09/19/2018 Vanderbilt Museum Regular Meeting Minutes

Suffolk County Vanderbilt Museum

Board of Trustees

Minutes

A regular meeting of the Suffolk County Vanderbilt Museum Board of Trustees was held on September 19, 2018 in the Planetarium Lobby, Centerport, New York.

The following were in attendance: Ron Beattie – President Gretchen Oldrin Mones – 1st Vice President Jack DeMasi – 2nd Vice President James Kelly – Secretary Betsy Cambria – Treasurer Terry Pearsall – Trustee Kathleen Giamo – Trustee Clara Macri – Trustee Stephen Melore – Trustee Thomas Glascock – Trustee Lance Reinheimer – Executive Director Elizabeth Wayland-Morgan – Associate Director Ann Marie Pastore - Stenographer

Excused Absence: Dr. Steven Gittelman – Trustee Robert G. Keller – Trustee

Absent: Anthony Guarnischelli – Trustee

(Mr. Ron Beattie called the meeting to order at 7:10 p.m.)

MR. BEATTIE: Welcome to the September 19, 2018 meeting of the Suffolk County Vanderbilt Museum and Planetarium. As always, we’ll start with the Pledge of Allegiance.

{SALUTE TO THE FLAG}

Until we have a quorum, we’ll hold off on the vote of the previous meeting minutes. We will start out with Education and Exhibits, Gretchen.

MS. OLDRIN MONES: As always, there’s lots of good news in the Education and Exhibits Committee Report. For starters, Living History had a very successful summer. Lots of publicity helped to make this a record attendance year.

In your publicity packets you’ll see there’s a number of articles printed about the Living History Tours. Tours are so popular that ideas are being discussed to expand the number of tours, if additional actors can be found.

Mansion tour numbers are phenomenal. In July there were 2,104 tours, and that compares with July 2017 of 1,939. August numbers are even better. There were 2,016 this August as compared to August 2017, when the tour numbers were 1,062.

Progress continues on the second floor of the Hall of Fishes. Zach did a great job helping take inventory and cataloging the not-for-display quality marine specimens for storage in the mansion basement. Some pieces are awaiting the completion of the fish taxidermy from George Dante.

The large glass doors need to be repaired, as well as black glass shelving at the bottom of the cases. These repairs are going to be done by Peter Newman.

The second floor could be open soon, although not complete in terms of interpretation and signage.

Stephanie has followed up with the glass vendor for safety panels for the Stoll Wing dioramas.

A new structural engineer was scheduled to visit to evaluate construction of the base with the reinstallation of a column.

Stephanie and others hosted several successful events in August: the Rotary Event on August 9 and the BAE Systems Event on August 14, at the mansion.

She tells us a somewhat funny and mostly hectic story of staff addressing a full cesspool problem and strategically arranging for the cesspool to be pumped before the visiting group moved from the planetarium to the tent. As in all other impossible tasks they accomplish daily, the staff was successful in doing this.

Educators participated in several community events, including the Old Westbury Gardens KidsFest on September 16. Upcoming events are the Heckscher Museum’s Draw Out on September 23 and Greenlawn Community Day on October 14.

Some potential exciting news is that the Museum Education Act passed in New York. As Stephanie pointed out, we are chartered by New York State Department of Education, and there may be some opportunities for funding in this Act.

(Ms. Betsy Cambria entered the meeting at 7:13 p.m.)

Digitizing the collection is a goal. Stephanie has already taken initial steps to give people access to our tremendous resources. Additionally, she has researched some sources of help.

Before we know it, the mansion will be offering Twilight Tours. A suggestion was made to highlight one or two new items each year to keep the tour fresh. Stephanie volunteered that Mary Schlotter will provide a new evergreen dress and everyone wanted a train.

Lorraine discussed the decline in planetarium program attendance. Luckily, there are quite a few new shows that may increase attendance. Most of them are listed in the Fall Brochure. I think everyone has one. They are also listed in the new Education Brochure, which goes out this month.

The new show titles are “Incoming,” “Two Small Pieces,” “Laser Stranger Things,” and “Laser Queen.” “Laser Queen” is timely, as the movie “Queen” comes out November 1. One of the songwriters has an astrophysics degree, and there is also a member named “Freddie Mercury.” You can be sure that Lorraine makes all these connections.

The lobby exhibits have been delayed and are now expected in October.

Kathy Dulanto is enthusiastic about the Carriage House Revitalization Project. She has put together an impressive guest list of people who value education and are interested in previewing ideas to enhance this historic venue that will

house STEM and STEAM Educational Programs, theater productions, workshops and community gatherings.

One of the wonderful things that will happen at the September 25 event is the debut of a new Smart Board generously donated by Laura and Eric Gerde.

Beth has put together historic photos from the structure and her workshop to display.

Kathy Dulanto is also working with a bank to get 10,000 of the new maps printed. Signage is being updated to make it easier for visitors to follow the rules. For instance, photography is now allowed, but no flash or video is permitted.

(Mr. Thomas Glascock entered the meeting at 7:15 p.m.)

The June 24 Yelp Cocktail Classic IV completely sold out. Five hundred and one people attended. That provided $10,020 in revenue – free and clear to the Vanderbilt. A huge thanks to Lorraine who makes the arrangements and to Timmy, Pete and Lorraine who came in early to clean up from a wedding that ended the night before and to Lorraine, Tim and Lance and their spouses who helped make this another success.

