Wild Ones Madison Events

Wild Ones - Madison Chapter 

Monthly Board Meeting

March 21, 2024 5:30pm-6:30pm

Location: Zoom 1 is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.

Join Zoom Meeting

https://wildones-org.zoom.us/j/83537997239?pwd=aTRKb3VvZmdOcE1uSDdyUUpNWElxZz09

Attendees: Laurie Yahr, Jeff Steele, Athena Salzer, Amy Yocum, Sarah Ditton, Kate Engler, Ellen (member)

Agenda
Call to Order (order called)
Approval of February  Minutes (approved and seconded)
Financial Report 
Erin’s report via email: We currently have two banks. Erin is working to schedule a time with Amanda to close our Old National account this month or early in April. I have already filled out the information to change our dues disbursement to Summit.

Account Balances as of 2/29:

Old National: $3,669.37
Summit Checking: $542.00
Summit Savings: $1.00
No outstanding checks or receipts
Dues Disbursement Q1 - “Members pay annual dues to Wild Ones. Chapters receive a disbursement of these dues on a quarterly basis. The amount paid to chapters is dependent on a member’s membership type and the age of the chapter (a flat percent based on chapter’s age).”

Membership Report: Per the Chapter pulse, we have 196 members! Last meeting we were at 184. 
19 new members, 12 expired, and 19 renewals

Referral sources listed:

“Word of mouth” - 7 new members
“Facebook” - 4 new members
“Other” - ‘chapter hosted a talk at my workplace”, Garden Expo, Larry Meiller show on NPR, “working with Athena”
Planning Committee Recap (and Data Entry into Nat’l Event Editor)
Plan Your Pollinator Garden number of attendees:

Recap - 

Rain Garden Basics number of attendees (20 total?)

Recap - We should give Phil an honorarium of $50

Skunk Cabbage Arboretum walk (8 total)

Recap: all members except one who saw us on FB

From Erin - First Dane County Humane Society Work Day is April 27th. Sarah, can you please make the Facebook events? We were funded 100 plants through Plant Dane, those will be arriving for the May work day. 

Old Business
Publicity and FB events - Kate’s “Lurker Report” on other chapter’s use of social media (not all chapters have page or group, be careful what you search, some chapters had “community” as their chapter page, agree to keep FB pages “as is” for now)
Photos from events: where to put them and how to use them? Can we develop “booklets” with before/after members’ yard photos? (National is working on developing a national photo album of really cool native plants and smart yards)
Bibliography and resource list - we have an old one from Frank/Good Oak - who can update this?

New Business
New tabling materials: banner and brochures (Amy to buy 100 more brochures! Approved and seconded)
to also make additional �" page inserts for the ~100 WO national brochures that were received.
 

Speaker requests - how to handle these?
Sarah is going to help create a presentation template we can use for our chapter. Will make it easier to plug and go if we want to offer presentations. Laurie is currently revising the one from national for her Friends of Olbrich Gardens group and will share that with the board. 
Wild Ones advocacy for Natural Areas Ordinance and city ordinances
This was a suggested topic by Frank Hassler
Discussion about how we could work to revise it or even just eliminate it. Possible letter writing campaign to common council. 
Athena will pick up where we left on with contacting alders about it and getting city support. Amy will draft a letter template for letter writing campaign. Hopefully we can launch campaign for Earth Day. 
Questions from the City of Madison Stormwater Utility Vegetation Management plan - Amy sent separate email to the board, please respond by first week of April and Amy will compile the responses
Action Items
Amy - reach out to Phil Gaebler re: honorarium

 Order 100 chapter brochures 

 Draft letter regarding natural lawn ordinance

 Enter meeting into Events editor and on planning sheet on the drive

Athena - will contact alder re: natural lawn ordinance

Sarah - will look into photo storage on the drive

 Offered to assist with streamlining power point presentations