Agendas
Aug. 25, 2010

Draft Minutes
Regular Meeting April 7, 2010
Regular Meeting Feb. 24, 2010

Minutes Archive

Meeting Schedule

return to top

Agenda

return to top

Draft Minutes
Community Services Advisory Commission
April 7, 2010
7:00 PM

Present:  Janet Hoskin, Director, Pat Fowler, Community Services Staff Member, Kate Mitchell, Chair and members Carolyn Flaherty, Susan Haversat, Jean Ginn Marvin, Courtney Thoreck and Stephanie Carver  Absent:  Fred Sturtevant.

1. Acceptance of Minutes from February 27:  Janet Hoskin is sending Kate Mitchell an amendment to these minutes to reflect a clarification in Janet's update to the commission about the Masters Swim Program and giving them a membership discount during their season so they could make their time in the pool more affordable.  Minutes also reflect that a new secretary will be needed for each meeting since a community services staff person won't be taking the minutes. A motion was made to accept these amended minutes by Coutney Thoreck and seconded by Carolyn Flaherty, and approved by all members to accept the minutes with Janet's clarifications.

1. Directors Report – everyone agreed that Janet’s report which was emailed out a few days before the meeting was very helpful.

1. Summer 
1. Brochure – Janet thought she ordered the “matte front” cover – but the printer didn’t order that style – he went with what he had before but charged CS for the “matte” cover.  Janet will start to put out to bid the printing job for future brochures. The summer '09 cost of the brochure was approximately $5,909 with color on the inside and for summer '10, the cost was a little over $4,000 (with no color inside).
2. Registration – Summer registration will be held May 3 from 5:30 – 8:15.  Volunteers need to be there at 5:00 – as the summer registration is a bit different than during the year. 
3. There are no new details for the TnT trip – Janet will send those out soon for the Advisory Commission to review and get back to her separately.

1. Budget Status: - the budget will be voted on by the school board on Tuesday, April 13.  Janet will not be able to attend the meeting, as she will be on vacation.  The budget being voted on is the “median” budget.  From the CS budget, $8,169.00 is being given to MS Athletics to offset the fee for participants and $3,000 is going towards the salary for the MSAD.  In total, $11,000 has been removed from the CS budget.
1. Pool budget – The SB had no questions about the pool budget numbers.  They had other questions – they want CS to do a “pool study” to do research and survey pool membership options; hrs vs. fees; should they be higher for more prime time hours?  Who sees public suggestions? There is a suggestion box in the pool area – Janet has them - some are thank you notes and there was one from a student asking about student fees.  The Town Council will vote on this the 2nd week of May.

1. Middle School Athletics:  Kate Mitchell started a discussion about what exactly does “pay to play” mean? She read and brought copies of an article dated March 24 from The Current about MS Athletics. 
1. Scholarships:  Kate asked about scholarships for kids in Cape – how does CS handle it?  Janet explained that the family in need has to bring tax forms and fill out a scholarship application to CS.  These guidelines are the same for the free/reduced lunch program in the schools.  Scholarships have increased over the past year and continue to increase.  There are 25-30 scholarships right now for MS sports.  CS has access to the Thomas Jordan Trust Fund – they use these monies to offset scholarship amounts for all CS programs.  This doesn’t cover all the costs.
2. MS athletic fees:  Janet explained exactly what MS fees pay for.   The 1st year CS managed MS sports the fees were higher because there wasn’t any historical data on the number of participants that were expected.   Fees then were $75 for a team sport and $50 for an individual sport.  Nordic has to (and continues) to pay more because they have more expenses (rentals, misc equipment).  CS did an analysis to make sure families weren’t paying too much.  Recently the uniform fee was added as a way to make sure CS was getting the uniforms back.  It’s a refundable fee – once your turn your uniform in, you get your money back.  Currently the fee is $40 admin fee per year and $50.00 per sport – this is based on 285 players.  The coach’s stipend is paid by the school; otherwise the cost would be more. 
3. Sports Done Right – MS Sports would be cut if we didn’t have pay to play.

6.  Extended School Care: 

1. Fees will be increased by 1%.  A 1-day a week option has been added to their program.  Not all details on rules/policies have been made yet for this option.  2009 was the worse year for student numbers, however kindergarten numbers were also low in Pond Cove.  2010 numbers look like they’ll be similar to 2009.

7. Committee Reports:

1. Website:  Kate Mitchell, Janet Hoskin and Susan Haversat met with Wendy D to discuss options for updating website.  Janet presented a template of her thoughts.  Some suggestions were made – adding a “hot dates” button to reflect current offerings with openings, add a “donation/contribution” button on every page, having a community calendar to reflect happenings within the town.  Gary Lanoie will be trying to get a HS intern to enter the content.
2. Coaching Evaluation:  Carolyn Flaherty developed a template in Survey Monkey.     All members have access to this survey and will provide Carolyn with feedback by the next meeting.
3. Social Networking plans:  Everyone agreed that a Facebook Page would be helpful.  The concern is who will handle the updates?
4. Farmhouse rental:  Jean Ginn Marvin said that the MORC committee will soon be taking this over as their project.  CS shouldn’t worry about it any longer.

1. Other:
1. CS will hopefully be receiving a new server soon.  A new server would allow the pool and fitness center to be able to share information and files with CS.
2. On-line registration – The contract is with the Town Manager and Business Manager, the contract will be for 3 years.
3. The Facility Application will be online soon – it’s in the hands of the Superintendent and Business Manager.
4. Janet handed out an updated job description for the CS Director for Advisory Commission to review and offer suggestions for change to Janet prior to next meeting.
5. Janet and Kate discussed a fundraising idea – daily planners with dates already pre-populated, based on the academic calendar. Some thought that with the event of smart phones, these calendars may not be needed or used.

The meeting was adjourned at 8:55 PM.

Submitted by Secretary ProTem
Susan Haversat

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

return to top