Garrett County Commission for Women
December 5, 2017 Minutes
CALL TO ORDER: The meeting was called to order by Chair Judy Carbone at 5:01 pm.
IN ATTENDANCE:
Judy Carbone, Sherri Fredlock, Cherie Krug, Kristal Huber; BJ Gallagher, Maureen Myers, Linda Carr, Kitty Lauer, Cheryl DeBerry, and Lisa Thayer Welch
There was a moment of silence followed by the Pledge of Allegiance.
MINUTES: A proposed change was made to the October minutes by BJ Gallagher with all in favor. The minutes from the October meeting were approved; all in favor.
TREASURER’S REPORT Sherri Fredlock reported that the checking account balance is currently
$4,789.39 after $90 was paid to MLAW for conference registration for Judy and Linda and $120 to Goehringers for dinner for our joint session held in October. We received $3,500 from commissioners. There was some discussion about the upcoming Hall of Fame breakfast. Because of generous donations from some of our commission members, we barely broke even on the past two years’ events. Sherri and Judy asked that when we discussed Hall of Fame, we take that into consideration when determining price and number of scholarships provided. Current price is $20 per person with a cost of $12 plus gratuity to Dutch’s. Approximately $650 was donated in services (program printing, gifts for recipients). The commission also picks up the cost for our Hall of Fame award winners as well as scholarship recipients.
OLD BUSINESS:
- There were three new appointments to the commission in October: Lisa Thayer Welch and Cheryl DeBerry, as well as a Commissioner’s Appointment, Rachel Friend-Lantz. That leaves two openings. Cherrie Krug asked for names and short bios of potential nominees for the February meeting. *Update: We have since learned of another Commissioner’s Appointment, Sadie Liller from the Health Department, appointed on December 4, 2017.
- Maureen Myers gave a report on the two joint sessions conducted by the GCCW on October 26th and November 16th. The first session consisted of representatives from Community Action, the Health Department, The Dove Center, JWCC, the Civic Club, AAUW, GCCW and involved a rich discussion about the needs of women in Garrett County. The second meeting was mostly GCCW members along with Sadie Liller and a client from Health Department as well as Kalynn Masschelle, AAUW-Garrett College Student Branch Vice President. Maureen reported that the conversation seemed to go in two directions, with one group wanting to move forward with a possible Fall 2018 event while another wanted to look at possible opportunities for leadership and development among women in the area. It was decided that both groups (an event planning committee and an outreach group) would meet separately after the first of the year and report back to the commission at the February meeting with a more concrete way of moving forward.
- Judy and Linda attended the MLAW Fall Conference in November and brought back information regarding 19 pieces of legislation that were brought before the MLAW group. GCCW has two votes as to which legislation MLAW should support during the 2018 legislative session. Information was emailed to each of the Commissioners and some discussion took place. It was agreed that BJ would create a spreadsheet so each commission member could vote online as to her preferences and BJ would tally so Sherri could report back to MLAW. Deadline for this is Monday, December 11th.
- Judy presented an update on the Commissions work to the Garrett County Commissioners on November 21st. She prepared a PowerPoint presentation of accomplishments during the past year as well as goals the Commission has set for itself for 2018. Response was favorable and The Republican newspaper featured an article about the presentation on their front page in their November 26th edition which made for great publicity for our organization. Judy hopes that the commission will review its Guiding Principles during our February meeting to make sure we are on track with our stated goals.
- BJ gave an update on the proposed Maureen Sharps scholarship. The Sharps family has promised to fund a $5,000 scholarship for the next four years through the Garrett County Commission for Women, the first to be awarded at our annual Hall of Fame breakfast this April. There was a discussion on how best to manage this scholarship and meet the family’s request regarding tax benefits. A suggestion was made to go through the Tucker County Community Foundation of which Cheryl DeBerry is a board member. Cheryl and Cherie Krug volunteered to get more information for the Sharps family, and BJ will help create a separate application and make it available online.
- Kristal reported that although she had done some research, she found no information regarding a “Social Media Contract”, one that would guide our Commissioners before posting on any Social Media account on behalf of the GCCW. A discussion took place on what our responsibilities were regarding posting online but no formal policies either county or state wide could be found. The county has agreed to host the GCCW website in the future saving us the $150 fee previously required. Kristal and Cheryl will look more into starting a GCCW Facebook page.
