The Garden Club of Windham
Minutes of Board Meeting 2/12/2025
Windham Senior Center/Virtual
Call to order – 6:11 pm, Barbara Wright and Jay Osborne, co-chairs presiding
In Attendance – In-person: Ruth Hartunian-Alumbaugh, Faith Kenton, Jay Osborne, Daniel Phipps, Ursula Roskoski, Patty St Louis, Barbara Wright; virtual: Amy Marwood, Sally Milius, Brenda.
Minutes of the Board meeting held on 12/18/2024 were unanimously approved as they had been posted on-line previously for members to access and read.
Financial Report – review of Profit and Loss by Class/January through December 2024 spreadsheet, prepared by Jennifer Duchesne..Faith asked why there was so much money left in the Holiday Lights account and Dan replied that it was because they wanted to be sure they could do as much with the lights as they wanted for next year - they are learning as they go how to optimize the effect. Ruth questioned whether they could be utilized all year, and Ursula responded that, in honor of promoting dark skies, the winter is the time when lights are most meaningful and they did not really need to be on in the summer.
Barbara brought attention back to the Proposed Budget and the fact that in 2024 there were some serious shortfalls in income in the areas of both membership dues and the plant sale.
Given that, in further discussion, a couple of inconsistencies were found in the budget spreadsheet. it was decided to not vote on approving the proposed budget until further work was done on it.
Proposed Slate of officers for 2025 – Barbara brought attention to the updated slate of
proposed board members/officers for 2025. Barbara noted that the position of Secretary is open, she has asked several people but has not found anyone to take on the position. She stated that what can happen is to let the job rotate among members at each meeting.
Membership Conversation – Barbara invited Ursula to speak about the membership question as she presented it at the January 29 membership gathering. She stated that she believes the meeting went very well but that there is more work to be done and we should not jump too quickly into coming up with suggestions for enlarging membership until we continue to address some of that issues that have been raised. Jay invited Ursula to give some background to this discussion. Ursula stated that it has been clear that there has been declining membership over time, this caused by several factors: we are an aging population; in the wide world many civic clubs, churches, etc have faced declining membership; the needs/time of the younger generation appears to be different than the previous; a further factor is that over the twenty-five years of the club’s existence there have been conflicts that have arisen between members that the organization has been unable to address, so some of the stepping back is an attempt to address these before making an all-out effort to grow membership.
Discussion of the use of the Pageau Grant - Barbara stated that some questions had come
up regarding wording in the grant, and she has gotten some answers from Atty Pat Prue. The first questioned the use of the word “interns”, and Atty Prue replied that we could just hire anyone who could do the work, it did not have to be a formal intern relationship. Another question was could we carry money that was not spent in one year over to the next year. And the answer was that we could carry money over, but should spend it down before we apply for more. Faith asked what could the money be used for. Barbara replied that that was a third question as the grant stated that it was to be used to hire physical labor for garden maintenance. It was pretty restricted. Barbara then asked Atty Prue whether it could also be used for supples and services such as water and mulch and was told that yes, it could.
Barbara asked Dan, as chair of Public Spaces, what he had for next steps regarding this grant money. Dan stated that he wants to reach out to all of the garden stewards to find out their maintenance needs to enhance their gardens over the next year. Barbara brought up the perceived bookkeeping work involved in managing the distribution of the grant for the needs of ten gardens. Dan stated that, due to his job, he is not allowed to manage any organizations’ monies. Barbara stated then that she had just discovered that, if we use the students of Grow Windham, that organization can do all of that bookkeeping. Sally Milius, the Director of Grow Windham, was invited to speak about the organization which includes a trained group of High School students, The Windham Youth Corps, and all of the financial infrastructure required to pay the student workers. She believes that the partner-ship could be a win/win for all concerned.
Potluck in March – Barbara mentioned the idea of a purely social potluck event in later March.
After some discussion it was agreed to do a potluck event on a weekend at the end of March at the Dugan Hall of the Mill Museum and invite Mill Museum members. Faith agreed to organize the event.
Schedule of Board Meetings for 2025 – Barbara drew attention to the proposed schedule of Board Meetings for 2025. It was agreed that having a schedule in advance made life easier. Barbara pointed out that there was a proposed meeting date for every month and that these were all on a Wednesday evening. She suggested that if there was no business to attend to in that month that the meeting could be cancelled or used for another type of event such as a social event. Faith moved that the proposed schedule of meetings be accepted, Dan seconded the motion, vote was taken and approved unanimously.
Other agenda items were not fully discussed and no further votes were taken:
Annual meeting; Plant sale; Open garden.
Next Meeting – TBD
Adjourned – 7:40 pm
Respectfully submitted by Ursula Roskoski
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