Monthly Meeting Notes - July 20, 2021
Apple Grove Beekeepers Association
Meeting Minutes
7-20-2021
Slade called the meeting to order at 7:05 p.m. (9 members were present)
Slade commented that he received an email from Farm Bureau that our Club Insurance is due.
John Beers collected membership dues from several members tonight.
Slade received an email from the representative on the solar farm. He said she has agreed to get the equipment we need and they are happy to have local schools involved. She said “no” to a shed, however she may be referring to a permanent structure. Slade will inquire about this more. There will be electric fencing, a pollinator meadow and approximately 2 acres designated for us. John mentioned that we will need to have access to electricity. Slade thought it would be a good idea to have several members available for a telephone conference with her. John said he felt this would be a good idea because he feels non-beekeepers see things in their vision without an idea as to what is really involved. Slade and Doug talked about contacting Ben at the High School and Logan who was a previous member of the club at one time to engage them in this opportunity.
John Beers presented the Treasurer’s Report:
He said it is identical to last month’s report. Therefore as of 6/30/2021 –
Checkbook Balance - $2,259.67
Cash - $362.01
There are 11 copies of the Beekeeping Basics and 18 copies of the Field Guide to Honey Bees.
John sent out a reminder notice about tonight’s meeting which also addressed collecting dues, setting a date to elect officers and/or dissolving the club and how to go about it. Linda said that the email was confusing because just last month we were not collecting dues to grow the club. Now we are collecting dues and then also talking about dissolving the club at the same time. She mentioned that the officers should have meetings to be on the same page to understand what is going on or what needs to be done. She said we need to put our heads together to brainstorm on what we can do to help the club. This led to much discussion which included forming a committee to elect officers. Linda commented that this nominating committee will consist of the members in this room only to elect members that are in this room. Linda asked, is there anyone here that would like to be an officer? No one spoke up.
Matt Lewis commented that he felt we have shrunk in membership to the point where we can’t get anything done.
Doug Anderson said that we are not the only club having lack of participation and he felt it is all COVID related. He said many clubs have not started meetings back yet and then the clubs that are meeting, may have only 5 members present at a time. Linda asked if those clubs are trying to form officers, collecting dues, and having formal meetings. Doug said that it is mainly meetings that are open for discussion, question and answers and are more informal. He suggested that we could go to an every other month meeting to see how that goes. He also commented that if we were just going to have discussions and not arranging speakers to come in, we could get by with just a Treasurer and a Secretary. He asked Linda if she would continue as Secretary and she said yes. John said that he wants a nice transition out of the Treasurer position. Jeff Mauer said he would be willing to take on the duties of the Treasurer for the financial side of things, but did not want to be involved in answering emails and posting on facebook. He considered those as duties of the secretary or of a communications team/department. Doug said that if we were interested in just having open discussion meetings, he would be available to come to the meetings and Dennis said he could come but “late” to the meetings. Doug said that he knows a lot of people that can come “speak” to our club if we are interested in speakers and he knows a man who could give us a “list” of people we could contact to use as speakers.
Jason asked what the officer positions were and the descriptions of the duties. John said that they are outlined in our Constitution, but that the positions are President, Vice President, Treasurer and Secretary. A brief description of the duties were given.
Dennis said that he started this club July 2016 and he wanted to share some input. He said that there is a big desire out there to learn about bees and to be a part of the club. Dennis is at the Mineral Market 3 Saturdays out of a month. He said club members are welcome to come out and join him at his booth to promote the club.
He suggested that we pass out flyers and business cards and work on our foundation to build back up. He suggested that we get out there and talk to people. Engage in conversations and do it for free! Find people! Recruit people! Otherwise, our club would continue to consist of the number of people within the room.
As far as bringing speakers in, Dennis said there is plenty of talent in the room. Dennis said that he had no desire to be President or Vice President and that he was very busy with his business and bees, but he was happy to help out. Every Tuesday Dennis is at the Montpelier Market which will put him at the meetings late.
Doug mentioned that he has been holding bee classes and that he has been getting great participation. He said these are one day, all day classes and they consist of anywhere from 15 to 18 people. He is getting ready to have a class on “Getting Bees through the Winter”. He has been charging for the class and he thinks the one day classes are more attractive to people right now than the commitment of 4 classes, once per week.
After quite a bit of discussion about the future of our club and what we wanted to do, Slade commented that we push hard and push heavy and make a decision in September. Slade also mentioned that the Louisa County Ag Fair was coming up and that is an event we have always participated in as a club and the Sunflower Festival is the same weekend. Slade is unsure whether vendors are allowed at the Sunflower Festival or not.
At 8:15 p.m. the floor was opened up for discussion about bees. The meeting was adjourned at 9:00 p.m.
Minutes submitted by,
Linda Carpenter
Secretary
