1 Friends of the Orange County Public Library Hillsborough, NC Minutes of Executive Board Meeting June 11, 2012
Approved at Board Meeting July 9, 2012
Present: Janet Flowers, Lori Graham, Chris Holaday, Bill Barrows and Sandy Gerstner
Co-Chair, Janet Flowers, called the meeting to order at 6:00 p.m.
Minutes
Sandy moved and Bill seconded the motion to accept the minutes, as written, from the previous regular Board Meeting [May 2012]. The minutes were accepted. The Board also went over the outstanding action items list.
Financial
Financial Report – A quick review of the monthly financial report submitted by Sandy was made. Total checking balance = $11,634.99. A few items of note: lost $163.77 in the new fund; only $36 in expenses last month; and the $5,000 STC was rolled over into savings at the end of April. Chris moved and Bill seconded to accept the report. All approved. Financial Committee Report/Draft Gift Acceptance Policy – A draft of the Gift Acceptance Policy was submitted for review. This item will be discussed and voted on at the next Board meeting. Janet indicated that there remain additional areas of concern for the Committee to address: (1) the Board’s spending policy (Sandy noted that this will be worked on later by the Financial Committee) - need to include events such as the staff appreciation breakfast and (2) restricted gifts – need guidelines from library.
New Business
Events Committee Charge – Janet submitted a draft charge and pointed out that the recent staff appreciation breakfast should not be a Board function – it needs to involve as many of the members as possible. The Board would like to be able to talk to and visit with the library staff at an event such as this rather than spending all of the time hosting. Erin has created a process manual to bring structure to future events. Erin and Janet will co-chair the Committee this year only to get it started. [ACTION: Since we already have interest in events listed on the membership form, Erin/Janet will contact those interested and set up a July meeting.] The target is to get something set up for National Friends of the Library Week in October. The Board reviewed the draft charge. Janet noted that we need to find a Chair. The Board discussed the need for the additional Board member – the feeling was that the Friends’ members and the Board members will likely help anyway. It was agreed to remove the additional Board member from the Committee, still leaving 5 members of the 2 committee, which seems adequate. The Committee should develop a proposal and amount of money needed for each event. Sandy moved and Bill seconded the motion to accept the charge, with the changes to remove one Board member from the Committee and to indicate that members helped with the breakfast.. All approved. The motion passed. Nominating Committee to Fill Vacancy – Need to fill the vacancy left by Kate Tozzolina’s departure. The By-Laws don’t address the need to fill a vacancy outside of the annual meeting nomination. It seems important to seek a candidate to fill the duties as a Treasurer- Elect. Erin and Janet will serve on the Committee. Sandy has offered to write a description of the duties and provide it to the Committee. Lori indicated she would serve if necessary, but the Board felt that Robin had previously expressed interested in presenting a more coherent view to prospective new members, and this would be a good opportunity to do that. Chris moved and Sandy seconded to appoint a Nominating Committee consisting of Erin, Janet and Robin to seek a candidate for Treasurer-Elect. All approved. Joint Meeting with Carrboro Friends Board – Janet relayed that a meeting has been set up for July 23, 2012 at 6:00 pm in the Orange County Library staff lounge. May have light snacks available beforehand. Expect 5 or 6 from their Board to attend. The purpose is to get to know each other, improve communications and share news on book sales, events, programs, fundraising, politics, etc. We may divide up into groups of 2 or 3, informal discussions with no official Minutes. Janet also suggested we add their President to our listserv.
Updates
June Co-Sponsored Program with Library – The June program will be held on June 23rd at 2:00 pm – Art Fettig is the speaker. Janet relayed Robin’s concerns that the Board has not been well-represented at programs. The members felt that the weekends were often busy with other commitments and it might be a good idea to change the days/times of future programs to get better attendance. [ACTION: Erin will add this topic to the July agenda.]
Ongoing Book Sale – Bill and Sandy reported that they, as well as Erin, Marcia and Laura have all been clearing out a lot of books – really good system is in place. Chris noted that the sign is not very big and thinks perhaps people don’t see it. [ ACTION: Erin will find out if we can move our books to the front and the hold books to the back.]
Newsletter – Janet noted that our recent newsletter came out yesterday. She was very pleased with it except that the pictures from the breakfast could have been bigger and will try to reduce the copy in the future where pictures should stand out more. She reminded the Board that we can all submit articles of interest and/or write articles for the newsletter.
Library News
Janet relayed updates received from Lucinda Munger via email:
3 Update from the Library: Budget – The Commissioners would like to know how much it would cost to extend the library’s hours to: 64 hours per week (open 9 am Monday- Thursday) or 68 hours per week (open 9 am – 9 pm Monday-Thursday). They will let her know of their decision tomorrow night (June 12).
Siting Criteria for the SW Branch – This Thursday (June 14) she will present to the Commissioners a final draft of the siting criteria.
After June 19th, she will send us an email regarding the budget.
The next meeting will be held on Monday, July 9, 2012.
The meeting adjourned at 6:40 pm - Lori Graham, Secretary