- Linda Carr quoted a price of $130 – $160 for a fold out business cards that GCCW members could use when meeting people and talking about the commission as requested to do. This would be in lieu of creating a new, updated brochure. After some discussion, it was decided that because our website and logo may be changed, we would hold off on any printing for a few months, then decide which way might be the best to go forward.
COMMITTEE REPORTS:
Hall of Fame – The Hall of Fame breakfast will be held on Saturday, April 7th at Dutch’s at Silver Tree. Applications have been updated and are available online. A PDF version was also mailed to each of the commissioners. Please help get the word out so we have many applications (up to 3 nominees will be chosen). Deadline for applications is February 28, 2018. BJ will contact Dutch’s to confirm cost of breakfast per person and Sherrie agreed to donate the printing of programs once again. Judy agreed to contact Simon Pearce about possible gifts for the recipients and to ask if they will possibly sponsor the breakfast by donating these gifts. Other expenses include flowers, invitations, breakfast for honorees and scholarship winners and postage. Because we’ve often lost money on the event in the past it was decided to increase the cost of the event to $25 if tickets were purchased in advance, $30 at the door. Although there is a fee involved, it was suggested that we use EventBrite to facilitate online purchase of tickets so we can sell as many as possible ahead of time. Checks will still be accepted. Cheryl DeBerry has volunteered to work with Judy and BJ on this committee.
Scholarship – Lisa Thayer Welch has volunteered to head this committee. She has updated scholarship applications and is working with BJ to make them available online. She has already written a press release to send out after the first of the year. Applications are to be mailed to the Courthouse in care of Carol Alexander. She will include a teaser in the press releases about the Maureen Sharps scholarship but it was decided the commission should promote that separately. As soon as details are ironed out for that, a press release will go out. A brief discussion ensued about how many scholarships to award and for how much. It was decided to keep it the same as last year: up to five (5) scholarships of $500 each.
Legislation – Information covered in previous discussion about MLAW voting
PR/Website – Everything is up to date. BJ will work with Cheryl to get new URL set up through county. Membership – No report.
Historian – Kitty has researched the typical role of historians in other groups but has not found an appropriate definition for her role at GCCW. In the past, it has been the historian’s role to keep records and preserve history which she will continue to do. She will keep the archives for now until a more permanent home can be found for them and asks that if we see printed articles like the one that recently appeared in The Republican, to please bring her copies.
By-Laws – No report.
Community Service – Kristal is participating in the Drug-Free Communities Coalition and will attend meetings as our representative, provided her work schedule allows. She had looked into doing a possible high school event but will work with Linda Carr on a possible mentoring activity of which we have just been made aware.
NEW BUSINESS:
1. Discussion of possible student GCCW member – Tabled until next meeting
2. Health Fair participation – This year’s Health Fair will be held Saturday, April 14th. Judy will talk to organizers about the possibility of having a panel there consisting of some of the women
who game to our joint session as a way to convey information to area women and hopefully facilitate conversation.
3. Nominations for officers – tabled for future discussion
4. Women’s Networking Luncheon – Judy reported that this has been revived and is being held bi- monthly at Ace’s Run. The next one is Wednesday, January 10th at Noon.
5. Collection of information of interest to women – tabled
6. Review / update of Logo – In the interest of time, Cheryl will email her ideas so we can discuss and vote.
7. High School Mentoring Initiative – Linda was contacted by the Guidance Counselors at Northern
High to bring GEMS mentoring program into the high school. She met with them in early December and explained that there were just not enough volunteers to do more one-on-one mentoring. There is a program in place called the Ladies Tea, every Wednesday at Northern High, which already involve many of the girls who could benefit from a mentor. It was decided Linda would look into the possibility of getting speakers to come to the once a week meeting, with the possibility of developing it into something more as time went on. Kristal has agreed to
work with Linda on the program and both Kitty and Maureen expressed an interest in speaking or facilitating conversations.
The meeting was adjourned at 7:50 pm. The next meeting will be held on Tuesday, February 6th from 5 to 6:30 pm.
Respectfully submitted,
Linda Carr
Secretary