Aerial view of the Elk Forest peninsula between the Elk River and the C&D Canal
The Community of Elk Forest Website for the neighborhood of Elk Forest, Maryland

October 15, 2018 Meeting Minutes

Elk Forest Civic Association Meeting - October 15, 2018

Estock Residence

Attendees:

Kathy Alzos
Cris Brookmyer
June Estock
Judy Leshner
Dave Mitchell
Susan Schlotzhauer
David Silverman
Joanne Silverman
Janet Curran

The meeting was called to order by President June Estock at 7:00 pm. June reviewed the proposed agenda. We agreed to review/discuss the following:

Minutes of the meeting are provided as follows:

Treasurer’s Report

Cris Brookmyer presented the Treasurer’s report. There were no exceptions. Dues collected to date (through 10/3/18) are the highest since 2014 at 72% of households. Third notices were sent on 10/4 to 28 homeowners, after which one more homeowner paid.  Historically 3-5 more homeowners pay upon receiving the 3rd notice. 

We thank all of those that have paid their dues. We encourage owners that have not yet paid their dues to please pay as soon as possible so that the same services can continue to be provided to our community.  We thank all property owners for their continued cooperation.

A motion was made by Kathy Alzos to accept the Treasurer’s report; David Silverman seconded it.  All in favor.  Motion approved.    

Financial Records Retention/Destruction  - discussion/approval

Cris prepared and presented a proposed Record Retention document to the Board for review and discussion.  The document includes record retention periods for hard copy documents and electronic records.

The details of the document were thoroughly discussed by meeting attendees.  One minor change was proposed and agreed upon:  CD maturity notices will be retained 1 year after maturity vs. 7 years.

David Silverman moved to accept the record retention document with the change; Kathy Alzos seconded it.  All in favor. Motion approved. 

Cris will revise the document and forward it to Dave Mitchell for posting on our elkforest.com website.  The responsibility of maintaining the document is the Treasurer’s; Cris will add it to the Treasurer’s responsibilities list.  We applaud Cris for her initiative and thoroughness in creating this valued adding document.

Mosquito Spraying Update

Cris reported we had 21 sprayings.  There are no more sprayings scheduled for 2018.  Mosquito spraying is done twice a week in April and May; once per week during June, July, August, and September.   Because the mosquitos were so heavy this year, there was some individual interest in additional sprayings after our spray season was over.  While we think the rainy weather was an exception this year (as usually September is cooler and more dry), Cris will proceed to investigate with the vendor on what the possibilities/cost would be for next year if individuals wanted to add a couple more weeks of additional sprayings on an exceptional basis.

Little Free Library Status:  Registration, Feedback

The Little Free Library has been installed at the Estock residence at 98 S. Shore Rd.  Since the library is new to our community, we agreed we needed to increase communications to our community about the library.  June is going to prepare a library instruction sign. Cris will laminate the sign.  The sign will be posted by the Little Free Library.   June is going to include information about the library in her upcoming newsletter.  David Silverman is going to update the Welcome Package to include a reference about the Little Free Library.   Sherri Mitchell is working on registering the library.  An update will be provided as soon as it is available.

New Neighbor Welcome Letter (Updates, New Neighbors)

To ensure each new neighbor receives a personal greeting and “New Neighbor Welcome Package”, we agreed to add this agenda item to every board meeting agenda.  At the meeting we will confirm if a new neighbor has already been welcomed by a Board member or needs to be welcomed.

In addition to greeting a neighbor and providing him/her with a Welcome Package, the Board member will request the new neighbor to provide his/her contact info to Cris Brookmyer.  Cris maintains the list of community homeowners for dues mailings.  It is imperative to obtain email addresses because all of our communications will soon be electronic other than dues mailings.  

Cris provides this very same list to the Webmaster to post on our elkforest.com website as our contact list.  Access to the posted contact list is password protected.  This list includes: last name, first name, address, phone numbers, email.

Cris requests that we notify her of any changes as soon as we become aware of them so that she can update the list.  Cris also reviews County records for changes but they run a little behind.

Every time Cris updates the list, she sends a copy to the Webmaster for posting. 

Website Updates

Dave Mitchell reported our website averages 75 hits per week, not unique visitors.    Dave has created a Webmaster Transition document.  It is on the google drive account of our Gmail address.  It contains all the passwords and vendors required to support our website.  This will be useful to future webmasters as the assignment transitions to others.

We thank Dave for proactively creating this document of vital importance.

We are removing the password from appearing on any website documents.  Community members can contact any board member to obtain the password.  Ongoing, the Treasurer will include the password in dues letters sent to property owners. 

Holiday Party

The Mitchell’s tentatively agreed to host the party/open house if some date issues can be resolved.  The date will be determined.

Newsletter

During the meeting, we intermittently discussed what needs to appear in the next newsletter.  We identified:

Respectfully submitted,

Janet Curran

EFCA Secretary

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