1 The North Strabane Township Parks and Recreation Board met in regular session on Thursday, January 21, 2016 (meeting was postponed from January 12, 2016, due to bad weather). Attending this session Bill Brooks, Member MariAnn Hathaway, Member Heather Sherman, Member Sonia Stopperich, Member Jessica Wickard, Member Also attending this session Margaret Householder, Stenographer Deanna Kelly, Township Staff At this time our new member, Heather Sherman, is welcomed. POSTPONE REORGANIZATION APPROVAL OF MINUTES Sonia gave the following information: We are going to postpone reorganization until next month, because a new member will be appointed. Sonia will be resigning from the Parks Board because of a requirement in the Second Class Township Code that states a Supervisor cannot serve on the Parks Board. She continued the Board of Supervisors will most likely appoint her as liaison to the Parks Board. She will be attending these meetings as a Supervisor in the future. We have the minutes of the meetings of September 1 st and October 13th to approve this evening. A motion was made by J. Wickard, seconded by B. Brooks, to approve the minutes of the meeting of September 1 st and October 13 th. The motion carried, all members present voting yes. SANTA EVENT FOLLOW UP Jessica loved the décor and theme. It was well received. She commented possibly we could re use those decorations and theme every 5 years or so, to help keep costs down. Sonia stated we need a PA System and we should improve the looks of the tree. Margie explained the PA System was there and just didn t get used. Sonia commented about the dancers. Dance by Cami performers were not available due to a conflict. Dance Extensions, also known as D Pack, located in Canonsburg, performed in their stead. The professionalism was way down. The costumes were not uniform. Member suggested several alternative dance groups. Heather suggested Kick Line in Lawrence.
2 Jess suggested we need alternative entertainment. The balloon creations did not really keep the attention of the kids. We ve had better entertainment in the past. We could also have used Christmas music. The food was good, although the fruit was still frozen, and we were shorted the cups. The volunteers were awesome. They were from the Legacy Baptist Church, and are always a huge help to us. They were preparing the food. There seemed to be too much down time for the kids. Sonia stated she believes the Library has storytellers. Perhaps next year we can get students from the Drama Club to read to the kids. MariAnn suggested we needed something like a coloring sheet to keep the kids occupied while the rest of the attendees are filing in. There were not toys in the bags this year. They were all uniform. Sonia felt there should have been more items in the bag. Jess would like to do the reindeer food every year. PAINT AND SIP Jess has updated the flyer for Paint and Sip. Heather will get involved in social media. Sonia explained we have a Parks and Recreation Facebook page. The old page has almost 800 followers. Jess added Heather, MariAnn and Sonia as administrators. Jess reported April Ryan from Inner Artist Studio is booked for this year. She has negotiated a better rate for this year. It will be $25.00 to go to April Ryan and $5.00 per person will cover lite bites. Everyone will get a wine glass as well. We plan to do a local winter snow scene. Heather suggested we keep the painting simple. The last one was too difficult. We can post the picture on Facebook. Jess would like to do another event in the Fall at JD Winery. The setting there is very nice. Margie e mailed the layout of the room to JD so they can obtain the alcohol permit. We have a plan in place as far as layout of the room as well. Margie is checking with our insurance carrier to make sure we have no issues since wine is being served. Heather will approach Emerald Valley to see if they will donate cheese or a gift basket. We also talked about Vianna having her dips available. Jess asked if the Parmesan Princess might want to donate something. Her name is Terry Doud, and she lives in Heather s neighborhood. The flyer has been distributed, is on our website, and is advertised in the Washington County Tourism booklet. EASTER EGG HUNT Our groups are ages 0 1 2, 3 4, 5 6 7, and 8 9 10. We will need to purchase 8 bikes. The group decided Heather will shop for ages 3 4, Jess will shop for ages 5 6 7, MariAnn will shop for 8 9 10, and Sonia will shop for ages 0 1 2. We had
