August 10, 2005
Friends of Schoodic Meeting 

Attending:  Jay Horschak, Nancy Horschak, Garry Levin, Rosemary Levin, Dirk Faegre, Ed Pontbriand, Jim Wagner, Bob Babcock, Denny O'Brien, Pauline Angione, Bill Zoellick, Margaret Grammer

List Management Discussion

The meeting began shortly after 7 PM with a discussion of how the Friends of Schoodic committee can best make use of the database of volunteer and member information that is maintained by Friends of Acadia. Bill Zoellick outlined the capabilities that Friends of Acadia can offer, coupled with what Friends of Schoodic can do in the way of email lists. 

The key points were that Friends of Acadia staff members maintain a list that includes both active members and prospective members. It includes people who have made donations, turned out for volunteer activities, or who have expressed interest in Acadia National Park and Friends of Acadia in other ways. This staff commitment and database capability should be able to meet FOS's needs for mailing labels and other paper-based communications.

To meet the committee's needs for up-to-date email addresses, we can couple the FOA database and staff capability with FOS's own ability to set up special email groups using the FOS website.  We could, for example, set up a group made up just of gatehouse volunteers. Someone wanting to send email to these volunteers would simply send a mail to some name such as "gatehouse_volunteers@friendsofschoodic.org," and the mail would be automatically routed to everyone on the list. People who are on the list could use this special email address to get in touch with the rest of the list, but anyone NOT on the list would be barred from sending mail to the list, thus providing protection against spam email and other abuses of the list.

After Bill's presentation there was a discussion in which numerous concerns were raised.  The concerns included

• the likelihood that the information in the FOA database is not currently up-to-date and completely correct
• questions about how changes and updates would be handled
• the need to support subcommittees of the FOS committee, such as the gatehouse group or the trails group
• security and privacy

Some of these concerns were addressed during the discussion.  In particular, it was agreed that centralizing responsibility for maintaining the database would be an improvement over the current practice of maintaining multiple private lists.  (In the current situation, Garry keeps his own list, Dirk has a list that he uses, Bill has another list, Tom has a list, and so on.)  It was also agreed that sending changes to Marla O'Byrne on the FOA staff, rather than to an FOS volunteer, was the best way to ensure that changes were made in a timely fashion.

The committee agreed that Bill should bring a list of the name and address information for FOS volunteers and members that is currently in the FOA database to the next meeting for review.  We could also use that occasion to make some decisions about the sub-committees that we need to support.

Office

There was no new news regarding the FOS office area in the Gatehouse. Tom and Garry will start working on making it ready for use toward the end of September.

Friends of Acadia Report

Bill provided a report on the most recent FOA board meeting. Highlights included 

• information about federal funding in the range of $7 million for the Crippens Creek transportation center project
• the nationwide search for a new President to replace Ken Olson, who has resigned
• the Acadia National Park Improvement act, which raises the ceiling for land acquisition by ANP, but which does not appropriate any funds for the actual acquistions
• Superintendent Sheridan Steele's emphasis on land acquisition efforts
• the feature article on ANP that will appear in the November issue of National Geographic

Trail Work

Five people turned out to trim brush on the Alder trail, which was about the right number for the job. That work is now complete..

On September 10 Mike Alley, of the Friends of Acadia staff, will come over to help begin work on the Sundew Trail.  Volunteers should meet at 9 AM at  Picnic Pavilion near the ball field.  Contact Garry Levin for more information.

Ed described general plans to bring the Sundew Trail up to NPS standards.  Removing Navy signage is part of the program.  A number of people on the committee suggested that it would be nice to keep the benches that are currently on the trail.

Park Report

Ed Pontbriand reported that the park is working on IT infrastructure for SERC -- that work was going on during the week of this meeting.

Planning work is also underway for the Commissary and Dormitory -- there is some difficulty in getting bids for the specified construction that fit in the budget.

Activity it up in all categories on Schoodic.  Garry noted that gatehouse activity is up.

SERC Report

Denny O'Brien reported that there is increasing interest in SERC and that the organization is getting in front of people.  University presidents from the Maine system will be here later in the month.  Rep. Tom Allen is scheduled to visit the facility on Saturday, August 13.

He also spoke to the construction cost difficulties. Given the increased costs, the focus will be on turning the Commissary into an auditorium, and using other facilities on campus, including the Rockefeller building, for housing.

SEA Project

Fran Rhodes is leaving for Vienna for a year, so we need someone to fill in and take on the work that Fran would have been doing with SEA and Kate Petrie, at least while Fran is away.  Pauline Angione has agreed to do this.  Pauline provided the FOS members present at the meeting with a list of activities for which Kate needs help. She requested that people get in touch with her if they are interested in helping. She will send out a general e-mail asking for volunteers who can make a consistent commitment of time.

Architectural Drawings

Pauline brought the group up to date on this cataloging effort. The count of drawings is now complete. There are 4156 drawings in the collection, comprising about 1200 sets. All of these need to be keyboarded into the database. Pauline is thinking in terms of seeing whether there might be high school students who could do this as part of community service project.

Walk in the Park

The group discussed the recent fundraising effort for the Junior Ranger Program. Bill Zoellick noted that the fundraising effort was modestly successful as first-time efforts go, netting over $1600, a significant sum for this group. Other speakers focused on the turnout of visitors to SERC, rather than on the fundraising effort, and noted that the turnout was disappointing. There was discussion about how such an effort might be organized to bring out more people at a future event. The discussion was wide-ranging, since some speakers were focused on getting visitors to SERC, whether or not money was raised, and others pointed out that the primary goal of this particular effort had been fundraising. Feedback included the following suggestions and observations.

• Do not suggest a $50 contribution, or any contribution at any level. 
• Use a 963 number, not a 288 number
• No "natives" came -- only people from away 
• Perhaps we should organize an event in the off-season if we want participation from year-around residents, since most of them are working during the tourist season.
• It was really well-organized, but not marketed right.
• There is too much activity in mid-summer to get a good turnout

It was generally agreed that organizing a tour of SERC with the sole objective of making people more familiar with SERC would be a good idea.

Bill Zoellick agreed to bring the suggestions from this meeting to the committee that had organized the Junior Ranger fundraising effort and to report back if that committee had additional information or comments of its own.

Picnic

There was a suggestion that it should be moved back to 5 PM for next year. 

Garden Plots on SERC Campus

Gardening work on the SERC campus would be a useful volunteer activity, but should be coordinated with Kate Petrie, since she involves students in some of this. Garry is going to get this started.

Meeting adjourned at 8:45