“Mother Nature’s Child” on July 26

Bloomfield CEEC and Prosser Library will showing “Mother Nature’s Child” on July 26 at 7:00 pm at the library. Discussions will follow.

Agenda, Wednesday, July 6, 2011, 7:00-8:30 pm

52 Duncaster Road, Bloomfield

1. Call to Order/ approval of minutes.

2. Fundraising Project.

a) Lisa Lane/ Stout Fields/ Thrall Barn: Grants to Bafflin

b) Stout Fields: NRCS grasslands awarded to DEP and WLT. DEP will hold Development Rights. Chip, Vikki and Diane met with Beth Brothers at DEP.

c) Lisa Lane/ NRCS Farmland grant submitted with Bloomfield Town having ownership of land and Land Trust holding the Development Rights. Chip and Vikki met with NRCS state Conservationist Jay Mar and Kip Kolesinskas at Lisa Lane last week for a walk through on the farm.

d) Thrall received a matching funds NEGEF Grant for clearing.

3. Special Projects

a) Bike Tour Report- May 22, REI sponsor, netted $197, goodwill was priceless, See Blog for more detail and pictures.

b) Trails Day Hikes- June 4, 22 people at Farmington River Park, Jay -See Facebook for photos.

c) Garden & Art Tour Report- June 18, great day netted over $5000 about 200 people attending. Party for participates was held at Cheryl Home with wine donated by David Sullivan.

4. Committee Reports

a) Membership: Hannah’s research and the CCLC Challenge Grant submission

b) Acquisitions: Sigrun Gadwa, a wetlands biologist contacted WLT about buying 5-6 acres of wetlands property to replace wetlands being developed.

c) Stewardship: Thrall-Kevin Paula, Dale and Vikki meet with a Farmer at Thrall, CL&P and Capewell Greene planting, Dead Tree on Cohen Property, check out the geocache at Van Otterloo

d) Grants: Ag Viability/ Conway School of Landscape Design

e) Financial:

g) Marketing: Internet and Newsletter, tutorial on MailChimp

5. Board and Committee Discussions.

a) Duties of Secretary and Treasurer will be defined. Tami will ask to step down and concentrate on web and internet coordination. Vikki would like to concentrate on Grants and Stewardship. The Board will open nominations for Treasurer and Secretary.

b) Committee needing personal: Membership, Fund Raising, Publicity, Events

c) Committees should develop formal needs list

6. Special Board morning breakfast/ appetizer meeting in August to discuss board and committee development.

7. Work Party at Thrall in Fall

8. Next Meeting Date: August 24?

10. New Business:

11. Adjourn

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

Wintonbury Bike Tour/ TourduLand

The inaugural Bike Tour (Tour du Land) of the WLT took place Sunday, May 22, 2011. The goal of the tour was to showcase land trust holdings and publicize WLT activities and missions. The Tour’s originally scheduled date was 5/15/2011 but postponed because of rain. Despite threatening early morning skies, the event was held under favorable bicycling conditions: cloudy but dry.

Registration/riders: a total of 30 people registered—1/3 on-line in advance and

2/3 on the day of the ride. Half of the registrants were from Bloomfield, the rest (in decreasing order) from West Hartford, S. Windsor, Hartford, Glastonbury, Terryville and Winsted. In addition to the riders, there were several staff/support members: tour guides (Dale @ Shaffer, Chip@ Stout’s, Tami @ Van Otterloo, and Vikki @ Capewell), registration (Steve), bike support/raffle/etc (Cary) and catering (Bob/Chris). The event followed the anticipated timeline with registration from 9:30-10, riding from 10-12 and refreshments from 12-1. About ½ of the riders stopped at some or all of the land trust sites. A few riders took the options to the Thrall and Speer properties.

Financials

Revenues---$300

Expenses----$103

Net -----------$197

+ Goodwill…………….priceless!

The feedback on the day was positive. The distance and grade made the ride attractive to the recreational/occasional biker. More “hard-core” riders might have preferred a greater challenge. This could be a more highlighted focus in subsequent years.

Special thanks to Cary for facilitating the great support from REI—tables/chairs/water bottles/air pump/raffle prize and Bob and Chris (Avon Country Deli) for the great food. I’d also like to thank the other members of the Bike Tour Committee: Val, Dale, and Patrick.

For its first year, the event was a modest success. Publicity for the ride included flyers and posters placed at local venues (e.g.: Wade’s, Bloomfield Bike, Town Hall, JCC, fitness centers) and mentions in WH Patch, Hartford Courant) electronic town events) and Bloomfield electronic bulletin Boards. The major goal next year will be to attract more riders. Among other options, we should consider printing up larger signs to post along Duncaster Rd (and perhaps other popular biking roads).

Vic Herson Event Coordinator