3 220 children at last year s event, but we need to check the breakdown per age group. The Hunt is March 19 th. Jess will take on the financial responsibility. We plan to have the Hunt in the Park this year. Weather will play a role. Two years ago we used McDowell and McClelland pavilions, and the grassy field between the two to hide the eggs. We do have 4 patio heaters. We can also wrap the pavilions with plastic. We checked the patio heaters with our Code Department when we purchased the patio heaters, and they passed inspection. Last year when we had the Hunt here it went very smoothly, because we didn t make folks wait. When they arrived they were allowed to go right through. We will need to check to see how many plastic eggs we have left from last year. Jess suggested we need an overall inventory at the Parks Building. We will have to make arrangements with Mr. Butler to get in, because none of us has access to the Building. We will ask Legacy Baptist Church to assist with this event. They all wear the same t shirt so parents can feel comfortable with their assistance. Our budget is $3,500.00 for this event. Jess will request a check for $2,500 to shop for the gifts. Heather doesn t feel we need to buy the $1.00 gifts, because they aren t nice gifts. She suggested we just buy one gift. Jess commented our $1.00 item is usually something like coloring books, crayons, puzzles, etc. There was some discussion about how many gifts are needed per age group, and further discussion about budgeting for the Hunt, considering that we need to purchase the bikes and food. We will also need to purchase plastic eggs, probably filled with candy. RESERVATIONS FOR PAVILIONS Margie would like to go over the list of events and make sure we have all the pavilions reserved for Parks events. Deanna is present this evening to assist. Easter Egg Hunt we ll reserve McClelland and McDowell. Community Day we want to block all pavilions. Touch a Truck we ll reserve Froman s Mill. Movie Nights Quail Acres and Field 2 (if weather permits, we ll plan to use Field 2, but if not, we ll use Quail Acres.) We can use the concession stand this year for the drinks and popcorn. Washington Wine Jazz and Pops we ll reserve all the pavilions for Saturday and Sunday. Car Cruise and Rain Date There was a discussion on whether to work out of the concession stand or Quail Acres. The issue is that we use the proceeds to purchase Thanksgiving dinners for needy families, so we want to keep the proceeds separate. It was decided to use the concession stand and not have
4 any other sales out of it that day. We still want to reserve Borland pavilion for registration and Chinese auction. Jessica suggested we will take an opportunity to go through our list of events, and assign them to various members. Sonia suggested all the information for a particular event be kept so that we can build a binder with all the pertinent information for each event. Members commented Vianna must have information to share, and as per Frank, it is property of the Township. Jess asked Margie to print some past meeting minutes for everyone to review. We can collectively build a binder for each event. We want to include a timeline, including when checks need to be requested. There was further discussion on specifics for each event. COMMUNITY DAY Sonia stated we talked about revamping the day and downsizing it a bit. She continued she feels it is a good idea to downsize. Margie commented we can hopefully get a game plan together and discuss it next month. Sonia described Peters Township s Community Day. She always attends, and it is always successful. There were a ton of vendors in attendance, and visitors, even though it rained. They have the day from 12 to 5, close down, and then have fireworks in the evening. There was further discussion on how the day could be planned. Another option would be to start at 5 and go until fireworks. Maybe in that case we would have one big headliner band to perform up until fireworks. MariAnn questioned what, other than poor weather, seems to affect the attendance at Community Day. Members discussed it and will come back to next month s meeting with ideas. Jess suggested we purchase handicapped accessible mats to be placed on parking spots to create a handicapped accessible parking space. Further, the signs for Community Day can just read third weekend of June to cut down on costs, if we decide to stick with that date. ADJOURNMENT There was a motion by M. Hathaway, seconded by H. Sherman, to adjourn the meeting, all business being concluded. The motion carried, all members present voting yes, and the meeting was adjourned at 8:20 P.M. Jessica Wickard, Member Heather Sherman, Member
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