Minutes of October 6, 2015 Meeting

Present: Cindy Stableford, Betsy Ruml, John Hawkins, Rachel Kurland

Minutes of May 13, 2015 approved.

Rachel reported that all is going well for Library Board. The fuel oil was paid for early and the Friends paid several other expenses. The State is pushing for the cleaning of the Brumidi painting of Justin Morrill but the Board is counting on the State to get the funding to pay for the cleaning. There continue to be ongoing concerns about lack of space, particularly in the children’s section, but there are no immediate plans for fundraising or expanding.

Cindy reported that the Friends had a very successful membership drive, raising approximately $4300. The July 4th book sale returns were up 20%, enabling the Friends to contribute $3000 to the Library. David Webb is chairing the Holiday Sale. The new officers of the Friends are David Webb – President, Bethany Cole – Vice President, Cindy Stableford – Treasurer, and Anni Praetorius – Secretary. The Melanie Finn reading was great and very well attended but did point to the need for a sound system for Library events.

In her Chair’s report, Cindy discussed the amended Rules of Operation for the Investment Committee. Betsy and Rachel did a presentation to the Board on the amended Rules of Operation and the Board voted to approve the changes on June 8th.

Betsy reviewed the investment portfolio for the committee, noting that while the portfolio was down 3.1% from the end of last year, when compared to several well-known indices, we have done fairly well with our investments. Taking the Vanguard Wellington Fund (down 3.67% for the year) as a standard, our index fund approach seems to be working well.

The committee discussed changing the meeting schedule from 3 per year to 2 per year, deciding to try and meet in early January and late May going forward. The next two meetings were set for January 5th, 2016 and May 17th, 2016. We also decided to meet at 9am rather than 8am.

The meeting adjourned at 8:45am.

Submitted by John Hawkins