AFD, Missoula, Montana

Attendees: Ed Lieser, Ken Brewer, Jane Kollmeyer, Tim Love, Cait Faulkner, Bryan Donner, Gordy Sanders, Mark Nicholson, Steve Hayes, Dave Stack, Dave Lichte, Glenn Koepke, Greg Schildwachter, John Ottman (briefly)

Gordy called the meeting to order at 9:40 am.

Awards were presented to Ed Lieser and Bryan Donner for their service to Montana SAF this past year, nice plaques and many thanks were expressed.

Bryan reviewed the minutes from the last meeting in December. Those members present accepted the minutes as written.

Bryan gave a treasurer’s report. We have $1848.48 in the general fund. The Dick Guth Memorial Fund is at $279.66 and the UofM Scholarship fund is at about $1365.94. Chapter financial reports are due to the state Sec/treasure for inclusion into the report to the national office. Numerous distribution checks have not be cashed by the chapters, this causes problems trying to balance the books. Steve and Gordy will do an audit on the books. Those members present accepted the financial report.

Flathead: The January meeting presenter was Tim Ryan from Larix Corp. Dave Clem was honored as a Fellow. A lively business meeting was held. $500 was sent to the U of M scholarship fund. The Flathead Chapter plans on supporting up to three students this year for the Natural Resources Youth Camp. Next Chapter meeting planned for the 3^rd week in February.

Libby: Lynx was the topic for the January meeting. Shorty Nelson was presented with a certificate as a 50-year member of SAF. Plans are being made for annual projects including the 5^th grade tour. $30 was sent to the U of M scholarship fund. Libby Chapter membership continues to decline.

Eastside: The Brewery Flats project is still a big focus of the chapter. Plans to plant trees and shrubs are scheduled for the 3^rd or 4^th week in April. The chapter will ask for help with this project statewide. A more in-depth update and schedule will be presented at the next executive board meeting.

Missoula: At the January meeting Judy Barker gave a presentation on The Tree Farm Program. Awards were given to Tim Love for SAF outstanding citizen, John Host and John Sherwood Trotter were presented with certificates for their 50-year service to SAF. Carl Fiedler was presented with a plaque as out going Chapter Chair. The drawing for perfect attendance was held with eight people in the running, Scott Kuehn won for the second year in a row. Plans are well under way for the annual meeting, as well as Forests for Humanity project and the centennial celebrations to be held at Fort Missoula throughout the year. $500 dollars were presented to the U of M scholarship fund.

Student: No report.

Committee Reports:

Science and Technology: Ken reported not much has progressed since the last meeting.

Centennial Committee: Still investigating the idea of a time capsule to be buried under the fire lookout at Fort Missoula. Time capsules are fairly complicated to organize since they need to be sealed with nitrogen gas and the contents need to be carefully selected so they can be understandable in the future. The approximate cost of putting together one of these is $1500. Forester fund grants to cover the costs of this and other centennial projects will be submitted to the National office. The biographies of early Montana Foresters are coming along also.

Mentor Program. No report.

Policy: Tim reported on a number of issues. Lynx, the decision to list has been deferred, the listing is not as certain, but a number of groups are waiting to sue USFWS if it doesn’t happen. The committee met with Dean Perry Brown from U of M School of Forestry and some of the faculty to help set some priorities and direction for the Forestry School to work towards. Policy issues coming up and being tracked by the national office are the 25% fund, position on TMDL issue, Stewardship contracts, which Montana has been important in this issue already, and Planning Rule Regulations. With all the activity in Montana recently Greg feels there is a window of opportunity to get the Governor’s office involved and perhaps a letter from the State Society would encourage some projects, and help the USFS get some projects going like; Butte Lookout, Good Creek, and Aspen Regeneration projects. The committee will work on this.

