Minutes of the July 13, 2009 Staying Put Board Meeting
A meeting of the Staying Put Board took place on Monday, July 13, 2009 at 4:30PM at the New Canaan Library.
Tom Ferguson brought the meeting to order and reported that Bob Lear had passed away. He will truly be missed at SP Board meetings - he set a terrific example to all with his leadership and his volunteerism. His memorial service will be at St. Marks on Friday, July 17th.
Jane Nyce reported that the current renewal rate for membership is 84%, and that the best way to increase membership is to hold small group gatherings in members' homes, where Jane and other Board members will speak with prospective members. Board members are encouraged to email Ellie O'Neill to get some of these gatherings set up for September before the sunbirds fly off to Florida and points south. Tanis Erdmann will set up one such gathering at her house in early September or in October for the sunbirds. The list of guests should include some members and some prospects. Jane will email the list of non-renewals to the Board in case we can help speed their renewals with personal calls. The Board would like to involve the local clergy more in encouraging needy prospects from their congregations to join SP.
Tom Ferguson reiterated the importance of increasing the membership. SP will have at least one "bring a friend" event every month, and it will be advertised as such. We need to help prospects recognize SP as a civic organization, and one that needs members and community support.
Up until June SP averaged about 60 requests a month for services. These increased to 91 calls in June. Jane pointed out that services are different from events and therefore are counted separately.
Programs have been attended more lightly this summer, with the exception of the dinner at Rocco's. Please note the upcoming events in Jane's report and on the website. SP gets some tickets at big discounts, e.g., $15 instead of $45. An informal lunch bunch has started to meet at Mead Park on Fridays at 1pm, weather permitting.
Thanks to Tanis and to Gloria Major-Brown for recent articles in the local newspapers; other possible topics for publicity are the percent of members who make requests for services (it is close to 50%!), and also those unusual calls for help, e.g., to hang a picture. Tanis and Gloria are always looking for good quotes and testimonials for the website as well as for the newsletter. Of course a picture is worth a thousand words, so SP will try to have Al Knaus take pictures at every event and/or picture hanging.
Anne Cohen and Pat Stoddard handed out a list of over 900 names of prospective members and prospective donors. For fundraising purposes, each Board member is to red-dot the names of people to whom we will write personal notes for the annual appeal which will be mailed the first week in October.
Volunteer leadership has increased from Jim Hollyday who is chieftain of driving volunteers, and Molly De Patie who is the Administrative Point Person, and Louise Goodridge, who double checks on everyone who has signed up for an event. Our new Volunteer leader is Alice Liu, who will be the leader in the new "Buddy" program, which will replace the "Friendly Calls" program. Many kudos to Judy Schurman who set up the original Friendly Calls - it was an enormous enterprise. The Buddy system is meant to create a sense of community within SP membership by having each member have a buddy to call and a buddy who will call him/her back. The call can be to encourage attendance at an event or simply to say, "Hi, how was your day?" and, "Now it's your turn to call me next week!" Lyn is working to get people to take the lead in making the first calls, and Alice will follow up on a regular basis to encourage members to keep making their Buddy calls.
Events for September include a panel on aging and on housing costs with Steve Monroe.
Respectfully submitted,
Lyn Chivvis, Secretary to the Board.
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