Friends of Webster Trails Board Minutes
Monday, June 14, 2010
Webster Community Center
Present: Hal Harris (presiding), Dennis Kuhn, Norma Platt, Jeff Darling, Larry Yost, Craig Pratt, Rich Morrill, Don Baird, Bob Guenther, Ted Ellstrom, Alisa Kokx, Nathan Yost
The May minutes were approved as submitted.
Treasurer’s Report: Craig Pratt reported the balances in the following accounts:
6/14/10
Checking: 1271-
Savings: 4741-
Petty Cash: 166-
Total: 6178-
It was discussed that we need to be able to give an accounting of how the two KenLou grants ($1000 and $2500) are/have been spent.
Membership Report: There are 141 memberships.
Alisa brought in the new brochures and gave them to Dennis
Communications Report: Hal reported that Rick had hiked the Orange Trail (WRNP) with a reporter from the Democrat and Chronicle, there should be a resulting article in the Our Town section of the paper sometime this month.
Rick wants to remind us to take pictures of the hikes, workdays, etc.
Sunday Hikes Report: The June hike is at the Arboretum.
Members volunteered to lead the following hikes:
Oct – Gosnell Big Woods Norma
Nov – WRNP Dennis
Jan – Midnight Trail Alisa and Logan
Feb – Hojack & John Ungar Nature Trail Hal
Habitat Committee: Norma reported that over 30 volunteers from Xerox and Wegmans observed the May 13 Day of Caring by completing the cutting of Autumn Olive from the east side of the Big Field. The Xerox people were also honoring Holly Bond, who died in a snowmobile accident this past winter.
Norma coordinates get togethers of FWT member volunteers to work on habitat projects on Thursdays or Fridays.
Don was given approval to spend $165 on Roundup Pro to be used on swallowwort in the WRNP this Thursday.
Scout Projects: Norma and Jeff met with Jenna Bilsback in Vosburg Hollow where she is developing plans for her Girl Scout Gold Award project. The plan includes trail improvement, building a trail from the parking lot up to the Hojack Trail, and extending the western end of the existing boardwalk by about 50 feet.
Ron Bronakoski has been moving rather slowly on his Eagle Project of building a bridge on the Meadow Trail (Gosnell Big Woods Preserve). At present he is pricing out the materials and he has been informed that its desirable to have the bridge completed by the end of July.
Community Events: The spaghetti dinner was a great success again. 216 dinners were served and we made over $1000 profit. Hal will ask Karen to send a thank you to Nick Haldoupis.
Dennis and Bob manned a FWT booth at the YMCA “Slice of the Outdoors” event.
ADK Expo: Ted, Bob, and Sharon manned our booth at this annual event. The event was a success even though the weather wasn’t good. The advisability of continuing to have a booth at this event was discussed and it was decided that it was quite beneficial to do so.
Webster Village Days: Will be held August 14 this year and Dennis will sign us up.
A motion was made and passed to have Bob look into purchasing a new canopy (approx. $150).
Trails Committee: 32 volunteers turned out for the June workday at Four Mile Creek. 15 recognition T-shirts were given out and there are 20 more people who need one more workday to earn a T-shirt. Discussion on Four Mile Creek included the amount of work completed and what’s still to be done, bridges to be built, adding a couple of spur trails down to the creek, a trail across Salt Creek and over to the eastern bridge, etc.
Additional work was done on the Meadow Trail (Gosnell Big Woods Preserve) during the past month. There was also some vandalism to the kiosk at the Vosburg Rd parking lot that Larry has repaired.
Don has had to replace the “You Are Here” map sign at the ORN/RED intersection in the WRNP for the third time.
There are a couple trees blocking the Midnight Trail and need to be removed.
The Town is going to deliver gravel for the wet areas on the Bird Sanctuary Trail.
The July 10 workday will be at Four Mile Creek instead of the Chiyoda Trail and the August workday will probably be the Chiyoda Trail.
There was considerable discussion of possible projects for the UCC Youth Group to do July 20 and 22 during their service week. The Chiyoda Trail project will not be ready for them to work on by then so other possibilities in the WRNP, Hojack, and Four Mile Creek were discussed. Rich will contact the Youth Group leader (Wendy Lesko) about the possible projects, tool availability and useage, training, transportation, etc.
Next meeting July 12 from 7:00 – 8:45 at the Webster Community Center, Chiyoda Drive.