For the curious, the first place winning cocktail was a margarita made by Garden City Hotel and second place was bacon infused drink, which was part of the theme; bourbon tequila, as well as bacon infused things.

Next year, if you want to mark your calendar, the event will be held on the last Sunday in June.

Something else to look forward to is on October 20, when the second “A Morning for Children with Special Needs” will take place. From 300 to 500 attendees are expected. Beth is collaborating with others, including the Heckscher Museum, Sweet Briar and the Fish Hatchery. The very popular service dogs will once again be attending.

Then there are several workshops planned, and they are also in this very attractive Fall Brochure that you have.

This is not exactly related to the committee, but it did come up during the meeting, so I’m going to mention it now. We talked about a date for Staff Appreciation Day, which as you know, is something that we do as a Board to appreciate the staff. The date is October 15. The time is at noon.

I will be passing around a sheet. You may recognize it from last year. Some people have already signed up for a dish to bring, which is much appreciated. Any effort to make something personal to bring in and to share with the staff really makes it a nicer event. Earlier, Elizabeth said that there might be a showing of two of our brand new planetarium shows for all of us that day. That would be really special. Also, Betsy has agreed to collect $20 per Trustee.

That’s the end of my report. Does anyone have any questions?

MS. CAMBRIA: Gretchen, what’s the date again for that?

MS. OLDRIN MONES: October 15, which is a Monday and the time is noon.

MR. REINHEIMER: I just have one clarification on your report, Gretchen. When you stated that Lorraine noticed a decline in planetarium attendance, that was a decline in the fall. But the spring, she said the attendance did pick up.

MS. OLDRIN MONES: Yes, it picked up after the mailing to the pre-schools, as well.

MS. REINHEIMER: So I think overall it picked up for the year, but it’s not declining now. I just wanted to make that clear.

MS. OLDRIN MONES: That’s even better. Thank you.

MR. BEATTIE: Is there anything else for Gretchen?

Okay, now that we have a quorum, we can vote on previous meeting minutes. Can I have a motion?

MR. KELLY: So moved.

MS. OLDRIN MONES: Second.

MR. BEATTIE: Without objection? Thank you. (Vote: 9/0/0/6 Not Present: Mr. DeMasi. Absent: Dr. Gittelman, Mr. Guarnischelli & Mr. Keller. Two vacancies.)

Betsy is now here, so we can go to the Treasurer’s Report.

MS. CAMBRIA: I haven’t consulted with Lance yet, so bear with me. It looks to me as if the – and I’m referring to the July 2018 Treasurer’s Report. We have the Actual and the Budget.

Admissions, as you’ll note, is up. I think Gretchen referred to that. The Membership is up, as well. The Special Events was way up. I assume Lance will address why that was way up. The Suffolk County Funds are up because we received our allotment from them.

The Site Use was down. Lance will address that, as well.

The total Revenue, which actually had been budgeted for two ninety, was up to five eighteen, which is great.

Expenses, the only actual expense that I note was under the Professional category. I’m not quite sure what that is.

MR. REINHEIMER: I can address that. Two things that were unusual expenses hit that month. One was a $10,000 payment to our auditor. That’s not a normal monthly expense, but we do pay them after they are here physically doing the audit. The audit should be coming out shortly.

The second was the repair of the planetarium HVAC, which was $36,000. That was paid for by our capital endowment distribution. We used endowment funds that are slated for capital improvements.

MS. CAMBRIA: So that will be repaid?

MR. REINHEIMER: No, that’s our expense, and that came out of the endowment for capital improvements.

MS. CAMBRIA: But why is that under Professionals?

MR. REINHEIMER: It’s under Professionals because it’s anything where we have an outside contractor come in to do the work, it’s under Professionals, such as auditors, tree people, plumbers, HVAC people, any outside person. In our budget, it shows through that Professional line.

That’s why sometimes it’s very hard to unwind that number because it’s a mix of things from month to month. I know that we’re always questioning that number. I asked Barbara for the detail and she gave me the detail. Those were the two main expenses that are out of the ordinary, not normal monthly expenses.

Our computer IT support, our web site, those are things that come out and we have regular payments for them.

Our contract to have somebody come and remove the geese or relocate the geese, that comes out of there because it’s a third-party consultant professional that comes in.

MS. CAMBRIA: The other category is – and it’s good to hear about the geese – but tilities, now utilities actually were down. I assume that’s because the HVAC wasn’t working.

{LAUGHTER}

MR. REINHEIMER: That could be. That’s against budget. Some of this is straight line. Our accountant does make adjustments on a month by month basis. But utilities are generally up significantly in the summer because of electricity and HVAC.

MS. CAMBRIA: But we were under budget.

MR. REINHEIMER: Yes, for that particular month.

What’s interesting is, I looked at the Treasurer’s Report. I added up all the Actual numbers for Expenses through July and all the Actual Revenues through July. We were ahead by $495, so we’re even.

We’re doing well financially. We really are; we’re sound.

MS. CAMBRIA: Because the bottom line shows $218,000 of excess, so that’s –

MR. REINHEIMER: Well, that was for one particular month. But when you add up the deficiencies and the overages, we came out almost $500 ahead. So we’re even.

We had a good summer. Attendance was good this summer.

MS. CAMBRIA: Okay, so that comprises the Treasurer’s Report.

