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MINNESOTA SHADE TREE ADVISORY COMMITTEE
Board Meeting Minutes
October 18, 2001, 8:45 – 9:25 p.m.
3975 Pilot Knob Road, Eagan, MN
Attendees: Kirk Brown, Rich Hauer, Ken Holman Gary Johnson, Janet Larson, Michael Max, Bob Slater, Mark Stennes, Lorrie Stromme
The meetings was called to order at 8:45 a.m. by Lorrie Stromme, President, on October 18, 2001, at the Fire Administration Building, located at 3795 Pilot Knob Road, Eagan, Minnesota.
Approval of Minutes: The Board reviewed the Minutes of the 9/10/01 Board Meeting.
Motion/Second/Carried: Larson/Johnson: to approve the 9/10/01 Minutes.
Additions to the Agenda: The topic of a MnSTAC Listserve was added as an agenda item, under New Business.
Upcoming MnSTAC Board meetings:
* The next MnSTAC Board meeting will take place on Monday, November 5th at 3 p.m. at the Tree Trust office, located at 2350 Wycliff St., Suite 200, St. Paul.
* By consensus, the Board agreed that, starting in January 2002, the Board meetings would be from 8:30 to 10:30 a.m. Kirk Brown offered the use of a conference room at the Tree Trust office for future Board meetings.
Old Business:
Non-Designated Positions on the Board in 2002. Mark Stennes and Janet Larson will be completing their terms as non-designated Board members at the end of 2001. To date, a couple of city foresters have considered being candidates to fill the vacancies. Interested candidates should notify Ken Simons by 11/20/01.
MnSTAC Priorities:
The Board reviewed MnSTAC’s 3 priorities:
* Coordinated legislative efforts (MnSTAC, agencies, non-profits, utilities)
– Lorrie Stromme and Ken Holman are interested in working on this
* Center for Urban & Community Forestry; Gary Johnson will handle this
* Outreach to U&CF programs in communities in rural and greater MN
- The Board decided to develop a job description for the Chair of the Outreach Committee and recruit MnSTAC members in Greater Minnesota to assist in outreach efforts.
New Business:
A Listserve for MnSTAC. Board members discussed the idea of establishing a list serve for MnSTAC and the preferred type of listserve (an email system vs. threaded conversation on a message board posted on MnSTAC’s website). The main purpose of the listserve would be to notify MnSTAC members quickly about important issues (e.g., wood-moving ban during a gypsy moth siting, etc.). However, a few Board members expressed concern about misuse of an email-type listserve and overflowing email-boxes. The advocates of a threaded conversation thought that the message board would be a means of encouraging the use of MnSTAC’s website.
Motion/Second/Carried: Holman/Brown: To ask Marie Jones to explore listserve options and to consider testing a threaded conversation/message board on MnSTAC’s website.
Proposed Change to the MnSTAC Constitution: The recent strike among State union employees disrupted the usual mechanism for notifying MnSTAC members about meetings via the U.S. Mail. Lorrie sent out notices via email instead (with a link to the agenda and minutes posted on the MnSTAC website). The Board discussed using alternate methods (e.g., email) of sending out notice. Article VI, Section 1 of the MnSTAC Constitution currently provides, “Notice of all meetings, minutes of the prior meeting, and an agenda shall be mailed to each member at least ten (10) days in advance of the upcoming monthly meeting” (emphasis supplied). In order to use technology to serve MnSTAC members, the Constitution may have to be amended to allow email, faxes, or other appropriate communication methods. Since another Constitution amendment (concerning membership eligibility) will be considered by the membership soon, the Board thought that combining the proposed amendments would be efficient.
Motion/Second/: Hauer/Max: To ask the Constitution Committee to look into amending the Constitution by substituting “communicated” instead of “mailed” in Article VI, Section 1. Motion Carried: 8 to 1.
Adjournment:
Motion/Second/Carried: Stennes/Slater: to adjourn. The meeting was adjourned at 9:27 a.m.
Respectfully submitted,
Lorrie Stromme
Acting Recorder