Latest Minutes

FORESTHILL FRIENDS OF THE LIBRARY

Tuesday 14 January 2020
DRAFT BOARD MEETING MINUTES

24580 Main Street Foresthill
(530) 367-2785

The meeting was called to order at 5:05 pm.

In attendance were: Sally D’Aragon, Sharon Ross, Tyler Harkness, Robin Guthrie, Sally Drone, Katy Burger, Sandy Simester, KW Rice, Jessica and Mickel Paris

Approve/Revise previous meeting minutes:

Sally DA stated that she had a problem opening the minutes in Word format. She suggested that our secretary use the PDF format. Our secretary agreed to do that in the future. Our president tried to explained the meaning of whale as used in the November 2019 minutes. However, at this meeting, no one was able to find the reference to whales in the minutes. [Secretary’s Note: At the bottom of page 3 of the 11-12-19 Minutes, “Although there are several people in our community who, in the casino world, would be referred to as whales, and would now not be recognized.” The Google definition of whales in casinos: “A high roller, also referred to as a whale, is a gambler who consistently wagers large amounts of money. High rollers often receive lavish “comps” from casinos to lure them onto the gambling floors…” In this context, a whale would mean one of a very small number of people who contribute disproportionately to the finances of our organization. By not having categories of members, i.e, Friends Forever, we are not recognizing those who contribute so much to our group. The fact that Sally D was unaware of this meaning of whale only speaks to her good character and clean living. ]

Sally DA asked for a motion to accept the minutes as presented. Robin made the motion and Sally D seconded. Motion passed unanimously.

Treasurer’s report:

We make $611 for the period of November and December 2019. This included book sale room, the silent auction and 3 donations for a total of $400. Katie wrote thank you notes for all 3 donations. We had $0.80 in interest and no expenses for the two months. So we are building up our checking account from the $2,000 check we wrote to Placer County Library for new books and videos.

Foresthill Library Report – Mickel Paris

Our library stats do not include the time of the power outage courtesy of PG&E. As Mickel said, it was too difficult to count people because it was dark. In November we had 2,361 patrons, 104 computer users, 3 storytimes with 39 attending, 63 people participated in crafts. In December we had 2,550 patrons, 4 storytimes with 56 attendees. December was a tough month due to the holidays and power outages. Foresthill families have been receptive to having a welcoming and safe space to have their children learn and play. Our middle-schoolers have been coming with their friends after school to socialize and use the library’s computers. We also have our teen area as well. Our library is a reliable third place between home and school/work. We have a wide range of ages attending our storytimes, from toddlers up to seven. Older children like to come in with their younger siblings over the holidays. Also in November five adult volunteers logged 27.5 hours and, in December, 6 volunteers logged 21.5 hours. All materials used after storytime are provided by Placer County Library.

The Jigsaw Puzzle Timeout Challenge was a project in December. Admin received very good response. We have a new library project, Drop in Legos. Middle-schoolers love it.

In November, we finished up our class tours of the library. We partnered with Placer County Food Bank Resources to provide resources like pamphlets, children’s cookbooks and other miscellaneous materials. Sally DA said that it would be interesting if the library put together a program on nutrition and have some hands on activities with healthy food.

kW mentioned the old projector and DVD player in the Beecher Room in the Auburn Library is not being used and that it could be put to use in another branch library that does not have a projector, say for example, Foresthill.

Our secretary posed a question about when is the end our fiscal year? If we want to transition from a fiscal year, like Placer County, to a calendar year, like FFOL operates on, we should file a return for a six month transitional period. Robin said that we have not received anything from the IRS. She said she would put a call in to the California Franchise Tax Board to get some advice on how to handle this.

Placer County Library Report – Mickel Paris

The library is recruiting a librarian for south Placer. They are looking for a library supervisor in Lake Tahoe. It is a hard location to recruit for. The housing is very high there. We promoted from within the former library supervisor in Lake Tahoe to librarian. Also we promoted a few clerks. So the library is almost up to being fully staffed.

Several year ago the library was at 20% vacancy rate. We have slowly built up to around 8% vacancy. We had around 15 qualified people apply for the bookmobile and we hired 1 person. She should start sometime in the first quarter of 2020. Sally DA asked if they would be following the same routes they had from before. Mickel said she would using similar routes. Robin said they used to go to Iowa Hill. Mickel said they have to go to Sheridan and Dutch Flat.

