September 2009 Minutes

The meeting convened at 7:00 p.m. on Tuesday, Sept. 1.

Present were Christie Byun, Zach Cain, Doug Calisch, Wendy Feller, Marc Hudson, Jim Suren, Elizabeth Swift, and Paul Vasquez. The minutes were approved as amended.

Upcoming events: The upcoming Ristine Memorial service at Wabash’s Pioneer Chapel at 11 a.m. on September 12th was noted which many hope to attend. We had originally planned to have a clean-up on the 24th of October, but since another is being organized by Shannon Hudson for Saturday, the 26th of September, we decided, after some discussion, to be involved in both clean-ups. We also decided that we would secure some canoes and do some of the clean-up on October 24th using a few canoes. The event would start at 10 a.m. at the Sugar Creek Nature Park and run until one when the volunteers would have a picnic. The clean-up on the 26th of September, which is sponsored by the Sugar Creek Nature Park Planning Commission, will start at 9 and be followed by a catered lunch at noon.

The Nature Park We discussed the Sugar Creek Nature Park and our relationship with it. Jim has found the original park sign, which will be used with the new name of the park. We thought it would be a good idea to invite the mayor to tour the park with us at 6 p.m., before our October meeting (on Tuesday, October 6th) to discuss the development of the park. We also discussed the idea of naming the park in honor of Dick Ristine, but we arrived at no consensus. Some of us would like to find a new project—something equivalent to the Bachner Reserve to honor him with. Nate reported that the first shelter is coming along well, Vectren supplied an ATV with the potential for future donations. Nate will write a letter to the mayor inviting him to tour the SCNP with us.

New Business: Under new business Jim brought up the issue of the Sugar Creek camp ground which is planning to rent canoes and kayaks. The Board is sympathetic—the owner wishes to grow his business. His plans apparently have not yet been brought up before SCAB.

Christie Byun reported on the use of Sugar Creek from a survey of people at the C’ville Library, the County Fair, Clements Canoes, Beautiful Buds, and Thorntown Public Library. The average group size is 4 adults with 1.3 children. which spends $76. Average income is $35,000. The majority of the people are from Montgomery County. As a whole, they would be in favor of a tax which would support the clean-up of Sugar Creek.

We discussed making more copies of our DVD and the slow progress of the interpretive signs—the company’s slowness compromises our relationship with the MCCF, which gave us the grant to have the signs made.

We now only have two DVDs left. The consensus seemed to be that we should have more made. But the question was whether we should have a new edition made with a flyover of the creek, and new footage about the Bachner Reserve and the Nature Park. Doug was concerned about the outlay of funds. We thought about finding a new face for our organization. Wendy suggested if we would create an interesting image, people would buy it and FSC would have greater visibility. We also discussed having an Earth Day celebration at Camp Rotary. We need to find a way to amp up our annual meeting, though Zach was leery of doing a repeat of Creekfest—which took a lot of energy and effort and yet didn’t issue in much of a result (in terms of increased membership).

We also discussed collaborating with Cat Burkhart at the Carnegie Museum to mount an exhibit featuring the human and natural history of Sugar Creek, a brief history of Friends of Sugar Creek, and the mission of our organization. Beth, Marc, Doug and Nate planned a lunch meeting to discuss the exhibit and then meet with Cat Burkhart at the Musuem to get a sense of the space that would be available for the display.

Nate talked a bit about our web site; he admitted some frustration with the web site—that Frank set it up for us, but now has left and it is very difficult to change the format and structure of the site. We talked about commissioning Pat Galloway to draw a map with significant sites, which could be transferred to the web site, and used for the updated DVD as well as adapted to an interpretive sign. Wendy thought that a map with landmarks would draw people to the web. We agreed that we would ask Pat to do the work for us for a commission. It was thought that Pat would probably feel this would be meaningful work, continuing her family’s legacy. We decided to set aside a $1,000 for this work. Zach talked briefly about attending the listening tour in Linden on land use planning. It was a sparse crowd. Zach and Nate mentioned the LARE (Lake and River Enhancement) project in Boone County—they will talk with the directors of that project and report back to us.

The meeting adjourned at 8:45.

--Respectfully submitted by Marc Hudson, Secretary to the Friends of Sugar Creek Board