Minutes of the Meeting
Fitzwilliam Town Library Board of Trustees
4 May 2020
Present via electronic meeting: Dick Goettle, Beth Lorenz, Pam Troccia, Robin Marra, Patricia Toomey, Brian Doerpholz and Library Director, Kate Thomas.
The Chair of the Board of Trustees has concluded that an emergency has necessitated the meeting be held electronically. The emergency has been determined to exist due to the risk of exposure to COVID-19 by the physical attendance of the Trustees. An electronic notice of the meeting was posted on the Fitzwilliam Library website as well as the Facebook page, with instructions for the public to join the meeting, if interested.
Robin Marra called the meeting to order at 6:00 p.m.
The minutes of the April 6th meeting were reviewed: Dick Goettle put forth a motion, seconded by Trish Toomey, to approve them as submitted. The motion was passed with affirmative votes, received by voice from Robin Marra, Beth Lorenz, Pam Troccia, Trish Toomey, and Dick Goettle.
The Trustees reviewed the Library Manifest and Spending-to-Date Expense Report and will arrange with Kate to go to the Library to sign them. An issue was discovered by Dick Goettle in some line items in the expenses-to-date report due to receiving an incorrect monthly Payroll and Expenses Report from the Town. Kate will make the adjustment on her report. Dick also noted that The Trustees of the Trust will be sending the Library a check for $3,400.00 to be used for book purchases
Kate Thomas presented her monthly report. Circulation for April was 846, down 50%, which was to be expected during the current Stay at Home order. Of that 846, 300+ was downloadable material. 13 virtual programs were held with a total attendance of 51. Meredith has been on medical leave and will be meeting with Kate on May 6th to discuss the Summer Reading program. Curbside check out continues and the Library has started accepting returns if boxed or bagged. They are left in the entryway for four days and then checked in and shelved. Kate discussed the website stating that Coni has been ill for quite some time but finally feeling better and should be able to make some progress soon.
Robin Marra inquired about the appointment of Brian Doerpholz as an alternate trustee. Beth Lorenz spoke with Debbie at Town Hall who confirmed that the appointment was approved. The appointment of an additional alternate trustee was discussed and Kate will try to reach out to another individual.
It has been discovered that there are missing Trustee Minutes on the Library’s Website. Kate will be asking Meredith to take on the task of transferring the hard copies of the minutes to the Website as soon as possible. Maintaining a copy of the minutes on a memory stick, as well as onto a hard drive in multiple locations, was also discussed.
Dick Goettle has not heard from Selectman Baker regarding the status of the RFP for the warrant article. Once he has, Dick will provide a list of projects the Trustees of the Library have previously discussed.
A meeting of the Friends of the Library was held on 4/27/20. No programs are currently being scheduled due to COVID 19.
Robin Marra has agreed to take over the application process for the Moose Grant. The application is due to be presented to the New Hampshire ARTS Conservation Projects Council by May 1, 2020.
After review of other local town library Bylaws, Robin Marra presented a draft of the Bylaws of the Fitzwilliam Town Library. After review, clarifications and revisions were suggested. Robin will have an updated version ready for review at the June 1st meeting. It was also decided that the Library Trustee Code of Conduct will be an appendix to the final Bylaws and would be able to be viewed on the website with a link from the Bylaws to the Code of Conduct. The establishment of sub committees, from time to time, was discussed and will be finalized at the June 1st meeting of the Library Trustees.
The New Hampshire Humanities will be offering grants for general operating support to New Hampshire-based humanities and cultural nonprofits and libraries with annual budgets of $500,000 or less. $370,200.00 is being made available through funding provided by CARES Act & the National Endowment for the Humanities and is intended to provide emergency-relief funding to organizations suffering financial losses due to COVID-19 and its consequences. Applications will be accepted on a rolling basis starting May 1, 2020 until all monies are committed and all funds will be awarded by October 31, 2020. Dick Goettle will be completing the application for review by New Hampshire Humanities.
Chair Robin Marra provided a proposed schedule to review Library Policies. The adoption of this Review Schedule would formalize, and provide consistency with, the process. Each policy should indicate on the final page what date the policy was originally adopted and the concurrent review (or revised) dates. A motion to adopt the Library Policies Review Schedule was made by Dick Goettle, seconded by Beth Lorenz and approved by verbal roll call by Pam Troccia, Trish Toomey, Robin Marra, Dick Goettle and Beth Lorenz.
The next meeting is scheduled to be held on Monday, June 1st at 5:45. The Chair will determine whether that meeting will be held electronically if the virus situation warrants.
A motion to adjourn the meeting at 6:57 p.m. was put forth by Beth Lorenz and seconded by Trish Toomey. Motion was approved by affirmative votes, by voice roll call from Pam Troccia, Beth Lorenz, Trish Toomey, Dick Goettle and Robin Marra.