MEETING MINUTES

 

Wednesday, April 7, 2021

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 distributed the Treasurer’s report to all.  He defined funding available to the CCFCDB for projects and other monetary needs.

 

Update on Big Tree Program:

 

John reported:

 

On April 3rd, Dori, Kathie and John re-measured trees from 2011.  The first two are trees on private property in the Calvert area.  The American basswood regained sole county championship status (it was a co-champion).  The silver maple has new owners who had the tree severely pruned, resulting in a considerable loss of points.  The remaining 4 trees are at Cecil College.  We found the triple leader yellow poplar had split at the base, losing one of its leaders and has a huge rot pocket, so we decided not to re-measure it.  John then went home; Dori and Kathie went on down the Nature trail and re-measured the northern red oak (gained 20 points) and the mockernut hickory (gained 24 points).  Later we learned the State Champion mockernut hickory in Montgomery County had died, so the Cecil College tree becomes the new State Champion.  Dori had previously discovered a large American hornbeam on the bank of the North East Creek, so they measured that as a new tree, which became the new Cecil County Champion at 109 points.  They also found and measured a new triple leader yellow poplar at 297 points. It does not yet qualify at the State level, but should be re-measured in 5-10 years.  Six trees remain to be re-measured at a later time.

 

At the State level, volunteers in Allegany, Baltimore City, Calvert, Carroll, Cecil, Frederick, Garrett and Montgomery have taken advantage of the spring weather to measure 42 trees—about evenly split between new trees and re-measurements.  The dedicated ink printer for the MBTP has stopped working, so the process for printing and mailing certificate packets has backlogged.  For the foreseeable future, since there are no available funds, I will use my personal printer.  We have had problems converting the certificate from the dedicated computer to my personal PC which has increased the backlog.  We also learned there is a DNR FS policy on discarding DNR equipment which has to be followed.

 

Besides the Cecil mockernut hickory, we also have two new ornamental cherry species as State Champions.  A weeping Higan cherry in Montgomery County is the only example in Maryland.  A weeping Yoshino cherry in Carroll is at 275 points, exceeding the 254 point former champion in Harford.  The Yoshino cherry was first measured in the 1990’s but had fallen “off the radar” until tracked down by Geary Schwemmer.

 

 

Top:  Yoshino Cherry   Bottom:  Higan Cherry

 

 

 

Natural Resources Career Conference (NRCC) Update:

 

 

The Education Committee met via Zoom on April 5th.

 

So far we have 29 applicants with 15 having been accepted by their boards as of April 2. The Education Committee is holding off on making a decision about how many campers to allow this year. The Garrett County Board of Education has not required us to reduce our numbers. That could change. Garrett’s positivity rate is 4.11% as of April 4. That’s twice as high as it was a couple of weeks ago.

 

I made a small change in the Welcome Letter. We do not require anyone to be vaccinated, but since everyone 16 and up is eligible now, I am encouraging all participants to get vaccinated. The hope is if we have a good number of staff and campers vaccinated Garrett will ease up on some of the restrictions. I am really hoping we can do better than brown bag meals. It was suggested at the meeting that people who were vaccinated may not need to get tested. I’m checking into that. It could be a motivation for folks to get vaccinated.

 

Staff and campers will be required to wear masks. We are looking into giving a mask to each camper and staff. That way everyone has an extra. Maryland flag or DNR logo are possibilities.

 

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:

 

Added American Hornbeam BT3767

Installed American Basswood BT2264 as sole county champ

 

Added March minutes

Added April agenda

 

New Business:

 

Tom reported:

 

A seasonal exclusion is now in effect because of FIDS Habitat until August 1st on the ENSP Salvage Harvest.  The logger did a good job rehabbing the currently harvested areas with the drier weather.   This has been a challenging site due to the soil types and wet winter.  It made skidding very difficult and cost the contractor a lot work days.

 

The Backyard Buffer Packet seedling P/U days for Cecil County are Friday the 16th and Saturday the 17th.

 

 

Next Meeting:                        May 5, 2021