March 8, 2006
Friends of Schoodic Meeting

Attending: Ed McHugh, Pauline Angione, Ruth Sargent, Jay Horschak, Jim McKenna, John Kelly, John Courtin, Marla O'Byrne, Nancy Horschak, Rosemary Levin, Garry, Levin, Ed Pontbriand, Tom Mayer, Jeanie Wilson, Dirk Faegre, Denny O'Brien, Bill Zoellick

FOA Report

John Courtin introduced himself and expressed great pleasure at being able to attend. He said that he looked forward to learning about Friends of Schoodic's activities at this meeting, and would reserve any remarks for any time that might remain after the business part of the meeting.

SERC Report

Jim McKenna reported on a number of upcoming activities, starting with the research catalog workshops that are scheduled starting tomorrow, March 9.  These workshops are the start of a process that will identify research needs of the park as well as ways that the park can be engaged in research of interest to area scientists.

Jim also reported on the response to the LL Bean Research Fellowship proposals, which are funded by money from LL Bean that was provided to Acadia Partners for Science and Learning  through Friends of Acadia. The proposal clearly touched on a real need -- there were 23 proposals, seeking $109,000 in funds. There are $25,000 to be rewarded.

Dan Decker will arriving and staying in the park as a research scientist, focusing on the deer/human interactions.

There will be another bio-blitz this year -- this one focusing on Diptera.

Jim is planning on expanding the Resource Acadia program  this year. The May program will look at herbivore/seaweed interactions in the intertidal zones. In June the focus will be on the current research done with oranges, looking at local near-shore currents.  In July it will be the bio-blitz.

Acadia Partners

Denny reported that Acadia Partners is currently anticipating 2 to 3 times the business that the organization did last year.  He called attention to the Acadia Partners website at www.acadiapartners.org

Denny also reported that Acadia Partners is beginning the process of staffing up in terms of food service and lodging services to handle the increased visitor activities.

There are plans to open up the former medical building to make it available as lab space. In addition, Acadia Partners will be opening up more apartments.

Drawing Inventory/Database Work

Almost all the drawings (1316 so far) are keyed in.  The volunteers have committed about 1100 hours to this effort so far.  There is some database cleanup work to do at the end, but, other than that, this project is finally coming to a close after a year and a half of effort.

Gatehouse

This will be the fourth year for the gatehouse work  Garry and Ed helped set up an FOS office in the Gatehouse.  They also reworked the layout of the public space, enlarging the area.  Tom suggested that it might be useful to put a monitor in the public area so that people could see slideshows.

Bill Zoellick moved that we allocate up to $1000 from our annual budget for the purchase of an appropriately sized LCD screen for use in the gatehouse. Seconded by Ruth Sargent.  Passed unanimously.

Park Ranger Report

April 8 -- Saturday morning -- there will be a team effort to set up the medical building as a lab facility. We will set up four offices with furniture and bookshelves. In addition we will set up lab spaces, including a sink in the garage area. Wireless internet will be available in the building. There are no plans to heat the space.

May 6 -- we will need volunteers to turn one of the 4 bedroom apartment buildings into a bunkbed space for use by student groups.  We will be moving furniture around the facility. Start is at 8 AM.  Friends of Schoodic will help provide snacks and food as well as some of the volunteers.

April 29 -- full Schoodic Peninsula clean up -- coordinated with Winter Harbor and Gouldsboro. This is a big effort. We need to figure out how to coordinate this, given the number of entities.  The general idea was to encourage townspeople to clean up their neighborhoods -- the towns would pick up the bags on the street.

Bus starts running June 23rd.  Gatehouse work begins the 24th.

Summer projects -- finish the fence work.  Clean up trails for spring.  Finish work on Sundew.

SEA Program

Kate needs art supply donations. Pauline put together a list of what Kate needs and passed it around. Marla suggested putting it in the Journal as well.

Rocky Intertidal Research

Susan Brawley is doing research to look at use impacts on rocky intertidal areas. She will be comparing the relatively pristine areas in the Navy property on Schoodic point with more heavily used areas. A graduate student researcher needs help in making observations of visitor use. Jim passed around documents summarizing the needs and providing contact information. We will send out a brief announcement to the mailing list and will put some information up on the website.

Annual Picnic

We selected a date of July 29 for the Picnic.  We will check with Michelle at Acadia Partners for conflicts.

Newsletter

Dirk will send it out, including the new dates and information in this meeting.

John Courtin

John introduced himself. Before coming to Friends of Acadia, he was executive director of the Martin House Restoration Corporation (MHRC).  (Here is a Link to their Website.)  John was instrumental in forming the MHRC in 1992 in order to restore Frank LLoyd Wright's 1903-05 masterpiece, the Darwin D. Martin House complex, and to open it as a historic museum. John gave up his legal career in 1998 to become the organization's full time executive director. Over the years, the MHRC  has reassembled all the parcels of land that once comprised the grounds of the estate, which will allow them to restore the entire Martin House complex. The community-wide fundraising campaign raised more than $30 million for this project and has made substantial progress in reconstructing the estate, including parts that were torn down and replaced with other buildings in the 1950s and 60s.

John said that how what we are doing at FOS draws the same valuable resource, which is volunteer energy.

Meeting adjourned at 9 PM