Meeting Minutes - Saturday, March 7, 2009, 8:30am

Antrim Friends of Recreation - Meeting Minutes
Saturday, March 7, 2009, 8:30am

Members in attendance:
Laurie Cass-Griggs
Cindy Healy
Lauren Kirkpatrick
Celeste Lunetta
Janet McEwen
Myonna Taylor
Catrina Young

Items Discussed:

Lion's Club "Outdoor Guide":
Dick Loveland from the Antrim/Bennington Lions Club came to speak to us regarding the "Outdoor Guide" their group is planning. Currently the guide is slated to have 48 pages and has two thrusts: Special Places and Activities. This is tentative and could change based upon the final outcome of the input as well as amount needed to print and price quotes. The guide will contain maps and listings of areas of special interest as well as a breakdown of activities in this area with information written by local residents.
Dick asked the Friends of Recreation to offer suggestions and to perhaps take ownership of a section to research and include in the guide. Money will be raised to print the guide and get it into the hands of hopefully all residents. Many of the members of AFOR agreed that it was a viable project and volunteered suggestions and their help in some areas including a type of nature scavenger hunt/letterboxing page, information on bird watching, the Antrim Yacht Club, redrawing local maps, ice skating, etc. and they also volunteered local names for Dick to contact to gain more information about specific interests.
Dick also presented us with a tentative schedule for guest speakers that the Lion's Club wants to line up for a series at the James A. Tuttle Library. This is still in the formation process and they are working on acquiring quality speakers before they announce such a series.

Treasurer's Report:
We have $1600 at this moment. $96 was made at the last Rollerskating event.

Recruitment:
Janet feels that it is very important that the AFOR members start recruiting new members - especially parents of middle school-aged kids for our group. We have lost some of our members and she feels that the AFOR needs younger leadership. So if you know of someone who wants to help us out - please ask them to come to our next meeting or get their email address so that we can start sending them the minutes of the meeting to be informed.

Important Upcoming Events: (Please mark your calendars!)
(And if I have any of these dates wrong - please correct me - we covered a lot of ground on Saturday!)

March 14 - Rollerskating - please donate a baked item to sell for concessions!

March 20 - GBS Dance - 7/8th Grades, 7-9:30 pm

March 21 - CPR Class - see Celeste

April 2 - Thursday, 7pm AFOR members meet to stuff eggs/prepare for Easter Egg Hunt

April 3 - Movie at the Town Hall

April 4 - Easter Egg Hunt at AES - 9:30 - 11am - Please bring one dozen hard-boiled white eggs

April 11 - Rollerskating

April 16 - Community Supper - Movie?

April 17 - GBS Dance

April 19 - Town Hall Movie "Australia"

May 2 - Fishing Derby/Bike Rodeo - Please donate baked item by 7:30 am in the bandstand.

May 9 - Rollerskating

May 15 - GBS Dance

Middle School Dances:
The group decided to have a dances on the 3rd Friday of the month - the dates being March 20, April 17 and May 15. If you know of anyone who would like to help chaperone, please have them call Janet. In May there may be a dance for the 6/7/8th graders and then none in June because it's a busy month. Cindy Healy offered to help chaperone this dance.

Roller Skating:
Celeste has booked the Roller Skating in the Town Gym for every second Saturday of the month from January through April.

Town Hall Movies:
Celeste talked to the group about the movies she has started showing at the Town Hall. She hopes to show movies the 2nd and 4th Thursday of the week and may make the first Friday of the month an Adult/Older Teen PG13 Movie starting at 9pm. In the summer she may show some matinees.
Thursday, April 16, there is a community supper in town and she hopes to show a movie afterwards.
Also - April 19th she is showing "Australia."
She says she is going to start promoting it more and that the Police Department may purchase a popcorn machine to help with concessions.
The group also talked about getting some signage either on the Town Hall Bldg. or a sandwich sign out front to help publicize the events in town, and Janet mentioned that perhaps Mr. Sweeney at GBS could have the students make one for us. We felt it important to have a universal place to list town events.
Celeste mentioned having a Facebook page to announce events and also a suggestion box at the movies to help her select good movies - also a donation box to help defray the cost of renewing the lease.

Fishing Derby:
This year's fishing derby is scheduled for May 2nd. We need help with getting food for this event set up by 7:30am at the bandstand. The kids can start fishing at 8am so we need to be ready with baked goods, muffins, donuts, granola bars, water, etc. Also (depending on the weather that day) hot cocoa, coffee, etc.

Easter Egg Hunt:
Please bring one dozen hard-boiled white eggs. Catrina will speak to a dentist about possibly getting toothbrushes to hand out. The group looked into ordering novelties to include as prizes. Some of the events we have planned in addition to the hunt:
Egg Matching
Pumpkin seeds to plant (grow them into a pumpkin and return with it at our Halloween party!)
Bunny Ear Making Craft
Face Painting
Easter Themed Raffles
Egg Balancing Races
Live bunnies/lambs - ???
Digital pictures with a lamb???

If community groups want to help to earn community service hours they would need to be supervised.

Other news:
We are updating our AFOR contact list with current names, addresses, phone number and email information. Could you please respond to this email with your current contact information if you have not already? Also -- if you know of anyone else who would like to volunteer - please forward this email to them or send us their contact information. Thank you!
Also - we are hoping to use our blog as a way of communication - utilizing the posting and comment features to stay connected. In the near future I will make our blog private and post each month's meetings to it. So please bookmark this address: http://antrimfriendsofrec.blogspot.com/
Feel free to use the comment section for your thoughts and to stay connected!

Next meeting:
April 2, Thursday, 7pm. Help us prepare for the Easter Egg Hunt! :)