GILFORD PUBLIC LIBRARY TRUSTEES
MINUTES OF November 13, 2007
PRESENT: Polly Sanfacon, Robert Kammeraad, Tracey Petrozzi, Katherine Dormody, Daryl Thompson, Bill Seed, and Kate Hamel of the Friends
CALL TO ORDER: Chairman Robert Kammeraad called the meeting to order at 8:40 AM.
MINUTES: The minutes of October 2007 were accepted as circulated.
REPORTS: The monthly reports were discussed. It was noted that the downloadables are showing a slight increase over last month. The Monthly Report Overview of October was reviewed. Fiction was up and DVDs were up, and CD books were also up. Children’s’ circulation was down. We will continue to watch these numbers. More people are going online- OPAC renewal was up 240 percent. Looking at the Town of Gilford Report, which shows where we are on November 1, we are pretty much where we should be. The wage line will balance out by the end of the year, in regard to part-time and full-time wages. The Itemized Non-Appropriated Report was examined and no questions were raised. Katherine noted that a deposit schedule has been
set-up, and money is now deposited on a regular basis. We also looked at the new constructions costs- the insurance costs put us over a bit.
PROGRAMS: In looking at December’s calendar, there are a great number of programs being offered for all ages. Katherine said they had a very successful day-time adult craft class recently, which was so well-attended, another is being offered upstairs this morning. Usually adult programs are scheduled for evenings; the success of this particular program has the staff looking at the possibility of offering more programs during the daytime hours. There may be an Open House on Saturday, December 1st. Light refreshments will be offered, but we are not putting a lot of activates into this, as we have found the focus is always on the GHS craft fair that day. Our Open House will kick off the Silent Auction, which will run from the 1st to
the 14th.
There will be some special holiday programs in December, including a Hanukkah Craft class, a Holiday Star Craft class, decorating a tree for animals, and Gingerbread Decorating. Tasha is planning an Old-fashioned Christmas celebration for the 13th. There will be a Red-Cross Babysitting Course offered after the holidays. Storytimes and Babylap will be offered the first week in December, and resume in January. The Knit-Wits are now meeting twice a week, on Thursday nights and Friday afternoons.
We asked for ideas for a gift for Staff. The fruit basket went over well last year. Tracey will take this on and let us know the costs. Katherine suggested the week of the 17th for presenting the gift. The library will be closed on 24th and 25th and the 31st
Katherine met with the new editor of the Steamer, who gave some guidelines but was not sure how much space she could commit to the library when they go to one section from the two sections in the busier months. However, space for letters to the editor can be pretty much guaranteed. Jessie’s library article will still appear on a weekly basis.
Cory and Katherine and Tasha took part in the local spelling bee, with a picture to prove it—we were directed to the library website. The team won a prize for the costumes; Cory wore a queen-bee crown, and Katherine and Tasha wore appropriate ‘bee’ costumes. What they didn’t accomplish in spelling was made up for in charisma.
BUDGET 2008: There were no questions on the budget. We discussed the meeting held last week with the three budget committee members; only two actually attended the meeting. Wednesday we will present our warrant article relative to the sale of the land to the Selectman. On Thursday at 7:00 Skip will present our budget to Budget Committee.
The offer to appear on the radio show was discussed. Polly was apprehensive and Kate questioned the ethical standards here. It was agreed that there were other forums to get the information out to the public.
NEW BUILDING: Bill has nothing new to add other than things are going quite well. The second floor is being poured either this week or next; the steel has been erected. It is very exciting to see the building going up.
FUNDRAISING: Each Trustee is responsible for emailing Kate ten new names. Tracey volunteered to do some grant writing; she was directed to WebJunction, a site which offers different courses on a multitude of issues, which might prove helpful in the grant-writing process. Kate reminded us that in order to be a stronger force and more comfortable with our common mission, we all need to memorize our Mission Statement. Katherine will keep us up-to-date. We will continue to look at what we as board members can do to help with fund-raising.
FOOD FOR FINES: The first two weeks in December we are accepting food for fines. A suggested list of donations will be posted and a donation basket will be available as a drop place.
BEHAVIOR POLICY: We voted to accept a revised policy, by adding the following paragraph:
Anyone violating these rules is first warned by a staff member at the time of the offense. If the conduct continues, the offender is asked to leave the premises for a day. Another violation will result in the revocation of library privileges for a week. After a third violation, the offender will not be allowed on library grounds for an extended period and will need to see the Library Director upon re-entry. In the case of repeat offenders or in cases where voluntary compliance is not adhered to, the police may be called for assistance. Staff may expel the offenders without a warning in situations of serious, threatening, or willfully malicious behavior. In the case of a minor, an incident report will be sent to the parent/guardian.
E-NEWSLETTER: In extracting email out of our automated system, we discovered 300 with undeliverable addresses. These have now been eliminated, leaving us with 1200 good addresses on our e-newsletter list. The newsletter is proving effective; i.e. right after Halloween a request was made for leftover candy—and we were inundated with bags of treats.
AMAZON ASSOCIATES: We need to better inform library patrons of the Amazon.com link – when people shop through this link, the library gets a percentage of the total sales. We will promote this through the e-newsletter – and the Friends’ newsletter. The proceeds from the link could be substantial.
PERSONNEL: In the past month, things have started to jell together, with the staff becoming much more of a team. Morale is good. Katherine mentioned a situation the staff is currently dealing with -the Church’s After-School Program coming to the library and ‘taking over’ -causing other patrons to ‘scatter.’ Katherine will be talking to the church about this and try to work out some expectations. We discussed ideas on how to best make this a productive, library-oriented visit.
CODE OF ETHICS: Robert will see to it that we all receive a copy of the Code of Ethics for Public Officials of the Town of Gilford. As Trustees, we need to read this over so we can intelligently vote to accept this at our next meeting..
NEXT MEETING DATE: Our next meeting is scheduled for Tuesday, December, the 11th, at 8:30 AM. The meeting was adjourned at 10:25.
Respectfully submitted,
Daryl Thompson, Secretary
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