Those present: Claude Eans, Steve Thrasher, Vince Perrotta, Andy Driscoll, Tom Anderson, Jim Arnold, Heather Montgomery, Mike Kay

The Board held its October Meeting during lunch break at the Boy Scout Forestry Merit Badge training at the Walkersville Watershed.

1. Call to order – Mike called the meeting to order but Vince showed up soon there after and took control of the proceedings.

2. Treasurer’s Report: Tom indicated that we received $1.01 interest for September. Tom also noted that he wrote a check for $90.50 for the sign that will be placed at Frederick Community College near the April tree planting. (The day the Roseanne Cash visited the campus.)

3. Logging Site Exams: Mike had four plans submitted in the Wolfsville, Thurmont areas. Mike is available either October 16 or 22. Mr. Kay will send notice out in email to see if anyone wants to accompany him one of those days.

4. Statewide Meeting: Mike mentioned that the meeting has been changed to November 1, 2014. Jim and Tom said that they may be able to attend. We will firm this up and notify Becky Wilson.

5. Neighborhood Green: Heather mentioned that she made trips out to look at the 2013 and 2014 plantings and the survival is fantastic averaging about 90%. Heather mentioned that the 2015 program will concentrate in brook trout watersheds and will feature “enhanced” practices such as the planting of larger growing stock, rain gardens, and rain barrels. Heather mentioned that her colleague Jeff Feaga oversaw the planting of 90 trees at Monocacy Middle school involving 300 students.

6. MUCFC: Heather requested that the Forestry Board website publicize some of the PLANT Awards or MUCFC grants that are distributed in the county.

7. Discover your Woods: This program was held at Steve Thrasher’s farm. The program included, CREP tree planting, wildlife habitat for golden winged and Cerulean warblers, a history of the Thrasher farm by Steve’s sister Nancy, measuring Steve’s Frederick County champion hackberry, invasive plant control, the Stewardship planning process, and a sawmill demonstration. Steve, Claude, Vince, and Tom were present from the Board. Everybody thought that the program was very good and we received very high marks in the evaluations that came back.

8. Nature Notes: Mike mentioned that he recently sent three articles to Ginny for publication. Andy also mentioned that he is working on a tree planting article for the column.

9. Merit Badge Training: Despite some early problems with rain, unauthorized parking, double booking pavilion, etc. the Merit Badge Program was an unmitigated success. Claude states that 77 Scouts signed up and we had 63 in attendance. Claude was able to mingle around during the day and he spoke to Scouts, parents, and Scouting officials and the general consensus was that the training was very interesting. Claude took a number of photos and has the shell of an article ready for the website. Anybody who would like to polish up Claude’s already magical words is welcome to do so.

10. Other Business:

    • Meeting announcements: In a recent phone conversation between Keith and Mike, Keith wondered if we provided adequate notice regarding the change in venue for this meeting in case someone from the general public wanted to attend. Perhaps this might be a topic of discussion during the November meeting.

    • Uniforms: There has been an ongoing discussion about the possibility of the Board getting various items of clothing like ball caps, coats, sweaters etc with Frederick County Forestry Board on it. Doing so would readily identify members during events like the Scout Training, Discover Woods; as well as when we go out and do logging site exams. Another topic of discussion?