January 19th Minutes

January 19th Minutes

Hopkins District Library Board Meeting

January 19, 2016

Call to Order – Chris Navis at 7:00 pm.

Roll Call Present: Tom Bailey, Natalie Bazan, Mimi Gabriel, Chris Navis, Traci Rhoades, Barb Wrobleski

Absent: Karon Dunifin, Lynn Francis

Approval of Agenda –Mimi made a motion, seconded by Barb.

Approval of Minutes –Tom moved to approve the minutes, Chris seconded.

Treasurers Report & December Amendments – Motion by Tom to approve the treasurer’s report and seconded by Mimi.

Correspondence – There were several. The library had gifted the local parochial schools with books and we’d received thank you letters for these. St. Stan’s even had a whole class prepare thank you’s.

Public Comment – none

Director’s Report as follows:

Programs: Ongoing

Publicity: Up to 593 likes on Facebook, planning additional advertising on Facebook, Allegan County Community Foundation quarterly news is out, advertisement is still up at the Regent Theater, work has begun on the April/May newsletter.

Meetings, workshops, etc: Natalie has just gotten back from the Emerging Leaders/mid-winter ALA conference in Boston. She also visited the Library of Congress while there. She has received a grant from PLA to reimburse her for an upcoming conference. We all agreed she should attend the PLA Conference coming up in Denver this April. In May, Natalie will attend the Rural Library Conference on Mackinac Island where she will be a presenter. She also has plans to attend the annual ALA conference in June.

Building Issues: Waiting for doors to go on sale again as a couple do need to be replaced.

Budget Issues: none; 2015 final budget amendments were reviewed.

Library Closings: We all agreed with the decision to have the library close based on Hopkins school closings during the winter months due to inclement weather.

Volunteers: Donated books still coming in; program ideas

Lakeland, State other library news - none

Patron comments and suggestions: Donations for the library and for the library cat, continued book suggestions, dvd suggestions and programming suggestions.

New Business – A community-wide mass mailing is scheduled to go out in April. A strategic planning committee was appointed. It includes Mimi, Barb, Tom and Natalie. They’ve scheduled their first meeting for Thursday, January 28th at Noon. The committee discussed our various options for giving Natalie a raise. It was a unanimous decision to increase her hourly wage and also cover the remainder of her health insurance cost, with Dorr Library covering a percentage of it.

Public Comment – none

Adjournment – Traci made a motion to adjourn at 7:50 p.m. and Chris seconded.

Next meeting will be Tuesday, February 2, 2016 at 7:00 p.m.