MR. BEATTIE: Thank you, Betsy. Are there any questions for Betsy?

We’ll move ahead to Buildings and Grounds, Terry.

MR. PEARSALL: Thank you. The Buildings and Grounds Committee met on Wednesday, September 19. Present were members Jim Kelly, Jack DeMasi and myself, along with Lance and Elizabeth.

Lance filled in for Peter Newman and gave the committee an update of the progress that was being made on several projects.

Work is continuing on Eagles Nest with the crew now engaged in restoration of the north side. Major masonry work is in progress and will follow with the continuation of the dry lock and paint applications.

We can expect the same beautiful restoration we have seen in the courtyard.

While masonry work is progressing, the front of the Carriage House is being worked on and dressed up for the showcasing of the proposed renovation to the Education Center this coming Tuesday.

The repairs and painting of the wall along Little Neck Road have been completed. Lance reported that many of our neighbors have taken notice with thanks and praise. The wall looks so good, Lance is looking to have our crew paint the rear of the Hall of Fishes to complete the finished look along the roadway.

The committee also toured the site of the Eagles Nest work and the old laundry area and what is known as the Model Room.

In the 40 years that I have been involved, in one way or the other with the Vanderbilt, I had never heard of this Model Room.

When Lance first mentioned it at the meeting, my thoughts went back to when I was a kid playing with model trains and making model boats and airplanes.

To my amazement, this was a room in the lower level of the mansion that contains an incredible full scale model of Eagles Nest.

Unfortunately, it is not open to our visitors because of the continuing deterioration of the crumbling facades and stucco. As Peter and crew move around Eagles Nest for the restoration work, they will get to the entrance to the Model Room.

Some day in the future, this attraction can be open to our visitors. I’m sure that if you haven’t seen the Model Room, Lance will get a key and let you see it. It is awesome.

MR. BEATTIE: Hard hat required.

MR. PEARSALL: And calamine lotion.

{LAUGHTER}

MR. BEATTIE: I heard about that, too.

MS. WAYLAND-MORGAN: That is true.

MR. KELLY: What Terry hasn’t mentioned, those of you who haven’t seen it, the model is almost the size of this table. It’s not one of these little things you put on a table top.

MR. PEARSALL: Exactly.

MR. KELLY: It’s huge.

MR. PEARSALL: And there’s very little room to walk around it.

MR. KELLY: It’s encased in a glass cabinet. We haven’t figured out how to open it. Theoretically, it was sealed up 40 years ago.

MR. PEARSALL: It’s in beautiful shape.

MR. KELLY: Yes.

MR. PEARSALL: If you haven’t ever seen it, get Lance to take you down there.

Lance also gave the committee a heads-up on the outdated air condition unit in the planetarium. We will have to replace this sooner or later. Undoubtedly, Lance will be giving us more details as we go into next year’s Capital Program.

Thank you. That’s my report. Are there any questions?

MR. BEATTIE: Thank you, Terry.

Kathy and the Development Committee Report.

MS. GIAMO: Good evening. You’ve all heard some of the exciting things from the other committee reports. The Development Committee Meeting took place on Thursday, September 13.

We have so many positive things. Gretchen mentioned many of them. Terry mentioned many of them. But it just goes on and on. I think it really demonstrates the amount of effort and work that’s gone into the Vanderbilt in the last year or two. It just continues, one success after the other.

Our public relations program, we have a new social media person, Dan Johnson, who has put together an unbelievable amount of press releases. We all have a package that we have received this evening. We’ve just had one thing after the other to develop our social media program on the internet, which is now promoting us on Facebook, Twitter and all the usual sources of media event that everybody is using today.

We have had an unbelievable event program. Our Summer Fiesta, which hopefully you were all there, was just an unbelievable success. I really cannot stress how much fun that event was and just looking at the people that attended, everyone enjoyed themselves.

You really have to think about an event that you went to in any history that you had a transition of a cocktail party from the outside area to inside the tent in the rain that was seamless where people really had a good time transitioning from one place to the other. It was just amazing.

The Alex Torres Orchestra – I wasn’t there but I understand it was sold out and that everyone had a terrific time.

There is a tremendous amount of activity now generating more events through birthday parties, which I think is an incredible idea, especially since we have so many children coming to this museum on a yearly basis. They have generated over $25,000 over the last year, and it just continues to grow.

We have an event coming up, a member reception coming up Thursday, November 1, from 6:00 to 8:00. Hopefully at that time, the new lobby events will be here, and the new shows will be in the planetarium.

These events, by the way, were sponsored by Eric and Laura Gerde and the National Grid Foundation.

Then we have community events that have also been sponsored by Northwell Health Systems. There are four community events totaling $4,000. We could just go on and on with different things that are going on here at the Vanderbilt.

We are very excited – the Development Committee is very excited about the Carriage House Cocktail Reception, which is next Tuesday night from 5:30 to 7:30. I hope all the Board Members will be present at that. We have anticipated between 40 and 50 people, which has exceeded what we have projected it to be.

Terry Clark will be honored with a smart board for his support regarding the Carriage House revitalization. I can’t stress how important that smart board is. It takes us into the next generation of kids. That’s what they are using. Eric and Laura Gerde, again, sponsored the smart board.

The Cocktail Reception, Kathy Dulanto has developed a program of sponsorship opportunities for the people that attend and that we can also take outside, which I don’t have tonight because it’s a very long program, and there

are a lot of opportunities on this. I think they’re going to generate a tremendous amount of activity.

