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Draft Minutes
Regular Meeting Feb. 24, 2010

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DRAFT MINUTES
Cape Elizabeth Community Services Advisory Commission

Wednesday, February 24, 2010
Community Center
7 p.m.

The Meeting was called to order at 7 p.m. by Chair Kate Mitchell. In attendance were Committee Members Kate Mitchell, Courtney Thoreck, Fred Sturtevant, Jean Ginn Marvin, and Susan Haversat.  Staff members in attendance were Janet Hoskins and Betty Rocker. Absent were Commission members Stephanie Carver and Carolyn Flaherty.

Chair Mitchell made a few corrections to the Minutes of the January 27, 2010, meeting of the Commission. Courtney Thoreck made a motion to accept the minutes as corrected and Susan Haversat seconded the motion. The minutes were accepted unanimously as amended.

Chair Mitchell suggested that for consistency's sake, since all the Cape Elizabeth Community Advisory Boards and Commissions take their own minutes, that the Community Services Advisory Commission do the same.  After a bit of discussion, a motion was made by Susan that CECS select its own secretary to take the commission minutes. The secretary will be elected along with the new chair in the December 2010 meeting and thereafter. Until then, the motion continued, a commission member will volunteer on a rotating basis at each meeting to take the minutes. Courtney seconded the motion.  The motion passed unanimously. Jean Ginn Marvin volunteered to be the Secretary Pro Tem for this meeting. 

Chair Mitchell suggested Janet send a Director's Report to the Commission members prior to the meeting about what has happened in general in the Community Services office in an attempt to streamline our meetings.  Janet said she would be happy to try it for the next meeting. Susan made a motion that we have Janet put together a bullet-point's style Director's Report and distribute it to Commission members prior to our meetings.  Courtney seconded the motion and the motion carried unanimously.

Fred made a motion that the Chair, having developed the agenda in conjunction with the Director, be the one to distribute the agenda of our meetings. Courtney seconded the motion and the motion carried unanimously.

Janet distributed the ActiveNet pricing proposal. ActiveNet could be potentially used to facilitate the processes of transportation, pool and fitness, billing for school and care, registrations, facility and field scheduling, and rentals, among other things.  A discussion ensued and the Commission members were enthusiastic about obtaining this service.  According to Janet, training for use of the proposed software should take place over the summer, with an 8-10 week turnaround time if all goes as planned.  The Commission approved unanimously of moving forward on this initiative.

Janet then distributed a proposal of changes for summer camps.  She suggested eliminating the Middle School Day Camp and introduced the Teens Trips and Treks (TNT – "Have a  Blast") on Tuesdays and Wednesdays with a Teen Center on Thursdays.  If it rains on Tuesday or Wednesday the trip will happen on Thursday. Janet explained the Middle School Day Camp has not been well subscribed in the past few years. She believes that going off campus is much more interesting to teens than just staying at school. Camp trips will be staffed by popular middle school teachers who are also licensed school bus drivers.  At 2:30 -3:30 there will be open swim available if the student decides to stay an additional hour.  Trips will include such options such as a Bradbury Mountain Hike, an Aquaboggin day trip, and a Sea Dogs game.  The pricing is a cafeteria plan that allows people to pay on a per-day basis.  Students will be able to attend only on the days they wish to attend.  Some slots will be offered to Scarborough residents as well for Adventure Trips Whitewater Rafting and Matchless Marvels, with a priority given to CE residents.  Another proposed change is that there could be trips in August as school facilities would not be used.

Day Camp for grades 1-6 will be moved back to the high school for this summer.

Kiddie Camp will be for students who are enrolled in Kindergarten in the fall. The hours will be from 9-1.  Extended hours will be available from 7:15am on.  Busing home will be available.
Duckling and Dolphin swim classes will also be available for an additional fee.

This information will be marketed in Parent Newsletters, The Cape Courier, and the Community Services Brochure.  In addition this information will be sent to Trish Wasserman for inclusion in the Cape Middle School Newsletter. Parents will also be encouraged to join our newsletter e-mail list so they can be informed of last minute openings.

The Commission members were very enthusiastic about the new plans! They also volunteered to interview students for summer jobs as we did last year. Kate asked Janet what she needed from the Commission at this point, and Janet said all seemed to be going well in the staff plans.

Janet informed us that Community Services is allowed to accept donations and has in fact received a few donations but no advertising has taken place making the community-at-large aware of this possibility. Fred asked how these donations were financially kept by CECS. Were they in a separate account? Were they in an endowment? A suggestion was made to include a line on the Spring registration forms that informed and  invited people who wish to donate funds to Community Services that they may do so (and how).  Perhaps label it a "Pay It Forward" box to check off. 

Currently, the Matchless Marvels Adventure will be priced at $1275, a $325 increase from last year. The head of this program, Chuck Donnelly, has already sent out a letter with a SanDisk to selected community members this past week.  He would like to send out a similar letter asking for donations from a variety of locations and colleagues to help offset the costs of the Matchless Marvels trip this summer.  Commission members were asked to review the letter Chuck provided and e-mail Janet directly with any concerns. One current concern expressed was that we must be careful as a Commission that we are not asking for money all the time.  A consensus on this idea was voiced.

Janet said that the recommendation is that Extended Child Care for next year will have pricing stay the same as this year. Children will be allowed to come one day a week, a departure from previous procedures. There also is consideration being given to drop-in care, where participants register first, then reserve a day. Priority will be given to regular participants first.

The pool budget was distributed. (It is posted on the town website.)

The Community Services Budget was then distributed.  (It will be posted on the school website after March 9.) The consensus was that Janet has created a budget that is reflective of the wishes of the Commission.

Janet then presented pricing on the brochure in process.  The Commission reaffirmed its support of the changes to the Summer Brochure.  Janet said she will e-mail a draft of her Director's Letter, which will appear on the inside front cover, so that the Commission can read it before it is goes to publication.

Kate reported that she contacted Wendy Derzawiec  to discuss adding colors, branding ideas, and pictures to enliven our website.  She is waiting to hear back from Wendy. Susan Haversat asked to be on this working group. 

The volunteer coaching group has not met yet and will report at the next meeting. The lacrosse group would be the next coaches to be evaluated so the project still has a few months before it needs to be completed.

The Farmhouse rental properties are still being investigated by the work group, with a plan to report at the next meeting.

The Social Networking group may have to put their facebook plans on hold, according to Janet, who suggested that such an activity might go against the municipal communication rules.  The Commission decided to have this work group find out exactly what the rules were and whether we could pursue the social networking ideas any further. 

Under Other Business, the Lighthouse Masters Program will have the same fee, 10 weeks at $250, but may have more access to the pool for practice.

A question came from the Commission as to why people weren't notified when their memberships expired (Fitness and Pool).  They should be and the new software should make that task easier for the staff. 

Our next meeting will be April 7, 2010, at 7 p.m.

There being no further business to come before the commission, the meeting was adjourned at 9:20pm.

Respectfully Submitted,
Jean Ginn Marvin
Secretary Pro-Tem

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