2008
Minutes, December meeting (awaiting publication)
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Minutes, meeting of November 9, 2008.
PRESENT: Eleanor and Giles Rae, Inge Otto, Helen Friedman, Violet Smith, Toby Liederman, Lorraine Nicoletti and Jack Ullman.
REPORTS.
Violet Smith, Eleanor Rae and Inge Otto report that they have opened a checking account in the name of the Hutchinson River Restoration Project at the Co-op City branch of the Amalgamated Bank, which gives free checking with a very low balance. It was opened with a $100 contribution by Violet Smith. Other members then contributed more to give us an adequate minimum balance. Sue Bellinson of Soundwatch has been notified of this.
Eleanor Rae reports that Soundwatch will send us a check for a little over $1000, mostly due to the efforts of Sue Bellinson
At the October 16 meeting, the following were elected to be officers of the organization: Eleanor Rae, President; Dorothea Poggi, Vice-president; Inge Otto, Treasurer, and Jack Ullman, Secretary. Their term of service will be two years. It was suggested that our Board of Directors should include, as well as these officers. Ron ten Eyck and others who have shown interest in our effort.
Inge Otto reported that she and Dotti Poggi had proposed that we should have dues of $25 for members, in order to have a steady source of income. Toby Liederman and Inge Otto have compiled a list of email addresses of interested persons, and it was proposed that a message to this effect be sent to everyone on the list. It was also suggested that if persons on the list did not choose to join, we would still sent them information on our activities and hope they would eventually contribute either money or help. Lorraine Nicoletti will obtain and maintain a file of the e-mail addresses of interested persons.
Toby Liederman reported on the upcoming Metropolitan Waterfront Conference, run by Metropolitan Waterfront Alliance. She has given them the names of our members so they will send us information on their activities. Dotti Poggi expects to go to the conference, to be held next Thursday.
Inge Otto, Dotti Poggi and Jack Ullman expect to attend a grant writing workshop in January.
APPLICATION FOR 501(c) (3) STATUS.
Giles Rae has actually filled out the 22-page application to the Internal Revenue Service. The five pages that actually contain important information were handed to those present for them to examine and eventually sign the document. Jack Ullman will also go over the entire 22-page document to check for any omissions or errors. Giles reminded us that we can act as though we were a nonprofit organization (deducting contributions from our income tax) even before this application is approved. Violet Smith will give a copy of our application to Senator Jeff Klein, at his request, for review.
3. DATE AND TIME OF NEXT MEETING:
Wednesday, Dec. 10, 7PM, at Eleanor’s, 7 Leeward Lane.
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No minutes recorded for October Meeting
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MEETING SEPTEMBER 4,2008
Present
Eleanor Rae, Giles Rae, Inge Otto, Helen Friedman, Toby Liederman, Lorraine Nicoletti, Violet Smith, Peter Sattler- guest speaker
Eleanor read minutes of last meeting which were accepted as read.
Education
The City Island Fair will be on Sept. 13 and 14, 2008, from 11 am. to 7pm. We will have a table and have assigned people for each day.
Alliances
Our guest Peter, from the Interstate
Environmental Commission, spoke to us. He talked about different aspects ,
such as trying to actually clean the river, which is a difficult thing, or
clean up the shore, but said that education was probably the best place to
begin. He then gave us some names of people and organizations which he thought
would be helpful. A few of them are:
Lynn Dwyer @nfwf.org or 631-312-4793 ( phone) ( how to get funds)
Little Neck- Probe Carol DiPaola- Committee to save Hempstead Harbor Phone- 516-676-4574( how to get funds)
This is just a couple of the organizations he mentioned. Mr. Sattler said he would be willing to come to another meeting.
Projects
After Mr. Sattler left we discussed how to get focused for John Doyle and/or Senator Jeffrey Klein coming to our meeting in October.
Eleanor stated that there is still a problem with getting the grant from SoundWatch.
Violet got a price of 800 dollars for 1,000 brochures, but as there is no money that has been put on hold.
We then discussed the idea of going ahead and trying to get the 501(c) (3) paper as that seems to be the only way to get the SoundWatch grant money. Giles will get forms to begin the process. Violet will ask two lawyer friends.
Date and Time Next Meeting
The next meeting will be on 9-25-08 at 7:00 pm at Eleanor's house at 7 Leeward Lane in the Boatyard Condominium. We will work on the 501(c) (3)papers.
