Those Present: Keith Schoonover, Lori Schoonover, Dave Hunter, Dave Barrow, Bruce Phillips, Dawne Howard, Drake Russell, Mike Kay

1. Call to order: Keith called the meeting to order. Keith presented Dave Barrow with his 3 year commission renewal for the Board. Thanks for everything you have done for the Board these last three years Dave; and good luck for the next!

2. Treasurer’s Report: Dave mentioned that we received $.11 interest in September; also, a $150 donation was deposited into the Treasury, our ending balance was $5,574.08.

3. Logging site exams: Mike indicated that no plans were received during the month. We discussed our Letter to the Editor which ran in Saturday’s Edition of the Frederick News Post. Lori suggested that we consider holding a Forest Management program at Fox haven when we resume our lecture series. Perhaps doing this in the fall of 2021?

4. Bruce distributed a handout and discussed all the steps that were necessary to obtain a logging permit in Frederick County. After much discussion on how to best detail this information, Bruce and Dave decided to put together a flow chart on our website that an applicant can follow to see what steps are necessary to obtain a permit. Including links to the County’s website to download necessary forms and determine if a property is in a Resource Conservation Zone or not was another idea. Bruce mentioned that he is working with Eric Dodson to highlight any changes to the County Sediment and Erosion Control permit as well as changes that might follow from the Forest Service’s new role in inspecting logging operations. Bruce will update the permit applications once he hears back from Eric. Mike will submit a sample logging plan for the site.

5. Tree walk/Big Tree Measuring: Board members have embarked upon 3 tree measuring excursions on 9-25, 10-2, and 10-9. We measured numerous trees and sent the necessary information to John Bennett for the Statewide Database. We still have other trees to measure including 11 re-measures for 2021.

6. PR Activities: During a Big Tree Measuring event at Sonia’s house Sonia proposed that we highlight this activity. As such, more information may be forthcoming from Sonia.

7. Nature Notes: Lori mentioned we have received a number of new articles recently which she intends to send to Dave. As per Dave “As of 10/12/20 the News Post has 11 Nature Notes articles. Dave also mentioned that once he receives an article from the author he begins the background work for photos etc. so that when he receives the edited copy from Lori he is ready to send it to the News Post. Dave mentioned that he was recently able to track down the photographers for an upcoming acorn article and was able to get high definition photos copies of the photos.

8. Web site: Dave is reorganizing the Nature Notes to be in the same folder structure as the image library. Once he completes the effort he will merge the two together to make it easier to access these folders and to reduce the number of click or keystrokes.