It’s the beginning of what we have been working toward for the last year. This is the kick-off for this reception. I think it’s going to take us into the next step that we want to do.

I want to highlight the brochure for the events at the Vanderbilt, which is beautiful. I don’t know if everybody has had a chance to take a look at it. It’s a great piece.

We also had the Education Brochure, and that’s another great piece.

We talked about how it was going to be distributed at the Development Committee Meeting. I think all the vehicles that we’re using are excellent to get it out to the public.

I hope I didn’t miss anything. Oh, I did. I want to also provide the map. I have a copy of the map. Is this in the package?

MR. REINHEIMER: No.

MS. GIAMO: Our new map is terrific. It does all the things we wanted it to do. I will pass it around so everybody can take a look at it. It’s going to be distributed with every ticket so everyone will be able to know exactly where they’re going within the grounds.

I think that summarizes pretty much everything we went over in the Development Committee. Does anybody have any questions?

MR. BEATTIE: Thank you, Kathy. And just so you know, while we’re passing this around, it’s printed incorrectly. The second page needs to be flipped.

MS. WAYLAND-MORGAN: That’s just the draft.

MR. BEATTIE: I saw Tom almost break his wrist trying to read the map. That’s the end of committee reports. I guess we’ll go on with the Executive Director’s Report.

MR. REINHEIMER: Thank you. A couple of things that were brought up in the committee reports, I’ll address first. The map, we looked at the map and we made some revisions from that committee meeting that we had. We replaced the compass, and we moved it. It’s clearer on the map now. We made a couple of minor text changes. So the map is ready. It’s going for print.

I talked to the mail house that’s doing the Education Brochure. That’s in the process of being mailed out. It will probably hit the mail no later than Monday.

I’m planning on stopping there Tuesday morning on my way in to pick up the brochures so that we’ll have them for the reception Tuesday night. At that reception, we have 50 people who have RSVP. It’s going to be very successful.

We’re working with – we have made tremendous progress on the front of the Learning Center since Terry was here the other day. It looks wonderful. The inside is cleaned out. It looks great clean. What a concept. It’s going to make a real impression on people. I think we’ll get some real support for the plans that we have to bring that Learning Center up to today’s standards for children, an environment for learning, to make it real attractive.

Terry addressed a few things also on capital projects. Since we met, Terry, we have had a couple of things. I met with Public Works yesterday concerning the facades. They looked at the Hall of Fishes and they also looked at the Bell Tower.

They brought in the engineers, H2M came. We had three people from that engineering company. Their assessment, just at first blush of the Bell Tower, is it’s in better shape than they expected.

They were impressed with the work that we’re doing. They want us to continue to do that work. They’re going to come back and do a full engineering report on the status of the Bell Tower and develop an RFP to go out for bid, we hope, in the spring. They’re going to concentrate mostly on the detail of the building.

Several years ago we had the building scanned. We had the Hall of Fishes scanned. We had the Bell Tower scanned. A lot of the detail that has crumbled since then, they are very happy with – they had the scanned files. They’re going to replicate it.

Probably the plan will be to remove all of the detail work of the Hall of Fishes, replicate that and reinstall it. It’s not part of the building structure and support. It’s more decorative.

They are going to start with the Bell Tower first because there are water problems. They think they have a pretty good idea where the water is coming from. They are going to work on resolving the water issues on the roof and where the bell is. They feel that the flashing on both those areas does not go up the wall high enough when you have snow packs. It goes down the flashing. Where the bell is, there is really no drainage there. That actually acts as a catch basin and water sits there until it eventually drains down lower into the Bell Tower.

The plan is to send out the RFP for construction late spring of 2019 with the possibility of construction starting in the fall on the Bell Tower. That’s the best care scenario.

We have $2 million in the 2019 Capital Budget. We have sufficient funds to do the work on both of those buildings. That’s good.

We also have the RFP for the café. It’s going out shortly for the construction. Also, the RFP is being finalized on the seawall for an engineering report. A lot is going on. Next year, 2019, we should see some real results in the condition of the buildings.

The bids for Normandy Manor -- to reroof Normandy -- came in high. Department of Public Works is going back and looking at the scope and possibly would rebid that job. It was disappointing. It is doubtful Normandy will be reroofed before next summer. Right now, they’re assessing what they are going to do.

Those are the areas I wanted to address that came up in committee.

MR. BEATTIE: I’m sorry, Lance –

MR. REINHEIMER: Yes, go ahead.

MR. BEATTIE: H2M, is that the engineering firm?

MR. REINHEIMER: Yes.

MR. BEATTIE: Are they planning to take a look at the bridge?

MR. REINHEIMER: The bridge has been done. That assessment has been done. The engineering report for the bridge was done about two years ago. They’re working toward working on their RFP to bid that job out.

MR. BEATTIE: But it’s not as bad as –

MR. REINHEIMER: It’s really not as bad as they expected at all. That was good news.

MR. BEATTIE: But not the seaplane hangar?

MR. REINHEIMER: No, the seaplane hangar we have no funds that have been appropriated to do any work on the seaplane hangar. No engineering, nothing, at this point in time.

