December 5, 2014
ScSeed Annual Meeting
Minutes
DOW Office, Saguache Colorado
Present: Lynne Thompson, Julie Mach, Cam Benton, Tess Beneduce,
Hew Hollack.
Mart Swart present by phone.
Liza Marron absent.
FINANCIALS:
Quickbooks, $15,182 in bank account.
$15,990 in grants recently awarded but not yet deposited.
Temporarily Restricted Funds: $14,500. These are funds that Julie restricted and consist of grant money from late fall of this year and from the Roundup Riders Grant. They will be used next year.
DEVELOPMENT:
Grant Report: Received $3490 from Anschutz Foundation for operating funds. Sales Tax grants: partial funding for Vista/Tourism ($7,500), General Operating ($3,000), and Crestone Energy Fair ($2,000). Grant for Northern SLV Conservation Roundtable denied.
Pending Grants: NEEF ( Capacity building for NSLVCR) and Colorado Tourism. The Colorado Tourism grant has to be met with matching funds We will try to do this with our current program funding. We, the board, will be working with the chamber more to try and facilitate their needs and establish a more viable relationship for promoting tourism.
MEMBERSHIPS:
We received 5 households and 1 business
Need board members to help promote membership!
Julie and Tess came up with a list of potential sponsors for future grants and will be working on pursuing those sponsors.
PROJECTS:
Little Learners: Pending donation from First Southwest Bank for $20,000.
Mountain Valley School agreed to continue to pay the utilities. Lynne will be attending the LL Board Meeting on Monday, Dec 8th and report back to the board via e-mail.
VISTA GRANDE:
Per Tess, this committee is currently facing some challenges and delays. We have spent some funds from the Round-Up-Riders grant on the coming soon sign for the project, remainder will be held until spring. There was a very low response to getting a survey and the committee will be reaching out again to get a survey. MiMi Mather is still the planner and whole project is still a work in progress.
We will be looking at this again in February to determine what further involvement ScSEED will have with this project and where we will be using the balance of funds we have from the grant.
NSLVCR:
Julie reported our hosting the October GMO meeting was a success. There was good attendance. Julie felt the success of the event gained ScSEED some great traction and would like to see this group grow under ScSEED.
Cam suggested we incorporate them as part of ScSEED and use some of our grant money to promote future programs. Tess and Julie are working on future topics for meeting. The next topic for the next meeting will hopefully be on the Sage Grouse.
WILD AND SCENIC FESTIVAL:
This was a HUGE success! Our profit was $824.26. We would like to do it again next year and possibly us this as our future signature fund-raiser.
We had some discussion as to having it over a weekend, rather than just one night. There is so much potential with this event.
SCENIC BYWAY:
Tess informed us there was a tour with one person from ByWay committee attending and one County Commissioner. Tess would like to table this project for now as there just isn’t enough support necessary for the size.
CRESTON SKATE PARK:
We do have funding for this project and will begin the planning process in December and January. Process will include community surveys/meetings, discussions with town staff, development/fundraising feasibility.
TOURISM WORKSHOPS/MAPS:
We would like to host the Tourism Workshop in February or March. We need to plan on how to handle ALL tourism events for the county, ie, who (what boards) will handle specific events and how to develop some strategic communication among the different boards.
CRESTON ENERGY FAIR:
We have the funding. Julie informed us that Donovan would like a small winter event (not really a fair) just for some shared information. Julie will be working with him a lot closer for the summer fair so that the fair can bring in more money than last year. Time constraint was the issue for the last fair, but this year Julie can get a head start.
UTE THEATRE:
It seems that Chris got her non-profit status for the theatre with the bar and restaurant remaining a business. Chris has expressed to Tess she would like some help in setting up the non-profit portion. Julie and Tess will be attending a meeting in the future and will report back to us.
PENITENTE BIKE RACE:
Julie found out that a race is in the works for Oct 2015. The 12 hour endurance race will consist of 17 mile laps on current trails. This could bring in 400 tourists, including the racers, families, event people, etc.
Julie will be keeping tabs on this event and letting us know the progress.
Julie also told us about a potential “Fly-a-thon”
That is an event that includes fly fishing, running and drinking of craft beer.
Again, Julie will let us know when and where that event might happen.
ALFRED PACKER:
Mixed reviews on the success of this event. Some groups made money but some aspects of the project fell through. Uncertain as to Saguache Works’ status moving forward and whether they will host again. The board would like to re-visit this event as to what our involvement should be.
SAGUACHE MUNICIPAL AIRPORT:
This is an exciting project. Cam is really moving on this project. Cam and Julie put together the narrative for the state for funding. Cam read to us from the narrative. It included all the positive reasons to fund this airport. The funding is there and it would be dispersed in phases. There is an 8000 foot runway and the first phase would be to pave 4000 to 5000 feet of it and install some tie down ramps.
The second phase would be fuel.
The third phase would be hangers.
The fourth phase would be paving the extension of the runway.
2015 BUDGET:
Julie informed us that she would like to spend more time working on ScSEED and could move towards 15-20 hours per week in 2015. There was much discussion on this. We (the board) would like to see her put in the extra hours as she has been so successful bringing ScSEED to where it is now. This increased staff time hinges on her ability to secure more funding, particularly through foundation dollars and membership support.
We approved it, but will be talking more about this at our next meeting.
STRATEGIC PLANNING:
We decided to revisit this another time when absent members can be present and we can give it the time it deserves. Tess did give us an over view and we had a very brief discussion.
At this time Julie asked all of us where or what we would like to see happen with ScSEED this next year.
We all gave opinions that ranged from having more events, identifying a 3-5 goal and “Branding” ScSEED. We need to get us out there more with the community, so that when someone hears our name they know who and what we are.
We all agreed that the next meeting we will devote to strategic planning, the 2015 budget, who would like to remain in their current positions on the board and some idea brain-storming.
This meeting will take place in January and Julie will be emailing us some dates to choose from.