Newsletter: Cait reported on the progress of the next newsletter. The membership information will be in the up-coming issue. Chapter reports or newsletters should be sent to the web site, this is where Cait gets information for the newsletter. She also gets copies of SAF newsletters from other areas. Next deadline is March 15. Advertising not much response still looking for more sponsors. A suggestion was one advertisement from each chapter area each issue. Will follow-up on this idea.

CFE/CF: No Report

Montana Natural Resources Youth Camp: Camp this year is July 23-30. An article will be in the July newsletter, along with announcement of the open house day.

Cultural Diversity: No report. See membership report.

Membership: Rebecca Hendrix sent in a written report along with her resignation as chair of the Membership and Cultural Diversity committees. Her personal and work demands have changed making it harder to remain active on these SAF committees. There are 413 SAF members now in Montana. This represents a drop of 32 members from last year or a 6.7% decrease, compared with a National decline of 2.3%. A discussion was held on how to get non-members as well as past members involved with SAF. Bring a friend to a meeting? Members sponsor someone? there is a grant available from National for membership related issues. Gordy will look into applying for this grant and will approach a couple of members to see if they would chair the Membership and Cultural Diversity committees.

Communications: Melissa Squire has submitted her resignation as chair of the committee, she feels she is to far from the action. Beverly Yelczyn was suggested as a possible replacement as chair. Tim Love will talk with Bev and see if she would be interested.

BLM Advisory Council: Nothing new from last report.

Old Business:

Forests for Humanity: The project is progressing along; Tree Farmers are ready to donate timber, Accredited loggers and haulers have agreed to get the logs to specific mills that have agreed to participate in the production of the lumber. So far Pyramid Lumber, Stimson, Plum Creek, Eagle Stud, and Smurfit-Stone have agreed to donate either products or the cash value to help with the project. This initial Forests for Humanity project can be looked at as a model that can be replicated in other places in the State as well as Nationally. It was pointed out that SAF President Fred Ebel is doing some logging on his property near East Glacier, and has donated a load that will be going into the Plum Creek mill in Columbia Falls. The blitz build will start Sept. 13 and end Sat. Sept. 16; the house will look done from the outside. Spiker communication has designed a Montana Forests for Humanity logo that will be displayed on everything associated with this effort.

By-laws: Frank Cuff has updated the proposed by-laws to reflect the new national minimum by-laws. Frank will mail the new by-laws out to the voting membership with a ballot it will go out in February and the results should be known mid March.

U of M Scholarship: Chapters are reminded they are committed to an assessment of at least one dollar per member to be paid through Carl Fiedler by the end of January.

Update on State Meeting 2000: Dates have been established for September 13 through 16 and the location will be the 4-B’s Convention Center. There will be some overlap of activities with the National Tree Farmers Association meeting; Thursday night at the Fort, Habitat Home, and the Saturday field trip to Lubrecht. Speakers being considered are the Governor, and Patrick Moore (Greenpeace founder but now a forestry advocate). The Tree Farmers have contacted Moore, and maybe the University would be interested in having him speak, this would reduce costs for everyone. Ed Heilman will submit a proposal for the time capsule with an itemized budget to be voted on by the executive committee. Scott Kuehn has submitted grant requests to help fund Centennial projects as well as Forests for Humanities projects. Plum Creek has hired Spiker Communication to make a video of the Forests For Humanities project, basically a stump to finished home film with maybe the new home owners returning to the logging site and planting some trees

Membership Handbook: Frank Cuff is working on an update and it should be distributed after the changes in the Bylaws have been approved and the Handbook reprinted.

Joint Leadership Academy with Inland Empire: The location will be Lubrecht and the dates will be February 25 to 26. Gordy will finalize with the Inland Empire society chair Keith Blatner. Program is tentatively set; the draft agenda was passed out. Cost expected to be $65-$70, hope for a turn out of 25-35 people.

New Business: No new business discussed.

Next Meeting: The next executive committee meeting will be held on Friday, January 25, 2000, at the Leadership Conference at Lubrecht Forest.

Gordy adjourned the meeting at 12:25 p.m.