Present: Mary Farwell, Chair; Mary Leger, Secretary; Barbara Davis, Treasurer; Mac Broderick; Tammy Hooker; Heather Shumway, Director.
Secretary's Report: Approved and filed.
Treasurer's Report: Approved and filed.
Director's Report: Attached.
Unfinished Business:
New Business:
Topic: Easement Issues
Mike made an observation that the handicap entrance needs attention. Debris in the walkway, stones are scattered, probably as a result of rain. HS offered to have Dale come over for a look, and clean it up. Mike suggested calling Jodie at Dale's office.
It was suggested that Jeff take a picture of the front lawn in it's current state just to have on record.
Corrective Deed (front lawn easement) is on file at the Merrimack County Registry of Deeds.
Mike offered his advice to tell Bart Mayer (our attorney) what we want. Then Bart will talk to Brady Sullivan's attorney. Mike suggests working on easement issues. MF will contact Bart and meet w/Michelle Bonsteel, Code Enforcement Officer, about a TRC with respect to Peter Holden's application. Mike advised hiring Amy Alexander who is an engineer with Dufresne-Henry for her expert opinion on the matter including the current access road which is under District 5 of the State DOT. We should ask Amy about standards for access from an engineering standpoint. She can research the issues TH will contact District 5 about the plans for the intersection. .
Mike suggests inviting Harold Murray, Michael Williams and Steve Agrafiotis to a meeting. He also thinks it would be a good idea to contact the NH Housing Authority (Richard Weaver 310-9212 and Brenda Mahoney 310-9252) to find out about standards of affordable housing. Eventually, someone should ask Brady Sullivan what their plans are regarding what percentage of the new units would fall under this category.
We will need to find the answer to the following questions:
Mike suggests:
Next Meeting: Tuesday August 29th 5:15PM
Building Maintenance:
I am working with ProControls to draft an HVAC maintenance agreement for us for our current rooftop unit.
At the most recent scheduled appointment for contractors to conduct a walk-through with our engineer, John Karpinski, we had no companies present. John will be following up with the companies who previously contacted him for information on the project.
Blasting continues to shake the building on a daily basis, but as of this time, we have not detected any damage to the building. The staff nerves maybe another question, but so far we are okay.
We had a very temporary political sign on our front lawn, which was not authorized to be there. I noticed the sign on my way out at 5:00pm on Saturday night, August 5th and by the time I came in at 9:00 am the following morning, it had been removed. I was fully prepared to not only have it removed but to contact the campaign office to state that the library property was not an appropriate place for their signage. The removal took the wind out of those sails a bit.
Children's Department:
Summer Reading Program has been a terrific success this summer. Vickie is planning an evening game at a NH Fisher Cats baseball game with participants. The Fisher Cats have supplied free tickets to each participant who has read ten hours or more this summer.
Communications/Marketing:
Mark is working on a revised version of our newsletter to be reproduced on our copiers in black and white rather than color until such time as we can find an alternative finance source to fund the printing costs.
As we head into fall, we will be working to spruce up our submissions to the Hooksett Banner as well as our email list again. They have become a little sparse as the summer has progressed.
Correspondence:
I received an email correspondence from a concerned member of our community regarding the front lawn and Brady Sullivan. In our correspondence, we received two very nice compliments. Jodi delSordo noted, "Your work and caring at the library is well-noted and greatly appreciated.", and "Our library is a pleasant and welcoming space and the town is indeed fortunate to have it."
Donations:
We have had two $20 cash donations from patrons this month. Thank you notes have been sent to both individuals.
Over the last few months, we have been collecting newer titles which we feel would be of value to Auburn's Griffin Free Library. My feeling was that they were worth more on a neighbor library's shelves than receiving a one or two dollar donation for them in our book sale. After we sent our latest box of books to the Auburn Library, the Friends of Auburn Library sent us a check for $60 as a thank you.
Finances:
I have been working with QuickBooks to track our budget directly in QuickBooks, rather than exporting to an Excel file for tracking. At this time, I have not been able to make it work, but Barbara and I will continue to work with the program. I have been successful in tracking our credit card directly in QuickBooks. This will save a large amount of time in comparison to the spreadsheet I have created in the past where budget lines were determined for entering into QuickBooks. This process will be cleaner and more efficient.
Friends of the Library:
The Books for Babies project is just minutes away from implementation. We are working on the final details of our publication materials and postcards to be mailed to new families. We have found a snag in collecting addresses, but I will pursue this and hopefully find a solution. The Friends have offered to pay for the postage on the postcards. I will have a financial report on our Target grant spending for our September meeting.
The Friends will be hosting a table at the Hooksett Old Home Day.
Month Ahead: Goals/Projects
Our NH Downloadable Audiobook project is progressing, and is planned to be ready as of September 1st. The GMILCS PR committee will be working to create publicity materials for each library to use to promote the service. We have purchased two MP3 players for staff to use to get used to the operation, these will in turn be circulated to patrons to practice. It is the intent that the players will be used to introduce patrons to the service and they will in turn purchase their own. LeeAnn and I will be working on circulation details, such as deposits for borrowing, as the time gets closer.
Personnel:
The vacation accrual was determined as of June 30, 2006 and provided to the Personnel Chair and the Treasurer for their records. The total hours accrued for vacation were 340.95. The individual hours were tallied for each employee and multiplied by their hourly rate to determine the total amount to be transferred to the vacation accrual account. In turn, the sick time total is determined by the average cost of the full-time employee's hourly rate by the total amount of hours accrued by an employee each year. The amount for the vacation accrual is $5220.56, while the amount for the sick accrual is $1507.20. These amounts were transferred to the Vacation/Sick accrual account to be held until the end of next fiscal year's review.
Staff News:
Vacations are in full swing this summer. Vickie and Sue are both enjoying family vacations this week. Cindy just returned from Maine with her husband. Jeff has spent two very enjoyable if grueling weeks at Boy Scout camps this summer. Mark has set his schedule to take the Mondays following his Saturday hours as vacation days, having a few 3-day weekends to enjoy. LeeAnn and I are holding down the fort.
Upcoming conference opportunities include the READS annual fall program, Using and Marketing NHewLink Databases. The schedule includes NHewLink Databases: What You Should Know & Marketing NHewLink Inhouse and Out, among other panel discussions and the READS business meeting.
This week I will be attending a retreat for New Hampshire Library Association to review our goals and budget plans for our upcoming fiscal year. I have discovered a great opportunity as GMILCS secretary; I feel far more aware of the full scope of GMILCS as a participant of the executive board as well as having a stronger voice on the board.
Upcoming Events:
Monday, August 21st, at 7pm, we will be hosting what looks to be a fantastic program with a woman from Afghanistan to share what life is like there, currently and in the past. She is a member of a work collective and will bring samples of the work that is done in her coop to share. I hope that everyone will be in attendance.
The library's book sale will be held on Saturday, October 14th. There is a possibility that the Garden Club may host a plant sale here on the same day. We will be spending Thursday and Friday to set up the books prior to the sale. The Friends will be hosting a book sale preview event the Friday afternoon before, details are still to be determined. All volunteers are welcome, we are hoping to arrange the books a bit more this year in an effort to increase our sales.
Our annual holiday children's party will be Saturday, December 9th. We have booked Santa and his reindeer to make an appearance as well. More details to follow later in the year.