Board Meeting Minutes August 2002

TN-EPPC Board Meeting  10:00 am CST

AEDC Tullahoma, TN

In Attendance: Richard Clements, Kris Johnson (Proxy for Bob Parrish), Pat Parr (Proxy for Brian Bowen), Nancy Fraley, Anni Self, Regan Ritchie, Carrie Miller, Jack Ranney, Terri Hogan, Troy Ettel and Dan Brown

Welcome and Introductions

Guest Presentation by Troy Ettel, TWRA, State Ornithologist - Relationship between birds and plant communities.

Minutes: Minutes from May 28, 2002 meeting were read. A motion was made, seconded, and carried to approve the minutes.

General Operating Account: $18,120.91

Money Market: $3038.87

Total Assets: $21159.78

Net from the symposium: $3641.75

A motion was made, seconded, and carried to approve the treasurer’s report.

The BOD presented Kris a gift to thank her for four years of service as TN-EPPC President.

Brochure – The brochure is ready except Brian wants to add the opportunity for participation in a List Serve in effort to replace the newsletter.

 

Tennessee Atlas of Vascular Plants - Kris spoke with Dr. Gene Wofford about supplementing the Tennessee Atlas of Vascular Plants with invasive plant information by providing voucher specimens. TN-EPPC might be able to support the herbarium by providing these voucher specimens. Specimens need to be pressed and include a label with relative information. Herbarium labels may be available from the herbarium web page. It would be helpful if you could generate a county list and then separate out the exotics.

Poster Display - Carrie will ask Kevin for the draft and the disk and provide these to Jack Ranney so the folks at UT can finish up the display. A motion was made, seconded, and carried to purchase a display board. Nancy will work with Annie on this and get the dimensions to Jack.

The Plant List - will be published in the August issue of the Tennessee Academy of Science Journal.

 

Web Page - Richard has put together a draft of what our state web page could look like. Hosting could be handled by Feature Price at $16.95/month including 5gb of space and registered domain name. We could also have a TN-EPPC email. Set-up fee is $25.00 with a thirty day money back guarantee. Jack suggested that we look at what SAMAB is doing - not become subsumed by SAMAB but brainstorm together. Richard and Jack will get together and discuss how these two could complement each other. A motion was made, seconded, and carried to allow Richard to initiate moving our site information to our new web site.

 

SE-EPPC Update - Dan attended a meeting in July in Birmingham at the botanical garden. Several folks from Alabama attended. Dan took the minutes. One issue the SE board explored was the possibility of reimbursing officers for travel if it is not covered by the respective agencies. Also, they discussed if one person can have two votes at a meeting. This is because many states have officers present but no representatives. The current SE-EPPC general account balance is around $14,000. New affiliations would need to submit written bylaws, be required to have a minimum of two face-to-face meetings each year, and the board meeting minutes would need to be posted on the web page. After these requirements had been met admission of the affiliate could be decided. The SE-EPPC board requested submission of articles to Wildland Weeds. SE-EPPC is preparing written roles for the officers. The executive committee is now the active officers.

State and National EPPC MOA - This is to ratify the fact that TN-EPPC wants to be a member of the National EPPC. A motion was made, seconded, and carried to ratify this agreement in the MOA.

New Board Member - Terri Hogan was asked to serve as a board member. Terri accepted and a motion was made, seconded, and carried to accept Terri as a board member.

Invasive Species Management Manual - Kris says we are ready to go on updating. Ten new species will be added. She will bring a list of the ten to be added to the next meeting.

Upcoming Events and Educational Opportunities -

Jack reported he has received more funding to work on invasive species educational projects. Also, working on the Pulling Together project. Pitman Center, TN is working to develop an ordinance on invasives plantings. He has been conducting some training sessions to educate folks for volunteer monitoring for invasive plants. He has submitted several ideas to the USFWS in Asheville including a workshop with the nursery industry to offer native substitutes, get funding to subsidize web site development, and develop posters to target a particular audience (green industry, state & fed agencies, landscape architects). Jack is also working on a paper on invasive plant policies in Southern Appalachians.

Natural Areas Association annual meeting will be October 2-5 in Asheville. The details are on the web.

SAMAB meeting will be in early November in Gatlinburg.

National Public Lands Day is Saturday September 28, 2002.

Carrie told us about TNC’s Invasive Species Training course at Saint Simon’s Island. The next one is in September in the Berkshires. Also, an Invasive Plant workshop in Fort Deatrick, Maryland.

Kris related that Max Williamson will be giving an invasive plant workshop at the GSMNP in September 17.

Richard suggested there may be opportunities to get invasive species information out at the county fairs.

Richard is teaching a course on Native Plant Gardening this fall in Chattanooga.

Anni is continuing her participation in the Cumberland Compact. They would like help with some invasive plant removal.

SE-EPPC Symposium will be in Lexington, Kentucky next year in April or May. Joyce Bender is looking for speakers.

Southern Weed Science Society is meeting in Houston this year and Memphis next year. This year they will be adding a section on invasive species.

TWRA has just received two grants to assist private landowners in the conversion of hay fields to warm season grasses. Contact Tim White at 615-781-6601.

DOE is in the process of publishing a report on invasive species on ORNL natural areas. They are in the process of GPS’ing the Kudzu locations. Also working with a teachers summer program to control Oriental bittersweet and Microstegium as well as on a study to look at invasives penetration into the forest. ORNL has a MOA with TVA and TWRA to do some removal of Russian olive. They are also doing native grass restoration in an adjacent area in conjunction with wildlife demonstration plots.

Guest speaker next meeting - Patrick Thurman, TDOT Landscape Architect, was a suggestion. Carol Reese, TN Agricultural Extension Service.

Fall Meeting Date - November 1 or October 25

Jack Ranney led a brainstorming session on where TN-EPPC wants to go.

A motion was made, seconded, and carried to adjourn.

[ Home ] [ Up ] [ About TN-EPPC ] [ Membership ] [ New on the Site ] [ Useful Links ] [ Calendar of Events ] [ Native Plants Page ] [ Invasive Exotic Plants ] [ Exotic Plant Ordinances ]