Parks and Recreation Memorial Gifts Ad Hoc Sub-Committee Meeting
Thursday, January 10, 2013, 3:30 PM, Conference Room, Town Hall South
Present: Rich Boritz, Jan Brookes, Maureen Crick Owen, Amy Mangold, Carl Samuelson
Directors Mangold and Samuelson discussed the enormous number of offers to donate goods and/or services. The directors spoke about several issues:
- In some cases there have been multiple offers of the same item, such as trees and sets of 26 park benches.
- All offers of donations need to be collected and categorized, and responded to.
- There is a lack of information about what other groups in town are doing, and an absence of coordination among those groups.
- Those groups and individuals who have already donated services and goods to the town need to be thanked in writing.
- The maintenance garage is housing sculpture sent by donors. The department/commission will need to decide where they are going.
- The directors would like the committee, subject to the commission’s approval, to create
- standards to aid the department/commission in the selection of projects. These standards will also guide donors.
- standardized signage to recognize donors.
- standards for the donations of trees.
In the long range, the directors would like the commission to create a Friends Newtown P & R group that would manage the Parks & Recreation Gift Fund. The towns of Ridgefield and Westport have similar groups. They would also like to see an endowment fund for the care and maintenance of those gifts.
After discussion, the committee proposed the following
Standards for the Acceptance of Donations:
The gift
- furthers the department’s mission.
- can be maintained as part the department’s normal and routine responsibilities.
- meets the specifications determined by the department.
The committee decided that its next priorities will be to:
- establish how information is flowing in town
- get back to people who have contacted us.
- review unsolicited donations.
To accomplish the first priority, committee members will contact the following people:
Rich Boritz’s responsibilities: (Rich will make phone contact/)
- Bob Tait
- Debbie Aurelia
- Rob Sibley
- Carol Ross
- Bill Halstead
- Chris Kelsey
- Board of Education/Debbie Leidlein and the Town School Offices
Maureen Crick Owen’s responsibilities: (Maureen will make email contact.)
- Carol Mahoney
- Sue Marcinek
- Fred Hurley
- Mike Kehoe and Maureen Will
- Donna Culbert
- Ron Bolmer
- Captains of the Fire Houses
Jan Brookes’ responsibilities: (Jan will make phone contact.)
- Patrick Kinney (events coordinator for the United Way) and/or Bob
Geckle
- Newtown Volunteer Task Force/AssistNewtown.org – Robin Fitzgerald
- Healing Newtown – Jennifer Johnston
In each conversation, committee members will:
- explain our process and goals
- ask the contact to explain his/her group’s process and goals.
- ask who the group’s contact person is
- request that all donations suitable to the Newtown parks be directed to the Park and Rec Department
The committee will meet on Tuesday, January 15 in the Conference Room at Town Hall South.
Jan Brookes
Committee Secretary
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