Capital Projects that we’re working on besides the work on the buildings, we’re in the process of installing panic buttons in the mansion. We’re going to be putting in two panic buttons in the mansion. We’re also in the process of installing and purchasing a campus-wide public address system so that we’ll have a communication system that will cover all the public areas of the grounds. We hope to have that by the end of the year.

That would be done with the capital endowment funds. We’re looking at safety in conjunction with the reaccreditation. We have an Emergency Preparedness Committee, which is meeting. That’s part of reaccreditation, so we’re working on our procedures. We’re updating them, and we’re planning for what we need to do in today’s world.

(Mr. Jack DeMasi entered the meeting at 7:35 p.m.)

Then in light of the museum fire that they had down in South America, we have to look at our alarm systems, cameras and security for our buildings and artifacts, too.

In August, we had a television shoot here in the planetarium. It happened really fast. It was a one-day shoot for a major television network. It’s a new show. I don’t want to say too much on the record as far as how much or what the show is. It was worth our while. It was a good day.

Just to go over some events that we have coming up throughout the rest of the year, I know a lot of them are covered in the brochure, but I think it’s important to have them stated on the record, too.

September 22, which is Fall Solstice, we have Candelabra, which is a chamber ensemble performing in the planetarium. They’re doing their own music in conjunction with images on the planetarium dome to celebrate the beginning of fall. That is live – I think it’s an eight piece ensemble.

MR. PEARSALL: Five piece.

MR. REINHEIMER: Okay, five piece. Thank you. It’s the first time they’ll be performing here. It should be a really nice show. That’s at six o’clock on Saturday.

MS. WAYLAND-MORGAN: It’s 6:00 to 7:30, September 22.

MR. REINHEIMER: Thank you. September 25, of course, we talked about the reception that we’re having in the Education Center, the Learning Center.

September 26, we have a media event here. The County Executive is coming to sign legislation concerning septic systems and the new technology that reduces nitrogen in systems.

The planetarium and the gatehouse are pilot programs that the county is funding. These new systems reduce 90 percent of the nitrogen that goes into our streams and waterways. It’s an important project here for the museum, considering we’re sitting here on top of Northport Bay.

October 20 will be our second “Morning for Children with Special Needs.” The Cold Spring Fish Hatchery, Heckscher Museum and service dogs will be here. I know that you addressed that, Kathy, in your report.

November 10 and 11 is Veterans Day Weekend, and we’re offering free admission for all veterans and active military and their families to the museum. November 11 is a Led Zeppelin Tribute Band, Pure Led, here in the planetarium.

December 9, we have Liverpool Shuffle, who is also on the cover of the budget summary. They performed this year in the courtyard. I thought it was a great

picture to have an event with the background of the recently painted and restored areas of the Bell Tower.

November 24, we have the Annual Tree Lighting.

December 1, we have our Annual Holiday Dinner.

December 9 – I already spoke about Liverpool Shuffle.

December 27 and 28, we have Twilight Tours in the mansion, which we do each year.

We also have new planetarium shows that are emphasized in our new brochure, “Incoming,” which is about asteroids and comets colliding with Earth. But they do it in a way not to scare you. They talk about how they’re tracked before they collide with the Earth.

“Two Small Pieces of Glass, the Amazing Telescope,” talks about the telescopes and how they work.

Laser shows, we’re going to sometime in either the fall or early next year, we’re doing “Queen Laser Light Show.”

A really popular show is “Laser, Stranger Things,” which is experiencing 1980’s tunes and soundscapes.

I know we talked about Dan doing social media. If any of you haven’t had a chance to check our website, we redesigned our website to bring it really up- to-date again and also to have it translate better for mobile devices.

Seventy-two to seventy-three percent of our people that access our web site access it through mobile devices. So it’s important to have a web site that is attractive and pictures more than text. I think it’s going to pay off in keeping our attendance high and also to increase attendance in the future.

Reaccreditation is coming fast. We’re in that process, the Institutional Plan Committee has met several times. We’re developing a plan that would be guidelines for how we should be operating and what our goals are for the next five years, with the hope that as we work this plan, we can look at it continuously, update it, change our goals and needs and update our goals and needs as need arises.

I also mentioned the Emergency Preparedness Committee is meeting in conjunction with the reaccreditation.

Steve Gittelman has updated a lot of the photos of the estate. We’re comparing them to the pictures that were taken for the 2003 reaccreditation putting them side by side to show, in a lot of cases, how things have improved and in some cases, how some of the buildings have deteriorated over the years. For the most part, I think we’re going to see a positive result from 2003.

Lastly, I’d like to go over the budget, but before I do that, in the past you have asked me to compare year-to-date to the previous year. That’s this page here.

I have to say, when I put this together the other day, I was surprised. We have had some real nice increases, especially in General Admission. We have had a 27 percent increase of $41,000, an increase over the same time last year.

This is per ALTRU. It’s not our accounting system, but it’s real time live revenue, which captures our admissions. These numbers could differ from our actual books. But for the most part, it’s a good barometer to see how we’re doing.

Keep in mind, too, that starting January, the beginning of the year, we did raise our admission fee a dollar. Most of this increase is attributable to higher fees.

Our attendance is steady. It hasn’t declined through summer here, but most of this is due to the increase in admissions.

Mansion tours are up. The planetarium day time shows are up. The only disappointing part is the evening shows are down 3 percent, a couple thousand dollars, from last year.

Education Programs, and this really dovetails with what Gretchen had in her report, where the fall our attendance was lower. It took time for these education programs to get up to speed, but we had a tremendous spring.

