We had 48 attendees and made money on the event. All agreed it was a successful event with thanks to Tracy and Henry for their leadership.
Tracy and Chris will follow up with PPFF to make sure that Henry receives his reimbursement [check has arrived] and that checks from the event have been cashed.
While we saw no immediate increase in workday volunteers we made a number of key contacts

Rutgers
Mowing offers
Howard Sweetman, offer to host summer picnic/fundraiser
Lenape Nation (Ruth Ann), were interested in partnering, possibly bringing some youth for a workday
Availability of FSLSB space at Nottingham Park, John Coberly – offer to occupy building as field office

11. Recap of Chrome and Goat Hill workdays

Molly, Lower Chrome – 11/15 and 25
Worked on connecting sites 19 and 14 with the goal of having them ready for Bob Folks to mow this spring.

Sunday, January 10 at 1pm Serps day: down remaining stumps and haul remaining brush away; Soil depth measurements (at suggestion of Rocky Gleason and Tony Davis) to identify the limits of any area that might merit scraping.
Anna will see if there is a student interested in assessing the site for control of stilt grass.
Our thought is to try several control measures – seeding additional warm weather grasses, covering an area with a tarp – and then assess site in late spring, summer and fall.
We would like to develop a riparian restoration plan for Lower Chrome including shifting the existing trail to expand the riparian buffer and (eventually) work with adjoining landowners. First step: Henry will identify who is currently mowing in Lower and Upper Chrome so we can include them in our conversations and ensure that our mutual interests are being met.

Kent, Goat Hill – 11/22
We cleared site 17 of the cut trees and removed saplings from 89.
Henry toured Goat Hill with Jim Herr to explore feasibility of mowing.
Chris shared status report from Kelly Sitch on BoF management plan for Goat Hill.
Sequence involves a multi-year control strategy for stilt grass; assembling BoF and PECO funds for expanding access roads; scheduling a timber harvest to reduce the potential load for burning to control green briar. We want to respect the need for BoF staff to follow internal procedures while also ensuring that we have a voice in how plans evolve.
Our immediate goal for Goat Hill is to have areas ready for Jim Herr to mow in spring.
Henry hopes to schedule a date next week (he leaves town on the 21st; Mike will be gone from just after Christmas until April) to remove rebar from sites 1 and 99 (the TNC scraped areas). He will let the rest of us know.

Sunday, January 3rd, 10am Henry will lead a workday to cut down stumps and remove loose rocks at sites 89 and 100. We will schedule subsequent work for trail along Goat Hill.
Wednesday, December 30, 10am Henry will lead a work day to flag stumps for cutting on the 3rd and beyond. Anna will buy marking flags.

David, NCP – 10/23
We’ve been working along Buck Trail in the SW corner of the park. Support for serpentine areas in the SE corner (where burning had been concentrated) has been on hold.
It would be helpful to incorporate NCP into our GIS mapping of sites we are maintaining.
David will work with Jay to discuss next steps in that mapping strategies and our maintenance goals for the coming year.
We hope to incorporate site tracker into the GIS effort WCU will be doing this spring and hope to be in a position to use WCU fall field methods class at Nottingham.

12. Recap of TNC event
Tabled to January

13. Status of mowing initiative – Chrome, Goat Hill
See discussion under 11

14. Storage of BOF equipment in TNC barn.
Chris will buy us a good 3 yards of chain and a combination lock to attach ATV and brush hog to
support timbers at TNC shed

15. Annual report to PPFF
Bob will share the annual report template from last year. Our deadline is January 30.
We will provide guidelines for work day reports to ease the process of creating future annual reports.

16. Other business

Eagle Scout project: Happy to support the Scout. Our first choice is a kiosk (can follow Goat Hill template or one Anna found for our grant application or one George Gress has from TNC) at Upper Chrome. 2nd choice would be to build up camp site at Goat Hill. Henry will follow up.

Research visibility: Chris would like us to encourage broader engagement with the barrens by the local research community. One option would be to schedule a research activities day.
Anna will check with Joe about what permissions we might need for this form of outreach.

Space at Nottingham County Park: While talking to John Coberly after the banquet, the idea of using one of the vacant buildings at Nottingham as a sort of headquarters/working space for the Friends came up.
John was enthusiastic about the idea, as is Jay. (For internal reasons, this is much less trouble than the negotiations over equipment storage space.) Obviously, as with anything they do, there are a great many details to be worked out, but I'd like us to discuss 1) is this, in general, a desirable proposition 2) what uses might we put it to 3) what resources would we need in order to equip it for those uses.
Tracy and Chris will schedule a time to check out these spaces including the rest of us as schedules permit

17. Adjourned at 7:00 with thanks to Anna for hosting.