RMF BOARD MEETING MINUTES
Sept 09, 2015

7:00 PM - Meeting called to order

Attendance:
8/10: Wil Huett, Dave Piske, Paul Wehr, Phil Wright, Domingo Rodriguez, Dave Morse, Dennis Cook, Guy Turenne, Tom Culbertson, Lance Asherin.
Invited Guest: Marc McKenzie
Note: A quorum was present.

  1. Board Business

    1. Introductions / President’s Comments
      Dave discussed the chapters NISP response letter. He was impressed with the hydrology report generated by Ryan McShane from CSU. Northern has responded to our response letter just today and will take a look at the comments and let us know if there is anything they would like to discuss further.

    2. Review Agenda:

    3. Approve Minutes of Last Meeting: Motion/2nd/Approved:

    4. Consent Agenda: Approved, but lacking the Youth report.

    5. Pulled Consent Items: None

  2. Old Business

    1. Sustain: Strategic Plan – ?
      Are we going to work on this or not? The group still wants to proceed. Dick wants a date in November, the group decided on the 14th.

    2. Sustain: Dropbox – out of space do we want to pay $10/month for 1 TB?
      Mark has been looking into this and felt the $10/month/person option was ok. Paul has 7GB of storage, most others have only 1GB. So we have to decide whether to pay or come up with another way to use the cloud files. Paul discussed our website hosting service space and that only 2% of this space is being used currently. Do we keep more permanent things here and free up dropbox space or do we figure out a way to share this access so people can work on documents here? We need an IT plan! Not clear if this is an additional $10 a month for each user? We will discuss next month.

    3. Sustain: September Celebration
      This has been moved to April.

    4. Sustain: Vice President vacancy
      Wil expressed that we really need to fill this vacancy! He asked that everyone please think through anyone who might be interested in assuming the role and perhaps becoming the future chapter president. Wil thinks a May election is fine but that the incumbent would have time to learn and transition into position in October, at the beginning of the new fiscal year. Are there Bylaw issues? Wil will look into this.

    5. Conservation: Protect: Colorado Water Plan - The decision to be made on August 10 is whether RMF will submit comments on the final draft of the Colorado Water Plan directly to CWCB, or instead send RMF’s comments to CTU by August 17 for incorporation into CTU’s comments on the final draft of the Colorado Water Plan. If RMF decides to submit its own comments, they are to be filed with CWCB before September 15, 2015.
      Dave explained that he has been trying to gain an understanding of what’s where in this plan. The deadline has come and gone, we delivered our own comments under our name not combined w/CTU. CWCB is responsible for putting the whole water plan together. Dave said it’s interesting in that the second draft is an entire encyclopedia of historical water use, law, development, and future changes with the state permitting process. The Basin Implementation Plan is collating all the round table information, note there are 9 basins. This document will be used as a guide for a future road map of sorts. Dave is developing comments on the South Platte Basin Plan and expects difficulties with the trans-basin diversion parts of the plan.
      See ColoradoWaterPlan.com

  3. New Business

    1. Conservation: Restore: North Fork Big Thompson – 2 projects: Revegetation & Cleanup
      USFS representative, Chris Carroll talked with us about cleaning up the North Fork of the Big Thompson in July. Dave stated that the road reconstruction is taking longer than expected and the cleanup and revegetation efforts are being delayed. The projects are to be accomplished after the road work finishes. The lower revegetation project is being prevented from starting. Is there a funding issue with the plants availability? Phil stated that the cleanup work is still proceeding. A war zone of sorts with all the construction going on. The end of the field season is quickly approaching. Projects are in limbo! The Wildlands Restoration Volunteers are booked with their own projects months in advance, Phil is having a hard time recruiting help. Dennis asked why WRV can’t provide us with a list of volunteers, not crew leads, just helper’s. Domingo asked about getting help from the sheriff’s with prison help.

    2. Conservation: Reconnect: Sheep Creek
      Chapter volunteers from Rocky Mountain Flycasters (RMF) and WRV are needed to tackle two reconnect projects on cutthroat trout streams. The projects are on the East and West Fork of Sheep creek. Work will take place on Sept 19th or the 26th. Looking for 10-12 people. Wil will forward David Burkhart’s information to Dave.

    3. Sustain: 2015-2016 Budget planning
      The chapter received $3,866 from Odell’s brewery, tip money. The board approved using this money for youth conservation expenses for this year’s expenses.
      Poudre Runs Through It, a pro river organization, would like for us to donate $250. We decided to make this a potential budget item for October and further discuss this then.
      Tom will produce a budget and have it ready in early October for everyone to look at.

    4. Sustain: Behnke Scholarship/Behnke Endowment:
      The Department of Fish, Wildlife, and Conservation Biology at Colorado State University, is seeking donations to establish an endowed chair in coldwater conservation, named in honor of Dr. Robert J. Behnke. Our goal of $3 million will fund a full-time professor, but all contributions will be put to use for coldwater conservation in Dr. Behnke’s name.
      Do we want to have a budget item for this endowment effort? Do we want to do something like a matching fund or individual donations? Dennis felt a $500 annual donation was an adequate amount from our annual budget for the scholarship. Should this be switched over to endowing the chair?
      Wil is going to ask Jonathan Clifton about how the $500 we donate is being appropriated.

  4. Future meeting plans: Oct general meeting, November Guest Night, December Xmas Party?

    1. Domingo stated that he has Ty Churchwell of Colorado TU lined up to talk at the general meeting (October 21). Ty will be discussing the clean water act, water quality issues, draining mines, the Animas spill and TU’s effort to pass Good Samaritan legislation, along with what TU does to remediate mines in CO.

    2. For Guest night (November 18) he is thinking about the Colorado Women Flyfishers, Dennis mentioned Bob a bug guy from Colorado springs. Wil is wondering if this is going to attract a crowd? Landin Meyers name was mentioned as a possibility again. Boomer from trout creek anglers was mentioned. Several other names were mentioned for consideration. Domingo will reach out to some other presenters.

    3. Wil is going to get ahold of Lee and see if he will organize the party and run the gift exchange once again.

    4. Note: the October 14 meeting is going to be an important budget meeting and we need to start thinking about the strategic plan meeting.

9:00 PM - Meetings adjourned

Submitted by Lance Asherin,
Rocky Mountain Flycasters’ Secretary