You can see the difference in revenue from 2017 to 2018 in our education programs. We think the mailing that we did for the second half of the year, this kind of reinforces what we thought and we discussed in committee. I think we need to do that again this year regardless of what we do in education programs in the fall. I just think it reaffirms in the spring that we’re still here and puts us back on that coffee table for the teachers to look at the brochure.

We’ll start to design a smaller brochure for the second half of the school year.

MR. BEATTIE: I think also, if you don’t mind me interrupting, the planetarium evening, if we finally get the Under the Stars Café going, that’s going to increase sales.

MR. REINHEIMER: Yes, without a doubt.

MR. BEATTIE: Maybe you could just give us an update on the café.

MR. REINHEIMER: Yes, the RFP is going out for bid. Once that goes out to bid, construction can start.

I also heard the other day from Public Works that the septic system will be going out to bid shortly. Those two are almost going to go out at the same time, which is a nice coincidence for us.

MS. CAMBRIA: I have a question.

MR. REINHEIMER: Sure.

MS. CAMBRIA: When the café starts and the revenues come in for that, will they go under planetarium revenues?

MR. REINHEIMER: No, they would go under – it would be like the gift shop. It would probably go under café. We have a separate revenue account so we can track that.

MR. KELLY: Question, are you doing a program like you did last year for Veterans weekend?

MR. REINHEIMER: No, we’re not doing a full program. Veterans Day this year is on Sunday. Last year we did it because Veterans Day was on a Saturday, and we did the event on Friday because I think that was the day the children were off from schools, and it didn’t clash with what the veterans have been doing in their normal celebrations. This year we weren’t doing any formal program because of where it falls on the calendar. That’s why we’re doing just free admission on Saturday and Sunday for veterans and active military.

MS. GIAMO: I have a question.

MR. REINHEIMER: Sure.

MS. GIAMO: It’s more of just a thought. If we could track, which we may do now, we could track when the brochures were mailed out, the response – like the education programs – track when we mail them out, what kind of results we’re getting from the mailing and get an idea of if we got a bigger response than we got last year.

MR. BEATTIE: Elizabeth, couldn’t we track that as a campaign?

MS. WAYLAND-MORGAN: In ALTRU, yes.

MS. GIAMO: Yes, that would be great, if we could. And the shows as well, to see how the response is coming in when we mail this out.

MR. REINHEIMER: Well, we have attendance. The Education Brochure in the fall, we pretty much send it out the same time each year.

MS. GIAMO: But does the registration come right in after it’s been sent out?

MR. REINHEIMER: Registration is coming in now without the brochure. It’s more of, I think, when the schools get organized and start to figure out when they’re going to have field trips are when the calls come in.

Last year we sent out that brochure for the second half because things were down in the first half. The year before we didn’t. The prior year to that we did. I think we’re at the point where –

MS. GIAMO: Do you see a correlation between that? MR. REINHEIMER:

Yes, absolutely. We got bumps in both years. The other thing that we did this year that we hadn’t done previously was this year’s second mailing for the spring for the education brochure includes pre-schools. We did a pre- school and a second education brochure. We saw an uptick in the number of pre-schools that came here. There was a definite relationship in sending those out.

I think as a matter of business now that we’re kind of in a better place, better organized and we have the staff, that we can just do this as a regular course of business each year. It’s like sending out that catalog every month. It puts it back on your coffee table, and you look at it. I think those mailings pay for themselves. I think we get a better response than if we didn’t do the mailing. There is a direct relationship.

MS. GIAMO: I think also there will be much more things to track from Dan’s work, too, on media, press releases and how much activity is being generated. I’m sure there has to be substantial jumps in activity after a press release is put out and after it goes on Facebook. I’m trying to seek and track into that as well.

MR. REINHEIMER: It’s hard to track one for one. Pat sends out press releases all the time. I think, though, the barometer is general admission, planetarium show revenue. You can see how the revenue reflects attendance. Except for this year when you increase the fee, you have to account for that. At this point, we’re not talking about increasing fees. So you will see increases.

Also, to the website, Marissa, one of our admission supervisor, commented that a lot of people last week came and on their mobile devices had the planetarium observatory on their phone. They wanted to go to the observatory. She said, I think the website is working because that never happened before. The Observatory page, previous to updating the website, didn’t encourage anybody to come here. Let’s put it that way.

We’re still not where we want to be with the observatory page. Dave Bush has some suggestions for improving it, and we’re looking at some of the formatting of that page.

MS. GIAMO: Could we get a Vanderbilt app, which would have everything on the brochure?

MR. REINHEIMER: Absolutely. Good idea. Betsy, did you have a question?

MS. CAMBRIA: Can you explain the observatory?

MR. REINHEIMER: Yes, we have an observatory, which is here in the planetarium lobby. The hatch, the roof slides open, and we have a sixteen inch Meade telescope so we can observe planets and stars.

MS. CAMBRIA: How often is it operative?

MR. REINHEIMER: We operate that on Friday nights after “Long Island Skies,” weather permitting. Dave does a live lecture, and then after the lecture part of the show, they can go in and use the observatory.

MS. CAMBRIA: So people come in specifically for that.

MR. REINHEIMER: Yes, in the past, we used to charge them. We dropped the charge because if somebody is coming here to just use the observatory, to charge them $3 is just getting a little petty.

