BCO September 2016 Board Mee ng Minutes September 29th 6:30­8:30pm at MCPL Room 2A A endees ● Board Members ○ A ending: Hannah Mar n, Stephen Hale, Josh David, Amy Roche, Teresa Dunn, Sarah Ryterband, Dani Ansaldo ○ Absent: Earon Davis, Ross Gay, Aileen Driscoll ● Other Leaders/Guests ○ Frank Anderson, Rebecca Waldrop, Lena Shumakova, Laura Oleson, Jenna Foster, Megan Hutchison Welcome & Announcements ● Lena wants pictures of people and events at the orchard to put in the newsle ers. We can send them to her at c ommunica [email protected] , or we can put them in the workday journal, and she’ll find them there. ● The Bloomington Volunteer Network publishes a list of in‐kind dona ons that nonprofits want (a wishlist). Typical requests are office supplies, orcharding equipment, etc. If there are items that we think would be useful, send them to Megan ( [email protected] ) by October 14th. Megan will send a reminder on October 13th. ● Cider Fest is coming up on October 8th. Please share the event on your social media accounts. ● Bloomingfoods is having their annual mee ng on October 19th, and they are taking votes for their Posi ve Change program for next year. This is the program that we were a recipient of this year, and we received a lot of money. We can be voted for, so spread the word. ● The Bloomington Volunteer Network is having a board cer fica on seminar on Friday, October 21st in the a ernoon. Josh will send an email about it. ● We have Cider Fest posters to hang up around town. We also have a handbill for the Indiana Review Poetry reading that’s occurring right a er Cider Fest at 4pm. Ross Gay will be featured in that reading. ● Next weekend, Amy is represen ng us at the Local Food Summit in Indianapolis. ● Amy has joined the reforma on of Bloomington United, which is a coali on of organiza ons in Bloomington. She is represen ng us and her childcare center. If she ever can’t a end, she may ask one of us to a end for her. ● There’s a symposium in Bloomington for women in nonprofit leadership on October 29th. Teresa is a ending. ● The Nonprofit Alliance and the SPEA Nonprofit Management Associa on are sponsoring the Nonprofit Toolkit October 14th at Ivy Tech. You can register on the Nonprofit Alliance’s website. ● There are 2 grants through the city for women and for people who live in a certain economic zone in Bloomington. Megan will send us the links. Orchard Mission/Vision Story Minute & Monthly Activity Summary Update ● Dani is excited about our new high school intern who comes to the orchard on Wednesdays. Megan is going to interview him next week for an ar cle. ● Laura had a group of service learners last Saturday, and they seemed to really enjoy it. ● Our first service learning class is Tara Darcy Hall’s class. She used to be on the board, and she and Amy Countryman started Cider Fest. First Lady’s Grant Letter ● We received a $1,000 grant from the Indiana First Lady’s Charitable Founda on. ● Amy and Megan are going to a recep on next week to accept the check. ● The founda on will send us pictures, and Megan will share them with Lena. Site Report ● We have lost both beehives. George (our beekeeper) doesn’t know what happens, although he knows it was not mites or insec cides. It’s not that the bees died; the bees just le . This could be the result of colony collapse or overcrowding, but overcrowding seems unlikely since he just split the hives. George is talking to the Purdue extension to find out what happened. But, poten ally good news! Megan found a grant for beekeeping supplies. Stephen will let her know if we want to apply. ● The fence is working for now. But looking ahead, we need to decide if we should restore the fence back to what it was, or if we should do something different. Perhaps the fence could be a 2017 Priority Project. If anyone sees holes in the fence or deer in the orchard, please text Dani and Stephen. ● Opera ons is ge ng the orchard ready for Cider Fest. There’s lots of scything to do. Straw bales are ready. ● The next tasks will be ge ng the trees put to bed for winter. ● The center circle strawberries have been weeded, and there aren’t a ton of strawberry plants there. The strawberries by the grape arbor and the Marshalls are all very thick, so we need to thin them. Perhaps we could give strawberry plants away at Cider Fest. ● We have a compost person named Ashley who is taking temperatures of our windrows and keeping track of what goes in it and how o en we turn it. ● Opera ons only has 3 work and learn day leaders. If you can help out, even if you don’t want to be a regular leader, please let Dani know. Dani will circulate the sign‐up sheet. ● The only fruit le in the orchard is persimmons. When you’re invi ng people to Cider Fest, let them know that there won’t be apples on the trees, because that could be a surprise to people. We will bring apples there though. 3Q 2016 Finance Report ● We have over $32,000. ● We are par cularly blessed this year because we’ve been gi ed with a lot of money without having an actual fundraiser. We had the Lucky’s event, the Bloomingfoods event, and the First Lady grant. We’ve had few individual donors. ● We haven’t been spending a lot of money. ●
