May 11, 2005 Friends of Schoodic Meeting 

The meeting took place at the Park Ranger station and SERC headquarters, since the Schooner Club is scheduled for use by other groups as part of the increased SERC activity.

In attendance: Dirk Faegre, Tom Mayer, Jim Wagner, Bill Zoellick, Nancy Horschak, Rosemary Levin, Garry Levin, Fran Rhodes, Peggy Grammer, Jim McKenna (NPS staff), Ruth Sargent, Jay Horschak, Jeanie Wilson, Denny O'Brien (Acadia Partners staff), Ed Pontbriand (NPS staff), Pauline Angione, Marla Stepflug O'Byrne (FOA staff).

Correction to April Meeting Notes

June 17 is the date that the gatehouse opens -- it is the bus that starts service on the 23rd. The notes were approved with that correction.

Clean Up Activities

Garry reported on the cleanup on April 30th. More than 50 people showed up. Garry is following up to participants with a questionnaire. The consensus was that extending the clean up effort outside the park was worthwhile. We discussed getting the towns involved in a full peninsula cleanup

There was a decision to move the island clean up from June 4 to June 12 -- due to the problem with the tides (low tide is at 4 AM on the 4th.).  Garry will coordinate this. The focus will be on Little Moose island and Pond Island.

Gatehouse

Gatehouse training.  For experienced gatehouse volunteers, the training is next Saturday, May 14 -- starting at 8:30 AM.

Garry asked whether we could have a hand-out at the gatehouse. Ed said that there should be no problem. Garry suggested that we use some of the content from the newsletter. Bill Zoellick agreed to pull together a brochure from content supplied by Dirk and Garry.

Report on Fence Project and Brush Clean Up

The rolled up fence bundles need to be removed. The plan is to carry them along the fence line into staging areas -- and then move them from there to the road.

There will be a group of high school students here from the 3rd week of June (June 16) to the 1st week of July as part of the Student Conservation Association (SCA) program, funded by LL Bean. It would be great to use this group to move the fence. June 18 is the likely weekend for this. FOS would need to be present to coordinate the work. Ideally, we would have the fence moved into the staging areas before this date.

Status of fence post cutting: the decision is to just cut the fence posts off with a torch. The park will take care of the cutting.  FOS can help with the carrying.

There is brush that needs to be cut and chipped. There was a substantial discussion as to whether FOS should assist with this. On the plus side, this is work that the Park cannot get to, and the material is a fire hazard.  On the minus side, there was concern that, by doing this work, we are doing work that should be supported by federal funds for the Park. The concern was that, through our well-intentioned desire to help the Park, we are actually hurting it by providing Congress with an excuse to keep cutting funds -- that we might be inadvertently feeding the notion that volunteer friends groups can do the work that used to be supported with federal support. Both concerns--the concern with the immediate needs of the park and the concern with a trend toward cutting back on NPS funds -- are valid.  The discussion did not reach a firm conclusion in favor or one concern over the other.  The general sense was that we need to work on BOTH issues -- supporting the immediate local needs while working through our parent organization to address the funding concerns.  The work on brush clean up will take place on June 15 beginning at 9 AM.  Volunteers should meet at the gate to the SERC facility. 

SEA and Junior Ranger Program

Fran reported on a meeting with Kate Petrie, Jim McKenna, Deb Wade, and Cynthia Ocel of the Park to work out details of how FOS/FOA might usefully support the Schoodic Education Adventure (SEA) program.  Fran's written report is available online ( click here ).

One part of the discussion focused on how SEA would use donated funds. Once concern was that potential donors do not want to supplant current sources of support. So, the funds must be used to expand the program. One part of the effort, should funds be available, would be to support a number of student interns who would assist Kate with the instruction. The second general category of effort would be program expansion. Fran and the Park staff decided that the first step toward this would be to have Jim McKenna meet with the local superintendents.

The kinds of support that SEA needs from FOS is in the form of the sort of thing that teacher's aids would do -- administrative support, materials preparation, and so on -- it would not involve direct interaction with the students

There will not be a spring program at this time -- the focus will be on enhancing and improving the fall program.  There is a general desire to take advantage of synergy between SEA and other SERC programs.  Resource Acadia, Artists in Residence, and SEA are the three SERC programs currently sponsored by the park

It is important to note that, even if grant funds are available, they will not help the program for this fall. Another problem that the schools will face this fall is and increase in the fee to $50 per student. There was general sentiment among the FOS committee that, if possible, FOS should try to help with this.

Fran also reported on the Junior Ranger program -- which is focused on third graders. The National Park Foundation is offering support for park activities -- FOA has applied for a grant, FOS and FOA would need to raise matching funds.

Garry moved, Bill seconded a motion to support the Junior Ranger program by working to raise matching funds.  Passed unanimously.

Architectural Drawing Catalog Project

Pauline Angione and Ruth Sargent reported on progress on the architectural drawing and map cataloging project. Part of the legacy of the Navy base that was transferred to the NPS and to SERC is the collection of architectural drawings and maps associated with the Navy's various activities. The drawings include very old blueprints for the Rockefeller building, diagrams of the other buildings on the SERC campus, drawings related to the Corea site, and miscellaneous plans and drawings related to other Navy buildings and facilities associated with the Schoodic operation, some of which no longer exist. 

There were two problems associated with the collection. The first was that the drawings were no longer organized in any reasonable way--finding a particular drawing was a matter of chance. The second problem is that there was no comprehensive catalog of the drawings--nobody really knew what was there.

Pauline and Ruth are working with Brooke Childrey of the NPS staff to create an electronic catalog of the drawings. For the past month they have been working on organizing the drawings and on getting set to actually begin entering all of the information from each drawing. Once the preliminary, set-up work is complete, they will need help from other volunteers to assist with the actual data entry.

Nominations and Elections

Jay Horschak presented the slate of officers for the coming year, comprised of Dirk as chairman, Garry as vice-chairman, and Bill Zoellick as secretary. The slate was elected by acclamation. These officers will begin serving immediately with terms continuing until July, 2006, when new officers will be elected.

Newsletter

Dirk presented the spring/summer edition of the newsletter in its current draft state -- the problem he has been having with it is that it is too long.  It includes a long article about SERC and an article about SEA. If we are going to keep to the 4 page size, this leaves almost no room for a description of FOS activities.

There was substantial discussion about the pros and cons of including substantial information about SERC at the cost of NOT including descriptions of FOS activities. On the one hand, there is probably a lot of interest in SERC among the FOS membership. On the other hand, SERC has its own funds for publicity, and volunteer activities are central to FOS.

At the end of the meeting there was no resolution to this. Dirk said he would look at the material again.  Bill Zoellick offered to help with editing, if that were useful.

The meeting adjourned shortly after 9 PM. After the meeting, Pauline and Ruth showed people the map and drawing archive, which is adjacent to the room in which we held the meeting.