WLT Board meeting May 1, 2011

Nancy Bowden, Cary Henderson, Chip Caton, Catherine Lyons, Dale Bertoldi, Vikki Reski, Tamara Hochman, Claudia Bell

1. Fundraising Project

a) Grants to Bafflin for Lisa Lane/ Stout Fields/ Thrall Barn were sent out. The summary project sheets were updated for each property. Announcements expected the end of June.

b) Stout Fields: NRCS grasslands awards have been delayed but expected soon. Vikki will be checking with the grant coordinator periodically. If a grant is awarded the DEP will hold the easement and the Land Trust will own the property. An appraisal of the property will be done if the grant is awarded to determine the easement value which is typically 85-90% of total land value. Before the grant is applied for the match needs to be in place.

c) Lisa Lane: The purchase price for the property is $300,000. A State of CT DEP grant of $195,000 will fund a significant part of the purchase. Privately an additional $28,000 has already been committed. With an additional $2,000 an anonymous matching grant of $10,000 will be triggered. In addition to the Bafflin grant, a farmland grant was been submitted to NRCS. Under the farmland grant the Town of Bloomfield will own the 10 acre farm and the Land Trust would hold the easement. The funding needs to be in place by the end of the year.

d) Hawk Hill: Meeting for appraisal, Grants to New England Trail

2. Special Projects

a) Bike Tour- May 15, REI will sponsor provide technical bike service support at the Farmington River Park the day of the ride. Posters and pamphlets are being distributed. A new map with directions will be distributed after riders sign in at the start of the ride. Volunteers will be stationed at important Land Trust properties along the ride. The web site has a sign up link.

b) Garden & Art Tour- June 18, Posters and flyers are being printed. All the art work was donated by Robin Sherwood. Thank you, Robin. Web site has a sign up link. Need additional help with publicity. No rain date.

c) April 23 Earth day at Van Otterloo. Thanks to the Bloomfield Lowes additional tools, garbage bags and gloves helped the work party complete the first leg of the VanOtterloo Trail in the lower section of the site. Further work is needed to complete the upper trail loop. A Geocache will be set up on this site.

d) The Wintonbry Land Trust has sponsored two Trails Day Hikes on June 4. Kevin Gough and Paula Jones will guide the Farmington River Park hike at 9:30. Jay Stocctore & Himali Shah will lead the hike at Speer Property at 11:30. Rain date is the 5^th.

3. Committee Reports

a) Marketing: Tami will complete the WLT Newsletter on MailChimp. Chip and Vikki will coordinate printing of 200 more WLT brochures for upcoming events

b) Stewardship: Thrall/ Arcadis are monitoring residual pesticides from tobacco farming. If they find any hot spots of high concentration they will notify us. Rachel Rosen said that thus far they have found the normal amount for the Connecticut River Valley.

c) Grants: Ag Viability/ Conway School of Landscape Design, WLT will soon be able to review the final document. The Open Space Subcommittee will be composing a letter to introduce the study to the Bloomfield Plan of Conservation and Development.

d) Financial Report: 336 shares of Proctor and Gamble sold

4. The Connecticut Land Conservation Conference on April 11 at Wesleyan University was attended by Dale and Vikki. They split their time at the conference between different workshops and lunch-time discussions in order to gain the most information.

5. The Board has begun discussions on Committee members. At Present committees are Acquisitions, Fundraising, Grants, Membership, Publicity, Stewardship, Events.

6. Adjourn