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It’s good that we have a lot of money, because the next few years will be expensive with the classroom and with water. We’re hoping to have the 2017 budget completed by November and voted on in December. Each team needs to look at what they’ve spent this year and their plans for next year, and project how much money they’ll need next year. Some mes grant applica ons ask for mul ple‐year budgets. Perhaps a er we make the 2017 budget, we can have an exercise where we use our strategic plan to forecast how our budget might look for the next 3 years. Strategic Plan and Tracker Check­In & Ongoing Updates ● Partner plan ngs ○ We have our dates for the fall plan ngs. There are Facebook events for all of them on the BCO Community Plan ngs Team page. Please share them! There will be tree giveaways at all of the plan ngs. ■ October 16th at 9am: Prospect Hill neighborhood ■ October 22nd 10am: Bryan Park neighborhood ■ November 12th 1pm: KIPP Indy (a public charter school) ○ We are also hoping to do one at Ivy Tech. Teresa is mee ng with Joe Betz next week to discuss plans. ○ We are using a tree giveaway form. Please share it with anyone who might be interested in ge ng a free tree from us. ○ The partner plan ng guide is complete. However, it is a working document, so we’ll be making changes periodically. The first page shows the date it was last edited. ● Speaker’s Bureau ○ We’re trying to get the Speaker’s Bureau up and running again. We need to figure out who, of the people who have been involved in the past, want to be involved. A er that, we will need to find more people. ○ Jenna Foster is taking over Sarah Sharpe’s role as Community Engagement Coordinator. She receives the emails at e [email protected] . ○ Jenna and Laura will talk about how their roles can work together. ● Development ○ Last year the breakfast brought in $2500. It is a lot of work. Megan wants to look into other op ons. ■ 2 mailings: one in November and one in December (right now we do 1) ■ Engage board member contacts by having people host small dinners. The board member can tell a compelling story (like we used to tell at the breakfast). We could do a couple of these over the winter. We could even charge people for a cket to the dinner. ■ A nigh me adult fundraiser at the orchard site‐‐maybe ghost stories and flashlights, but we want other ideas too ■ Heavy orderve and wine tas ng ○ If you know anyone who might be willing to give, or even anyone who wants to support your interests (like parents, grandparents, etc.), send their contact info to Megan. ●
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Junior Stewards ○ Struggling to recruit more people ■ Put a flyer in the school of Ed ■ Need help with MLK Day event!!! ● Becca is willing to help. Hannah will email her. Cider Fest ○ The potluck is from 12‐2pm. ○ From 2‐4, someone will do a site tour. We’ll have kid ac vi es and cider pressing. People can dig up a strawberry plant to take home. ○ Roadblocks ■ The trellising class is on the same day from 2‐4pm. They will be at the shelter during this me, so we need to be in the orchard. Michael will know a few days beforehand if the class is full. If it’s not, then we can ask people if they would like to par cipate when they sign in. Classroom ○ Sco sent us a design. His cost es mate was $100,000. ○ Jack, Hannah, Teresa, and Stephen met to discuss the design. Jack drew a sketch of his own ideas. ○ The ball is in our court. We need to send Sco our feedback. ○ Stephen will send a doodle to schedule the next mee ng for the classroom. Strategic Planning Outcomes­­feedback from first (9/24) meeting ● We want to update the 2012 plan to bring in our current efforts. ● The goal is to have this finalized by December 15th. ● Teams, commi ees, and leaders need to think about what we want for 2017, and bring feedback to the October board mee ng. ● The next strategic plan mee ng is whichever day Cider Fest isn’t (October 8th or 9th, depending on whether we have to use the rain date).