MS. CAMBRIA: It’s every Friday, weather permitting?

MR. REINHEIMER: Yes, weather permitting. We also have a solar telescope, too, that we purchased two years ago. Good conditions and if we have the staff, we can observe the sun safely. We also have a portable solar scope that we’re using to take out to the schools for our traveling program for outreach.

MR. KELLY: Are these telescopes capable of being hooked up to a computer and recorded?

MR. REINHEIMER: You’d have to talk to Dave about that. I think they are, though. Not so much the portable one, but these move and are tracked, so they could do that.

Anyway, the news is that we’re up 34 percent in the revenue, based on ALTRU. ALTRU doesn’t include Groupon or also Travelocity.

Travelocity we started about six months ago. We received $2,700 in revenue through Travelocity.

Groupon, our average revenue from Groupon runs about $3,000 a month. We have received more than $100,000 from Groupon over the years that we have had it.

Then a new addition that we have now on our ticketing system is for Carriage House Players. Now you can purchase your tickets online. This is the first year. This first year we have grossed $15,000 for the Carriage House Players. We split the revenue with them. That doesn’t include people walking in, you know, purchasing at that door. This is just pre-purchase tickets.

Their attendance, they have had over 100 people at their Shakespeare performances this summer on a continuous basis. They had a wonderful summer.

Revenue in August alone was $6,000 from Shakespeare. It helped having them online. We’re doing a lot to generate revenue.

MR. BEATTIE: How about that budget?

MR. REINHEIMER: Well, how about that budget? That’s where I was going. I emailed each of you the budget. There is a lot here.

I’ll start with the bottom line. A budget is a plan. Some revenue comes in higher than we expect. Some come in lower. It’s like that film shoot. You could never budget for a film shoot, but I can tell you it was tens of thousands of dollars. We’re ending 2018 with approximately $55,000 in surplus revenue as a fund balance. It does not include the $700,000 we have in five different reserve accounts. We have funds from the sale of the Chrysler in a reserve account. We have the Reichert Family Fund. We have the Stoll Wing Fund. We have several funds.

We have a total of $700,000 in reserve at the end of this year. That assumes we’ll have another $100,000 distribution from the endowment for capital improvements. We have spent $70,000 to date from the $100,000 distribution.

The way things are going, I expect we will have another distribution in 2018 before the end of the year. That’s all part of this budget.

The funds from that television shoot are not in this estimated budget. That’s over and above. Financially we’re doing well.

We’re looking for a modest increase in the budget. The expense budget is going up approximately $200,000. The bulk of that budget is salaries and benefits, which account for 65 percent of our budget.

The people here are really our resource. Kevin, the mason that we hired this year, Fred, the carpenter who has been here a year and Jim is working on the grounds, these are three new employees that made a difference on this property in the short time they have been here. So the budget also provides our way of showing our appreciation to those people and to everyone that works here.

I sent this out. If anyone has any questions – it also includes ten-year lease for incoming. That’s a new planetarium show. That’s $17,000 for that. It also includes a licensing agreement for laser light shows so that we get up to four new shows each year.

It includes in expenses in 2018 that were not in the original budget, $6,500 for the website redesign, which I think will come back to us and increase visitation.

It also didn’t include the $36,000 for the emergency replacement of the HVAC. You have expenses that pop up, and you have expenses that we try to hold down. The short story is that we’re managing within our budget. We generally have a surplus each year or a fund balance each year. The budget is a modest increase over 2018.

There is a lot of detail here. I would be happy to answer questions that anyone has on or after the meeting or whenever, if you have any questions, please let me know.

Right now the County Executive’s Budget will be coming out on Friday. The wildcard there is Hotel/Motel. I tried to be pretty fair in my projections of where Hotel/Motel is going to end up because when we submit our budget, I have to calculate where the county is going to end up in Hotel/Motel so that we know what our piece is going to be.

I try to do it the way so that I don’t overstate it, but I also don’t want to understate what we would be getting from the County. This budget assumes full 10 percent distribution from the County for Hotel/Motel. Friday we will

find out what the County Executive’s number is. The County Executive by state law has to put in the 10 percent distribution.

The Legislature has the option to reduce it. Last year it was at 9 percent. The Legislature could reduce it, but I don’t think they will.

Hotel/Motel is in the budget for $1.3 million. This past year it was $1.1 million, so that’s about $200,000 increase.

MR. BEATTIE: Very good. Thank you, Lance. Any questions for Lance?

We will move on the President’s Report. I only have a couple of things. One is that I really want to commend our committee chairs and the cross pollination that is going on with all the committees. It’s just absolutely fantastic.

I hope you keep up that good work. Betsy is laughing over here, but the one thing I would add is that we need to beef up the Finance Committee for Betsy. She’s the only one who sits on it. I think we should be adding things onto to the Finance Committee, including the budget and that kind of thing. If anybody would like to join the Finance Committee, Betsy could use the help.

MS. CAMBRIA: We have a new member that isn’t here, right? We have a new member? What if the newest member joins the committee?

MR. BEATTIE: Sure, good idea. The only other thing that we need to discuss is the schedule for the November meeting. I think we’re okay on the October meeting. The October meeting is the 17th.

The November meeting is problematic because it’s the day before Thanksgiving. That is not going to work. At the same time, I think we need to have a meeting because of the reaccreditation process. Lance, do you see – we’re not going to be coming to a vote on the institutional plan until December, right?