Right now we are focused on the budget for July 2021 to June 2022.

Old Business:

  • Craft Classes: Pine cone painting. There was general support for Sally DA putting this class on our calendar for sometime next winter.
  • Ukulele lessons: Do we want to go forward with this, which would mean buying the instruments? Then we need to find a teacher. We would offer the classes in the summer time. Robin suggested that we pay the teacher for 3 or 4 lessons that would be free to the students and then the teacher would switch to private classes. Our president confirmed that we are talking about one hour per class. We are estimating about 5 or 6 students per class. Then our president asked how much should we pay the teacher? Sally D suggested that we ask the prospective teacher to submit a proposal of how much he/she/they would charge to teach a small ukulele class in our library for 4 weeks.
  • Our book club is going strong. The next book will be Lab Girl by Hope Jahren.
  • Kathryn was going to meet with people in Foresthill about the role of the library. Mickel said that she was going to be in our branch during storytime days to meet with the people in our schools. Sally DA said that we wanted to hear what she found out from people in our community.

New Business:

  • Sally DA: Any new bills to submit? None were presented.
  • Sally DA inquired if we had up to up date our membership list. Our secretary said it would be ready next month.
  • The whale letter: Katy said that whales are people with financial deep pockets. They get a great deal of respect and are compensated for many hotel services like free rooms and meals. Katy suggested that we try to identify around 10 of our membership as whales. She would write a letter of appreciation to them with a slight suggestion about making a donation. [Secretary’s Note: We also we might also want to send them a FFOL membership card with “Friend for Life” on it.] Katy said that she has lots of very nice stationary to use for this project. Sally DA said Katy could write the appreciation letter and we could circulate it by email to the rest of the board. Sharon moved that we begin this project of writing letters to possible donors. Motion passed unanimously.
  • After the vote Sally DA said that kW had stepped back as a voting member of the board. She asked if he would like to step back in. He said that he did but did not have a position on the board. Sally DA said that kW has so much to contribute in the thinking process of the things we do and she misses that input. Mickel said that many boards have members-at-large written into their bylaws. [Secretary’s Note: Bylaws of the FFOL, Article 6, Section 2 “… The Board may appoint other Directors or voting committee chairpersons as needed by majority vote.“ A members-at-large is functionally equivalent to a chairperson. They just have a larger committee]
  • Sally DA proposed a motion to change our meeting time to the second Tuesday 6:00 of every odd month. Motion passed unanimously.
  • Sally DA’s additional motion was to name kW as our FFOL voting member-at-large. Sally DA moved and Robin seconded. Motion passed unanimously, followed by general cheering and cries of “speech, speech”.
  • Sophie was going to talk to other FOLs about if they had insurance policies. Mickel said Sophie had said that the Library does not require FOLs to have an insurance policy but that it would protect them. None of the Friends groups Sophie had contacted had liability or Directors insurance. Mickel will check to see if our group needs to pay $81/year for our insurance when using the community room. Mickel lookup up the actual policy statement for the community room and it said something about contacting Risk Management to get coverage. Sandy said that her group, the Historical Society, rents Memorial Hall 3 or 4 times a year. They have to pay $81 per year. This is based on the number of people in the group. Over 100 people is a different price. And no alcohol. Our personal homeowners liability insurance may cover us as directors or staff. Our secretary volunteered to try to set up a meeting with a nonprofit insurance broker.
  • Feb. 15th book sale: Sally DA will try to block out the community room the week before the sale so that we can sort the books. The hours for the sale – 10 to 4.
  • The Library Advisory Board will meet at the Auburn Library at 10:00 tomorrow.
  • Sally DA brought up that our FFOL website that was getting out of date. Our secretary said that he would freshen it up.
  • Our secretary finally remembered that Katheryn wanted us to formally reserve the community room for our meetings, classes, book sales, etc. Sally DA reassured him that she had already done that.

The meeting was adjourned at 6:22 pm.

Next meeting of FFOL Board will be on Tuesday 10 May at 6:00 pm