The meeting was adjourned at 9:00 pm.
Respectfully submitted,
Violet Smith
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MEETING AUGUST 12,2008
Present:
Eleanor Rae, Toby Liederman, Helen Friedman, Inge Otto, Violet Smith, Jack Ullman.
Education
City Island Fair, Sept. 2008. We would like to have a booth. We don't know the dates. Lorraine was going to contact the City Island Chamber of Commerce about this.
Exploration of businesses along Hutchinson River: Eleanor Rae, Violet Smith and Jack Ullman did this by car and on foot, following the information from Kate Shackford's office. We could not get to some addresses near Co-op City: Yolanda Bako might help with this. There were stretches of heavy industry (scrapyards, oil docks) around the Bronx-Westchester border but there were also two stretches of empty lot fronting the river, which could be made accessible to the public. Jack Ullman will try to remember to bring his map to a subsequent meeting.
Anne Marbury Hutchinson. Toby Liederman reported on her attendance at a ceremony in Rhode Island where Anne Hutchinson was honored for her contributions to the history of Rhode Island.
Alliances
Bronx Cleanup Day recognition ceremony. Eleanor, Violet and Lorraine attended. Eleanor gave a presentation on our organization.
Bronx Greens Conference, July 13. This is the Green Party, which hopes to run some candidates for local office in future elections. Eleanor Rae attended, gave a presentation and passed out packets of materials on our project.
Bronx Council on Environmental Quality. Jorge Santiago is recording secretary of that organization. He has expressed interest in the Hutchinson River.
Boat excursion from City Island. This was run by the Interstate Environmental Commission and visited sites on the north shore of Long Island out to Oyster Bay, the Connecticut shore, and New York Bay. Violet, Inge and Lorraine went on the trip.
Projects
Funding proposal to SoundWatch. Sue Bellinson of that organization suggested that we could request funding from them and Eleanor Rae, with help from other members, submitted one asking for $9080. During the meeting, Toby Liederman called Sue Bellinson and found that we are in fact to be awarded $3000, which is as much as we might realistically hope to get. We must set up a proper account to receive this money as a 501(c)(3) (nonprofit) organization. It was suggested that this be done initially though CWED, which is already so recognized. We will decide how to spend it in subsequent meetings but setting up a website and making a professional-looking brochure are certainly among the highest priorities.
Other Agenda Items
State Senator Jeff Klein has expressed a wish to come to one of our meetings. It was agreed we should prepare for such a meeting with specific questions for him.
Date and Time Next Meeting
September 4 at 7 PM.
Respectfully submitted,
Jack Ullman
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MEETING JULY 1,2008
The July meeting was devoted to developing the funding proposal for SoundWatch.
Respect fully submitted,
Jack Ullma
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MEETING JUNE 17,2008
Present: Eleanor Rae, Violet Smith, Toby Liederman, Lorraine Nicoletti, Jack Ullman
City Island Fair, June 7-8 We had a table there both days and drew a lot of interest, got quite a few names and, surprisingly, money contributions of $58.40. We approved the use of $40 of that for paper and other expenses incurred by Eleanor. But this brought up the whole question of whether people could take such contributions off their income tax and whether we could get recognized as a nonprofit (501c3) organization by the Internal Revenue people. Eleanor hdone this for her CWED organization and knows it is not easy, but thinks we can more easily get this status for our organization as a part of CWED. She will look into this. However, she warned that since the D in CWED is for Devine, some people have given her trouble over this under the assumption that it is a religious organization. It was also noted that there will be another such fair in September.
Alliances: Bronx River Cleanup Recognition Day, is to be held on June 22: Lorraine and Violet expect to go.
Projects: River surveying. Violet, Eleanor and Jack will do a survey on foot of the businesses fronting on the river on the list provided by Kate Shackford.
Funding: Susan Bellinson of Soundwatch has offered us the possibility of funding from their group if we send them a proposal. She has sent us guidelines for what to write. Eleanor Rae and Jack Ullman volunteered to cooperate in writing a proposal. It should be finished in about two weeks. Lorraine will research other mission statements that might be helpful in writing it.
It was noted that State Senator Jeff Klein and State Assemblyman Michael Benedetto also have expressed interest to some of us. It was suggested by Toby that we should contact them.
The next meeting is to be held at Eleanor Rae’s on Carroll St. at 7 PM on July 1,2008.
2/10/2010