Meeting participants: Willa, David, Fatimah, Richard, Dan, Lauren, Les, Wallace, Pauline, Edwin, Charity
REVIEW AGENDA & MEETING NOTES
ALUMNI RELATIONS
- Mailed 70ish invitations to alumni about the book interviews; Fatimah only received 2 responses. This could because of bad experiences in the past.
- Would like to get suggestions on how to engage in outreach, to focus how it impacted their education.
- Would tap first into those who have shown interest
- Old school thought — it does not belong to them, why engage?
- Draft Strategic Plan narrative resounded with Fatimah
- Wallace asked what would the role of alumni be in this project?
- Richard recommended a call bank approach to reach out to folks with a committee of folks; Charity says we can use her number as a contact
- Richard mentioned we have a document/double folder with the name of students/families
BUDGET REVIEW
Income from OLLI: $200; all bills to date have been paid. See agenda for details
Contributions to date: $108,719.25 (foundation) + $11k (Board of Education allocation)
Expenditures to date: $88,486.14
Balance: $20,233.11
New Income: $11k (allocation/restricted funds in Board of Education budget)
New Expenses: None
CONSTRUCTION/FUNDING/WORK DAYS
- Work has been done on underpinnings/brick peers. Will work on chimney next; we now have a pot-bellied stove. Will do work on siding. We can clean out the underneath and put skirting around if we decide to.
- Donnell Mary put a wall underneath (materials would have $1000); no foundation under the brick – now there was concrete foundation underneath. We are very pleased with the work.
- Next work day starts April 14 (2nd Sat) — manual labor and move the red clay dirt from inside to outside (new addition area) to level out a place for good storage. Will look at forecast; needs to be on a Saturday because weekday turnouts are low. If we use that area as storage, we need to underpin the area between the new addition and the original building.
- Back wall is loose and needs to be shored up.
- We need to frame out the divider wall as we think about beefing up the structure.
- There’s some flooring missing. Dan found some on Craigslist that been sitting there for over a year. There’s 800 sq ft available; we need 500 sq ft. He’s asking $6/sq ft (or 3xs what new flooring is)
HISTORY
- Suttles (taught at HS) donated her school yearbooks; Richard shared the yearbook. Dan recounted his experience when the elementary school was integrated in 1966; he was in the 7th grade
- NRHP Form: no new updates; will follow up after April.
- Richard made a motion; Pauline seconded the motion: individual completing the form honor the input from the review committee of the school. If the form is not final, otherwise we recommend it is withdrawn. We will vote on motion at the April meeting.
- Lauren will follow up with colleagues about coordination with National Register gatekeeper and assistance she can get
FUNDRAISING
- Board of Education — removed us from the agenda; focus on new superintendent hiring. We plan to return back to the school system and clarify that request is for capital outlay, not operations funding
- Scott Donald would write the specs; schools system would put it out to bid and hopefully complete it. New superintendent would start June 1.
PROGRAMMING
- 90th anniversary celebration/soft opening (Sept).
- No update on Grand Opening Committee — still would like to have 2 separate programs on Friday/Saturday; need core of 5-6 individuals
- Fatimah expressed a concern about separating the two audiences
GENERAL/OTHER
- We will not participate in Madison EXPO on Mar 17
- Next OLLI program is scheduled on April 6 from 4:30-6:30pm