MR. REINHEIMER: I doubt it will be done by November.

MS. WAYLAND-MORGAN: I doubt it will be done by then. We have a lot of work to do still.

MR. REINHEIMER: Lately we’ve been meeting in December.

MR. BEATTIE: Yes, December, but we’re talking about November. I guess the question would be, should we have the November meeting at all? Should we have it the week before we normally have it, the second Wednesday of the month? Any thoughts?

MS. CAMBRIA: If the October meeting is on the 17th, and you have the November meeting on the 14th, that’s almost a month.

MR. BEATTIE: Okay, so we’ll do it the second Wednesday. Unless you want to do it on the 28th.

MS. MACRI: I would say the 14th is better.

MR. BEATTIE: Okay, maybe the 14th would be better for everyone.

MR. PEARSALL: It’s a month between those two meetings.

MR. BEATTIE: That’s all I had. Are there any questions?

MR. KELLY: At the last meeting, the President asked if we could come up with some sort of protocol for new members. This is what I got from Lance when I joined and a few other members, as well.

I think a tour of the property, 40 acres, is a lot to see and a lot to learn about. We volunteered Steve Gittelman for lunch, since he is a wealth of knowledge about the property, and everybody should know about this place.

The President just advised me that he would like to be a part of this luncheon, as well. I have some material to give out that day, too. This is a draft. If there is anything else that some of you felt was lacking when you joined the Board and you think would fulfill your obligation and your knowledge of the premises, the campus and the history, please by all means, let me know so we can add it to it.

The exit for the Board, there is this phantom rumor about photographs of fish, which I have yet to see.

MS. OLDRIN MONES: It’s true.

MR. KELLY: Yes, I know it’s true.

{LAUGHTER}

First of all, if we’re going to give these prints away, are we giving away originals or are we giving away –

MS. OLDRIN MONES: No.

MS. WAYLAND-MORGAN: No, they’re not originals.

MR. KELLY: So they’re copies.

MR. BEATTIE: They’re prints.

MR. KELLY: Are they digitized? How are they copied?

MS. WAYLAND-MORGAN: We’ve had copies made at a local –

MR. KELLY: At an anonymous source.

MS. WAYLAND: Yes.

{LAUGHTER}

MR. KELLY: So we have to come up with some sort of ability to get them framed and presented at a social function.

I also threw in there – I know you put in the time and effort to make the place a better place, but as you go out the door, maybe we could give the parting Trustee a lifetime membership. I don’t know if we do that or what we can do or if you have a nice little card that we can put in their wallet, but I thought that would be a nice touch.

MR. BEATTIE: Sure.

MR. KELLY: And if there’s anything else that we can add to this list, please let me know, and we’ll come back and talk about it again.

MR. GLASCOCK: I know the condition is probably not all that safe, but I was a member of the Board for probably four or five years before I saw either the seaplane hangar or the boathouse. I think it’s important that new members see those structures so they understand – you know, pictures are worth a thousand words – so they understand what we’re talking about.

MR. KELLY: When we clean up the poison ivy, we’ll even take them into the Model Room.

MR. PEARSALL: I took me 40 plus years to see that room.

MR. KELLY: As a matter of fact, I think your picture is in one of the rooms in there.

{LAUGHTER}

MR. BEATTIE: Okay, thank you. The next meeting we will have something that doesn’t have draft on it. If you have any comments, please get those to Jim.

Okay, do we have any old business to discuss?

MR. PEARSALL: It’s not old but – well, it is old. I’d just like to plant a seed amongst all of us. We received the book, Mr. Vanderbilt’s photographer, and I read through it and it dawned on me that in two and a half years, the weekend of July 4, 1921, the Commodore and the Alva began their world tour. I think we should

think about doing some sort of celebration for that 90th anniversary and call attention to that through a good period of the summer and the fall of 2021.

MR. BEATTIE: But that would be the 100th anniversary.

MR PEARSALL: He left in 1931, so it’s the 90th. With all the Ports of Call he visited, it could be a multitude of different events here, highlighting the cultures throughout the world and so forth.

MR. BEATTIE: Great idea.

MR. PEARSALL: Elizabeth?

MS. WAYLAND-MORGAN: Sounds great. I’ll take that back to the staff. We’ll need to start today.

{LAUGHTER}

MR. PEARSALL: And the other thing, which I didn’t know, like I didn’t know that Eagles Nest at the front here were from Grand Central Station, again some 40 some odd years later. The Commodore also produced a film “Oceans of the Seven Seas,” which was shown throughout Lowes Theaters.

MR. KELLY: Was that the film we were talking about the other day over in Jersey?

MR. REINHEIMER: No, I thought Stephanie said she has that film.

MS. WAYLAND-MORGAN: Yes, she does have that.

MR. PEARSALL: Oh good.

MR. BEATTIE: We could show it on the dome.

MR. PEARSALL: Or we could just have it as part of the celebration.

MR. BEATTIE: Very good. Any new business? Can I have a motion to adjourn?

MS. OLDRIN MONES: Motion.

MR. DEMASI: Second.

MR. BEATTIE: Without objection, thanks, everyone. (Vote: 10/0/0/3 Absent: Dr. Gittelman, Mr. Guarnischelli & Mr. Keller. Two vacancies.)

(Mr. Ron Beattie adjourned the meeting at 8:15 p.m.)

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