MEETING MINUTES
Meeting Held Through Email Due to Coronavirus Restrictions
Attendees:
Gabrielle Oldham Dori Murphy
Ron Anderson Kathie Jarmon
Michael Morgan Tom Frederick
John Bennett
Treasurer’s Report
Tom presented the Treasurer’s Report, and all reviewed current status of available funds.
Update on Big Tree Program:
John reported:
Last
month I reported that all Cecil re-measurement permissions were mailed. I have now received back 3 of the 6.
I
received a nice letter from Nancy (Brown) DiAngelo
thanking us again for bringing pleasure to her late mother and father (Avis and
Carleton) by measuring their two trees in 2011 in Perryville. Nancy and her husband have built a new house
in Chestertown near the Chester River and invited us to stop by if we’re down
that way.
The
Browns’ old house is now a rental. I
also have permission for the basswood in Rising Sun and the holly in Perryville
(Katherine Wein’s old house). The State
Champion Norway maple that used to belong to Dave Wherry in Rising Sun is
dead. I drove in there a couple of days
ago; nobody around, but the stump of the tree is next to the driveway and it
looks like someone has tried to burn it out.
I’ll probably just move it to the “Deceased” file; doubt if the new
owners will respond. I may make a home
visit for the other two owners this Sunday.
I
visited Dori; we agreed to try to set a date to measure the trees in
Perryville. I need to begin to work my
way physically back into field work, and all three of those trees (holly,
dogwood, saucer magnolia) are as easy as it gets.
At
the State level, we started with 188 trees to re-measure (some left over from
2020). Eight trees are confirmed dead; 2
trees have already been re-measured, and 27 trees are on public property. That left 151 trees needing permission forms.
Volunteers
have mailed 93, or 62%, leaving 58 still to do.
The bulk is in four subdivisions and we’re trying to encourage them to
get them done.
Signed forms trickle in each day. To date I have, or know of, 45 that have been
returned (so about half). As usual, it’s
the new owners who are not responding.
The
new State website went on line 2/8/21.
Response has been much stronger than expected. Ken and Joli have
received much deserved praise. The new
site is complicated and takes some practice to use it quickly. If anyone is having trouble, let me know and
I’ll try to help make it easier.
Natural Resources Career
Conference (NRCC) Update:
The Education Committee has been
meeting every other week to be ready for Camp & Covid. Our next meeting is
this Monday, the day before the State Association meeting.
I have researched and written a
Safety Plan for NRCC which has been shared with Hickory and with Ken
Jolly. Ken needed it because he is helping us get our DNR speakers
approved to appear in front of a group larger than 10. He wanted to make sure
we really were going to be taking serious steps to keep everyone safe at NRCC
before he put his neck out to support us. Thank you Ken!!
The Safety Plan was also passed on
to Hickory because there were questions brought up by putting together the
Safety Plan. Most have been answered, but there are still some things we are
waiting to hear back on.
The Welcome Letter has also been
updated to reflect Covid-19 requirements for this year. There will be a
follow-up letter later in the Summer with more details about the requirements.
I found out today that the
touchless thermometers we will need at Camp are going to be provided by DNR.
Thank you very much again, Ken Jolly!!! We will be taking temperatures of
Campers and Staff every morning, along with everyone doing a daily check list
of symptoms.
Everything is still changing and
hopefully for the better. So, the Safety Plan remains a work in progress. It
will be revised as new information becomes available.
I think I sent everyone the Safety
Plan for our February meeting. I’m attaching it again, there have been some
changes made. The Welcome Letter is also attached. There will be a lot of
information about Camp & Covid at Tuesday’s meeting. The Boards will need
to talk about Covid-19 with the applicants we interview. If applicants aren’t
interested in fulfilling all the Safety requirements, the Boards need to know
at the interview or very shortly after.
One of the requirements is being
tested for Covid-19 within 72 hours of coming to NRCC. If they test positive they can’t attend. Anyone who comes to Camp is
required to bring the negative test result with them.
Dawn Balinski
is sending out statewide applicant updates periodically and everyone should be
receiving those. If you are not, let Tom
know.
Website Update:
Ron reported that he updated the website as follows:
He has used the new Big Tree Website for checking validity of MD Champ Trees in Cecil County. We have currently 23 champs/co-champs. We will have to update the Norway Maple. Found two typos during my checking - our Champ BT-535 is listed as BT-53, and the species name molisima is once misspelled as molissima.
He has added February minutes and March Agenda to our website.
New Business:
Kathie reported that she and her husband
watched a Judi Dench documentary on trees last week that we really
enjoyed: https://youtu.be/rjnv_AevX4s
Tom reported:
The ENSP
harvest is going very slow because of poor/wet soil conditions. Hopefully
drier weather is predicted.
E
& S Plan reviews are periodically being received.
Next Meeting: April 7, 2021