Those present: Larry Sharpe, Keith Schoonover, Jim Arnold, Lynne Marquess, Tom Anderson, Tyson Rose, Ginny Brace, Mike Kay

Prior to the meeting we interviewed two students for the NRCC Camp and we interviewed a 3rd at 7:30 pm. The students were Taylor Mack, Linganore High 6:30 pm interview, Lauren Miller, Middletown High 6:45 pm, and Cecelia Arnold, Home School 7:30 pm. Following the interviews Board members were impressed so much with all three applicants that they voted to send all three if it was possible to do so and decided to pay all three’s tuition if necessary, assuming that the student would pay $100 of the $450 total. Lynne mentioned that Allegany County received a grant to send 6 students to camp and the Allegany Board distributed a memo saying that they would like to sponsor additional students from Western Maryland if they were unable to find 6 students from their county. After much discussion Larry made a motion that the board would sponsor Taylor and Lauren from our Treasury and inquire if we could use some of the grant funds to send Cecelia to camp. If these grant funds are unavailable then the Board would fund Cecelia’s tuition as well. This motion was seconded and passed by those present.

1. Keith called the meeting to order and April’s minutes were approved as written. (I’ve got to admit that it was a little lonely with only Tom, Tyson, and Mike at the last meeting. And, truth be told we spent much of the time looking at The Illustrated Dictionary of Motorcycles. That’s the kind of things we do when no authority figures are around.)

2. Treasurer’s Report: Tom indicated that we had a new balance of $8,857.43 after purchasing nearly $2,000 of books for the Neighborhood Green program. Tom mentioned that Frederick County had to slash their budget this year so that the Board is in line to receive $900 for the year. Mike presented Tom with a $500 donation from Nancy McCartney and the McCartney children to spend in Darrell’s honor.

3. Logging site exam: One plan was submitted and we decided to inspect the property on Tuesday, May 18, 2010. If you would like to be part of this inspection please meet at Gambrill by 8:00 am.

4. Signage: Ginny had a few different models of our signs on hand to display. The sign with an aluminum backing costs $14.00 sign. Ginny also had a web page from Voss Signs who had a simple tree id sign for sale for about $5.00 per sign. After some discussion the prevailing consensus was that we like our model of sign and we already have much raw data to produce signs for a number of species. We thought that once the signs are made we might be able to donate or sell them to various conservation groups.

5. Neighborhood Green: Mike distributed copies of the agenda. The program will run Tuesday nights on May 11, 18, & 25, with the May 25th program being in Waterford Park and hosted by Ginny. Lynne, Jim, and possibly Larry will be at the 1st program; and Tom mentioned that he might be able to make the program on the 18th. Mike also mentioned that Frederick County has submitted an application for the NFWF grant program for $192,000 to implement the Neighborhood Green program and this grant application has passed the initial screening. Mike and Shannon Moore are meeting with the Frederick County Commissioners on May 13, 2010 to discuss Neighborhood Green. Mike will make sure to credit the Forestry Board for sponsoring these training programs.

6. Nature Notes: Ginny said that Nature Notes is going swimmingly and her only gripe is that she’s getting too many plant articles and not enough on animals.

7. Web Site: Tyson said the site was up to date and he made some changes to make NRCC information much easier to access. Tyson asked that we mention the web site at the training tomorrow night.

8. Bernie Zlomek: Mike mentioned that Bernie is set to retire on the 41st anniversary of his employment with the Forest Service on June 30, 2010. Lynne mentioned that she hopes Bernie stays active in NRCC in his retirement.

9. Big Tree Program: Lynne mentioned that she spent time with John Bennett in Anarundel County and Frederick County measuring big trees. Lynne said that they could not find the large Boxelder in Monrovia to measure it.