Meetings - Red Hook Village Green Committee

Meetings

Tuesday, June 24, 2003 Meeting Minutes

Open the Meeting:

Christina Staubi opened the meeting at 7:10 p.m.

Minutes of Last Meeting:

The minutes from the May 27, 2003, meeting were accepted with minor changes required. Mark Meritt will ensure that those updates are made.

Outreach Committee (Christina Staubi):

Introduced Deborah Fraleigh, who is one of our 3rd grade teachers. Because 3rd graders will now be studying plants as part of their curriculum, Deborah is interested in working with the Village Green to get the students involved with our efforts. After some brainstorming, we agreed that Christina will schedule separate, smaller, meeting to work through some ideas and then these ideas should be communicated at a future general meeting. The following are some of the ideas that were discussed.

	Involve the students in either the fall or the spring planting. In addition to trees, involve the students in planting flowers and shrubs.
	Get the students involved in our annual Arbor Day celebration. Have the students help the Red Hook Garden Club maintain the gardens in Memorial Park.
	Plant some trees/shrubs/flowers at the Linden Ave. middle school.
	Involve the students in any efforts we have to spruce up the village parking lot.
	Also look at getting grades 6-8 involved.
	Be sure to apply for appropriate grants to help with the funding for getting the students involved.

Fundraising Committee (Linda Keeling):

We were denied the Chevron Texaco grant. Linda is following up to learn why.

If we get the Captain Planet Foundation grant, we could possibly use it for the Cornell tree inventory.

Memorial Donations…

Create a page on our website to list the memorial donations.

	Need to distinguish between “in honor of” and “in memory of”.
	Include location of dedicated tree.
	Send a certificate or letter to the owner of the property where the tree was planted so that it can be displayed.
	Mark Meritt also suggested that a certificate or letter be sent to the person or persons requested by the donor as well.

Brenda Cagle will schedule another meeting to try and finalize all issues.

Greens Committee (Brenda Cagle):

Karen Cadorette acquired aluminum tags that can be placed on the trees we’ve planted so far to identify their type and the date that they were planted. Hopefully, these tags will eventually be replaced by more permanent screw-in tags.

Cornell University is available to inventory the trees in the Red Hook Village.

	They will be coming to East Fishkill in September to inventory their trees. If we schedule our inventory effort to coincide with the East Fishkill inventory effort, they can lower the cost substantially to $1500-$2000.
	Brenda will try to talk with other towns that had the inventory done to see if they found it valuable.
	Brenda will try to get samples of the reports that they provide.
	An alternative to reduce the costs is to get volunteers from the community create the inventory, and use Cornell to train them on how to do that.

A reminder was made to the Greens committee that they need to present their plans for the fall planting at the July general meeting.

Two seminars being offered in the area were discussed:

	From Brown to Green, offered by Urban Forestry and Economic Development in Utica, NY, on 7/17-7/19. Brenda Cagle may attend.
	The Hudsonia described a workshop being offered by the Biodiversity Resources Center to help train municipalities and communities.

Montgomery Place is offering 4 free trees to the VG. A suggestion was made to plant these trees in Abraham’s Park, as we have received a request for 2-3 trees. Brenda will talk with Karen about the costs involved with digging them up.

Media Committee (Mark Meritt):

A reminder that a blurb is all set to go to the community with the next water bill.

Additional business:

None.

Next Meeting:

Tuesday, July 29th, at 7pm in the Village Hall.

Motion to Close Meeting:

Christina made a motion to close the meeting at 8:30 p.m. Linda seconded the motion.