<p>FOLA Board Meeting December 3, 2015 Notes</p><p>1. Call to Order</p><p>2. Treasurers Report- </p><p> a. All $ has been moved to Seacoast Bank- Total is $8,179.98 </p><p> b. 2 waves of membership; via email or US Mail</p><p>3. Old Business</p><p> a. FOLA Archives- Completed through the middle 70’s now; this will be archived at UCF; will be one of the largest archive programs that they have</p><p> a.i. Student that is doing this will come to meeting in January</p><p> a.ii. Need to determine the budget for this</p><p> b. Acquisition Hull Island- Jim met with SJWMD people; will be writing an application for a grant for this. The owner is anxious to sell and SJWMD has agreed to help with negotiation. There are not a significant amount of wetlands, but there is archeological value. </p><p> c. Habitat Enhancement Project, North Shore</p><p> c.i. This project has been put on hold for now</p><p> c.ii. Will spend some additional time getting SJWMD information regarding the project and what we want to accomplish</p><p> c.iii. There are Federal Regulations in place that would restrict plantings or other items that would attract new birds and restrictions to planting new trees that would attract nesting; Dennis Renfro from Florida Fish and Wildlife is going to look into regulations as they have a number of projects going on; these rules have been on the books for quite some time; probably can find a way to work through this as the regulations were written for a different purpose but need to sort through this before we determine what our plan is. </p><p> c.iv. Also some concern regarding the toxicity of the area and having people working at the location; concern is essentially surrounding the soil work; not necessarily the water; would look to work with SJWMD to test the area</p><p> c.v. Interim project of focus will be on Educational Center (would like to have this located in a place where there are 4-5 acres available for an Upland Park) and c.vi. Working towards collecting and growing the plants that are needed for the enhancement project</p><p>4. New Business</p><p> a. Ecotourism Coalition- meeting must be during work week; Jim working through timing and this will have to wait until after the 1st of the year; Jim to work with the city of Apopka people so we determine how we are working together</p><p> a.i. Should be a project where we do planting at the Pump House on the North Shore</p><p> a.ii. Audubon is putting some additional signage/identification at Magnolia Park, and on the wildlife drive with the funds they have already received</p><p> b. Newsletter- need to get a newsletter out by the first of the year; need to finalize approach for mailing- should this be the last one that is mailed and notify people that going forward things will be digital</p><p> c. Organization of Public Meeting- needs to be scheduled</p><p> d. Tour of North Shore- call for a field trip after the first of the year for another tour; to help with planning for planting near pump house</p><p> e. Design New Flyers- Identifies FOLA- covers what the main priorities; need a volunteer to work on this to create a new flyer</p><p> f. Booths at Birdapalooza- February at Magnolia Park; need a new Poster; need people to be able to talk to what we do</p><p> g. Membership Drive; will do a drive in conjunction with the Newsletter</p><p> h. T Shirts- found 60-70 old T Shirts from the early ‘90’s. Completed by SJWMD $ advertise as Vintage FOLA project and will see $25 each- will have available at next FOLA Board Meeting and then possibly annual meeting; or possibly at Birdapoolza- not sure if we can actually sell things; Mike to look into this (but probably not enough shirts to worry about) </p><p> i. FOLA Literature- where is the QR code and is this on the information/flyers for FOLA (we should have this on any hand-outs or information that is distributed) </p><p> j. Can we get Dr. Shortell on a tour of the North Shore? </p><p> k. Water levels- gates are closed on Apopka; there is some flow through the NERF (sp)</p><p> l. Kayak Launch at pump house will not proceed; the launch will go to the park in Lake County m. Airboat tours- these will potentially still go North even though this will impact the birding- if they go South; it will impact residential locations and this isn’t the “view” that people want to see. </p><p> m.i. Now Airboats need to have muffling systems; some of the noise is not from the engines</p>