HECG Board Meeting Minutes June 2016

June 20, 2016, 7PM at HECG

In Attendance:

Joan Gregory, President

Luke Manion, Vice President

Brenda Dunlap, Secretary

Erin Harms, Treasurer/Membership

Absent:

Matt Bradley, Web & IT Coordinator

Katie Lefeber Donahue, Garden Events Coordinator

Officer Reports:

President: Nothing to report

Vice President:

Luke purchased a fire dragon and torched the patio weeds. It worked well although weeds on runners are stubborn. He will store it at home as requested by the Board, because it poses a safety hazard in the shed.
Chris Forney weeded his plot as requested.
Gene Kim has been notified in writing twice that his plot violates the Rules and Terms of Membership and Plot Maintenance Rules. The weeds are seeding, creating nuisance, and impacting other gardeners. A red flag will be placed in his plot.

Secretary:

Brenda suggested that future minutes should contain Action Items. Board members who miss a meeting should email updates on their activities to the Board prior to the meeting and for inclusion in the Minutes. Board members agreed that we should do this for continuity and reporting.

Treasurer/Membership:

Stephanie and Erin have almost completed transfer of financial items.
Erin is still having trouble accessing the PayPal account and is working with Stephanie to resolve.
Debit cards have been issued to the President and the Treasurer
All plots are filled for the 2016 garden season
Erin responded to Mrs. Gold about posting a gardening link to our website. Because of the concern that this was spam, we decided against a shout-out or a post

Garden Events Coordinator (via email):

Katie removed old boards from garden beds, which were picked up by DC bulk pick-up.
Katie contacted several gardeners to lead workdays – many have signed up! One workday in June was covered by a non-Board member. July workdays will be lead by non-Board members. Many thanks to the gardeners who volunteered to lead work days: Amy Searight, Angie Cecil, Abby Pound, Amy Caspari, and Matthew Caspari.
Nice turn out at first social events of the year on June 9th (happy hour/water training) and June 19 (homebrew day).
Katie is planning additional events, including a garden cook-off in August.
Katie replenished the weed bags in the garden for the June workdays.
Katie is emailing reminders to gardeners. Reminders are sent 1 week and also 1 day in advance of garden community activities.
Katie volunteered to replace our old unreadable sign with a new sign if Contessa is not able to repaint it. Signs should also list our webpage, http://www.hilleastgarden.org,
Katie logged in hours for the sign-in sheets she had. Members are now logging in their own work hours.

Web/IT (via email):

The web site is now set up to provide Board members and gardeners the option to publish a link to the story on our FB page
Matt’s waiting on a response on merging our FB page with the separate FB “place” that people find if they search for the Hill East Community Garden. With no more effort than it takes to update our web site, we’ll be able to inform anyone in the garden who follows us on FB of pertinent news, and anyone who finds us through FB searching for us.
There is a document shared with the Board of the technical configurations around the list consolidation and setup. Matt offered to provide assistance to Board members, too.

Other Business

The Board reviewed plot maintenance compliance in the “Terms of Membership” which has been signed by every HECG gardener and posted on http://www.hilleastgarden.org.
The Board checked plots to see if they are in compliance with the rules. Luke will contact gardeners who are not in compliance with the rules.
Joan asked Brenda to include a reminder in future minutes for gardeners to log their own work hours.
The Board will identify goals for the following month’s workdays and these will be communicated to the gardeners in the reminders.
Joan brought up capital planning. She suggested we set up a plan to obtain water. Erin noted we need a physical address for a water line and doesn’t know the process for getting the street(s) in the alley named. We agreed to contact our ANC Commissioner.
The Board agreed that we do not need more mulch this year.
We noted there is food and sauce on HECG tables. Gardeners should remember to wipe tables after eating.

Action Items:

For 7/2016: Matt to give Board members intro/demo/notes to directly post to the web site and access shared Google Drive items to update/manage and share with the Board and post to the web site to compliment their notes to the listserv.
For 7/2016: Matt to purchase new grill cover
For 7/2016: Katie to research replacing the chairs in the garden.
For 7/2016: Katie to ask gardeners to lead 2 August workdays.
For 7/2016: Erin to invite new ANC rep to HECG Board meeting or for a tour of the garden to discuss water issues and acquiring a name for the alley
For 7/2016: Erin to contact Contessa Riggs regarding the sign.
For 7/2016: Luke to email Gene Forney regarding plot
For 8/2016: Katie planning garden social.
For 9/2016: Revisit nematode purchase.
For 11/2016: Revisit garden taking over its own insurance policy.
For 2/2017: Brenda to research free wood chips from reliable source
Ongoing: Katie and Erin researching possible grants for HECG.