September 14, 2005
Friends of Schoodic Meeting

In attendance: Marla O'Byrne, Tom Mayer, Jeanie Wilson, Pauline Angione, Nancy Horschak, Jay Horschak, Bill Zoellick, Rosemary Levin, Garry Levin, Ann Barton, Richard Barton, Jim Wagner, Ed Pontbriand, Bob Babcock, Janet Michaud

FOA report

Bill Zoellick reported that the search for a new president to replace Ken Olson is underway--the position has been advertised and applications are currently coming in. According to Dianna Emory, the quality of the applicants looks good. 

The fundraising Gala was a very substantial success this year, with gross revenues in excess of a half million. Friends of Acadia will net well over $300,000 from the event.

SERC

Ed Pontbriand reported that as construction bids come in it is becoming clear that the there will be only enough money to reconfigure the commissary into a conference center. There will not be enough money to rework the dormitories. This could put program activities in a bind -- the Park and Acadia Partners are looking at ways to make other buildings available.

Ed reported that there will be a number of research projects underway this fall, including continued research on currents (using oranges), spider research, and research regarding sea vegetables.

Park

Ed also provided the report on Acadia National Park activities on Schoodic. Gouldsboro will be playing soccer on the field by the ball field. Ed is writing a special use permit to enable this. Gouldsboro will do the maintenance.

The Schoodic ByWay committee will cooperate with the park to do a cleanup on April 29, 2006 of the local roads on the Peninsula.

Gatehouse

Ton Mayer reported that volunteers will continue to keep the gatehouse open as an information and communication center on weekends through this month -- and will do Columbus day. Garry reported that there was an end of season gatehouse meeting for volunteers.  Among the interesting statistics collected were that in excess of 5,500 people signed the guest register this season, from 45 states and 19 countries.  Tom and Garry will turn the spare room in the gatehouse into an office over the coming months.  Ed's view was that the gatehouse was a very useful operation.

Artists in Residence

Two artists have presented programs so far, others are on the way. Next up is a poet who will do a presentation on Sep. 23. There is a schedule of continuing presentations through mid-October.

Trails

This past Saturday work began on the Sundew trail.  Work is planned for the next two Saturdays -- 9 AM at the ball field.

Blueprints

Pauline reported that work continues. The team sorting and cataloging the collection has found that there are around 1200 sets of drawings -- over 4000 sheets. Andy Strasz has begun working with Pauline and Ruth on the drawings, bringing his engineering background to team. Ed reported that the organization of the drawings is proving very useful.

SEA Program

Students participating in the program are here now -- they arrived yesterday -- are probably walking around in the dark as this meeting takes place to find out about the Park at night.  Volunteers have been working on maps and other visual aids for the program. Kate has been focused on the launch of this year's program, and so other, longer range work has been om hold.

Junior Ranger Report

Bill Zoellick reported on the meeting of final meeting for this year of the committee that worked on the fundraising event. At this meeting he reported on the suggestions and comments that emerged from the last monthly meeting of the Schoodic group.

He reported on a couple of observations that came back from the fundraising group. The first was that the group wished to emphasize that the purpose of this event was fundraising for the Junior Ranger program and that the effort was successful as a fundraising effort, raising $1600 -- a considerable sum for a first year effort by a small group.

The second observation was that this was something that should continue over the long run -- that it was not sufficient for support for this program to come only from Bar Harbor and MDI -- the group should invest in continuing to build a local base of financial support.  This first year was a good start, but there was a strong sense that this fundraising effort would build over time.

List Clean Up

Bill Zoellick passed around copies of the names of FOS supporters, drawn from the FOA database -- along with a list of mailing addresses currently in use at FOS.  He invited people to assist him in correcting and adding to the lists.

Commissary Cleanup

The group decided to schedule a cleanup to move stuff from the Commissary to the warehouse. This will take place on November 19.  The effort will also move items from the MWR barn. 

Fence Post Removal

Fence project is ongoing.  Mostly what is left is just the posts.  Ed recommended that we table it until we have a good solution.  A wildlife rehabilitation center is interested in taking the fencing.

Fall Cleanup

10 AM on Sunday, Sept 25, meet at Frazer.

SERC Open House

There is interest in organizing a SERC open house.  This subject was tabled until Denny or Jim McKenna can attend a meeting to talk about what makes sense.

New Business

Bob Babcock raised the issue of the changes to National Park Service management policy recommended by Paul Hoffman, deputy assistant Secretary of the Interior. There was general agreement that the changes proposed by Hoffman would be destructive to the Park, and a willingness to express that publicly. The question arose as to what policy position, if any, is being taken by our parent organization, Friends of Acadia.  Marla will find out what the FOA response on this is. Bob Babcock will head up the FOS side and will write a draft letter if that is appropriate.

Discussion of Growing the Group

Garry noted that we need to reach out to grow the group -- we are not adding new faces to the steering committee.  One suggestion was individual invitations to attend meetings. Another suggestion was that we should change to a location in town -- perhaps on Route 1 -- ratthere than meeting in the Park.

The meeting adjourned at 8:35