Minutes from September 3, 2014
The Board Meeting for the Trustees of Brown Memorial Library was called to order at 6:02 p.m.
Attendance: Patty Furness, Bea Howe, Garry Kalajian, Mary-Chris Duncan, Nola Jordan, Robert Toppi, Meg Fearnley
1. Bob was seated as a voting member.
2. The Trustees voted to strike the last sentence of item 7 of the August minutes and replace it with the following: “While cognizant that it is not within the Trustees’ purview to act as censors, a motion was made, seconded, and voted on to ask Tom Dunn to tone down the lyrics of the song they found offensive. The motion passed with one opposed. Garry Kalajian voted against the motion because he felt the words ‘tone down’ were not strong enough to address the offensiveness of the lyrics.” The Secretary’s report was then accepted as amended. As an aside, Meg mentioned that in the future Laurie has decided to only get involved with children’s plays that she herself is producing.
3. A motion was made and passed to accept donations to Brown Memorial Library in August in the amount of $448.62. $122.00 of that amount came from our on-going book sale, $10.00 from book bags, $26.62 from lost books, $200.00 from the Masons, $40.00 from donations in lieu of dinner, and $50.00 was generously donated back to us by the Bradford Bog People. We have received all of our appropriation for the year. The line item for Maintenance includes more or less regular things such as lawn mowing and snow removal as well as various yearly inspections that make that particular month’s expenditure seem higher than normal. The treasurer’s report was accepted as presented.
4. Meg reported that circulation figures for August were not bad, but that they continue the decline that has been the pattern for the last few years.
5. Under Old Business, the Trustees discussed the proposed employee evaluation form distributed at the last meeting. A few items were eliminated but as Meg felt the remaining ones were appropriate for library staff, a motion was made and passed to adapt this form to our purposes. It will be distributed to all employees by October 1 and initial evaluations will begin three months later. Since this process is new to us, the form may need to be changed as we see how it works. Meg will evaluate the rest of the staff and the Trustees will evaluate Meg’s performance.
6. Under New Business, the Trustees discussed the disappointing turnout at the fund-raising dinner the Masons so generously sponsored for us. In her thank you letter to the Lodge, Meg will suggest that they might want to do some brain-storming with us about how to increase attendance in the future.
7. Bea reported that attendance at the Labor Day weekend book sale was very low, as were proceeds. The May and July sales do very well, but historically the others (mud season, Labor Day, and Columbus Day) have not been particularly profitable. Of course, it is still money we didn’t have before. We decided not to do one in October. In January Bea will report on how the total book sales this year (the three sales plus the on-going sale) stack up against our previous pattern of five sales a year.
8. Bea has discovered that the post office has been removing our flyers for fundraising events because they say the regulations state that their bulletin board can only be used for town business. That may be part of the reason the dinner and book sale were more poorly attended than in the past as the post office is one of the few places almost everyone visits. The Trustees agreed that library business is town business and asked Bea to pursue the matter further.
9. Bea also mentioned that she hopes to have a draft budget ready for discussion at the October meeting.
The next meeting will be held on Wednesday, October 1, 2014 at 6:00 p.m.
There being no further business, the meeting was adjourned at 7:15 p.m.
Respectfully submitted,
Nola Jordan, Secretary