Pittsfield Beautification Committee
Minutes
March 7, 2011

Members Present: Ida, Nicole, Judith, Theresa, Carole

Members Absent: Tina, Nancy, Paula

Theresa opened the meeting at 1:15 p.m. and announced that she wanted to step down as co-chair of the committee, and noted that she had approached Carole to take over as co-chair, and Carole agreed. (Carole continued with the meeting agenda at this point.)

Treasurer’s Report: Tina was absent due to illness but she sent along the balance in the Beautification Committee’s account, which was $1,224.97.

Old Business: Nicole reported that Dan Schroth had started work on the Crescent Street lot but ran out of time. She expects him to resume work in the spring.

Discussion ensued on the condition of the landscape ties at the Aranosian lot and Nicole noted that she may be able to barter with Barton Lumber to have them donate landscape ties for that lot since we do not need them for the Rite Aid lot. Nicole will talk with Barton Lumber.

Nicole will approach Joey Darrah to see if he will help with the Tilton Hill lot since they also ran out of time in the fall. She also mentioned that there are students at the high school looking for community service hours and she feels she can get plenty of time from them to dig out the grass and level the lot like she did at Crescent Street.

The Washington House lot was discussed and it was decided once we see what is on the lot further discussions can take place at our next meeting to see what we are going to place there.

Nicole questioned whether we had received $100 from Exit and after checking with Tina the answer was “yes”. The only company we have not received funds from is Barton Lumber.

All of the lots are sponsored by businesses in the community and Judith said if we need an additional sponsor in the future she would like to be on the list.

The sponsors for the lots are as follows:

Rite Aid Lot-Barton Lumber
Crescent Street Lot-Globe
Washington House Lot-Men of Rotary
Aranosian Lot-Exit Realty
Tilton Hill Lot-Women of Rotary

Nicole will contact Chris Ward for the Men of Rotary and Florence Freese for the Women of Rotary. She already has sign approval from the other three businesses.

New Business: Nicole distributed copies of a Garden Sponsorship Agreement and requested feedback from the members. Changes were made and everyone agreed, whereupon Nicole made the changes and gave members copies of the revised agreement. (Thank you Nicole.)

These agreements will be printed and renewed annually for each business sponsoring a lot.

Nicole will now approach the businesses that have not approved their signs and move forward in getting the signs printed.

Nicole has been looking at the Van Berkum website and printing out drought and salt resistant plants that would good for any of our lots and shared them with the committee. This way it would be much less watering. She is also keeping her options open for the Sunflower Gardens in Alton when they have their plant sale in June. Joey Darrah will allow us to use his discounts at Van Berkum and Millikens.

(Judith left the meeting at this time.)

The Aranosian lot was discussed and Nicole asked if we could put a rock wall around the garden. That would have to be discussed with the owners since they only gave us permission for temporary structures. Carole will contact the owners to thank them for allowing us to beautify their lot and ask permission to place a rock wall or other structure around the garden area.

Carole will e-mail Judith to see if she will continue with our committee. She has been an extremely valuable member.

A work date was discussed but all agreed that it is too early to set a date since we do not know how much more snow and rain we will be getting.

Date of Next Meeting and Adjournment: The next meeting is scheduled for Thursday, April 7th at 6:30 p.m. at Theresa’s home. (Thank you Theresa for always hosting us.) Whereupon the meeting adjourned at 3:20 p.m.

Respectfully submitted,

Carole Richardson, Co-Chair