February 21, 2006

Hello, Everyone! Just wanted to update you on what we covered at our last meeting.We reviewed our previous meeting when we held our elections. We read through the sample by-laws and suggested a few minor changes. These by-laws will be presented for approval at our next meeting. Two items which impact the group need to be decided: level of membership dues ($20 per year was suggested) and regular meeting place (do we prefer meeting at someone’s home or more public venue). If you have opinions on these topics, please let me know or we can discuss at the next meeting.I discussed the recent meeting that Sheila and I held with Mr. Supera. Essentially, the news is encouraging from several perspectives. He appears interested to assist financially, he is considering working with us on other aspects of fundraising and he has a breadth of experience in development which could be very helpful to us in general. We are focused on preparing a presentation for him which could get our financing initiatives rolling and Robert Steele was very helpful in providing ideas on preparing this presentation.We planned our next meeting (Wed. March 22, time and location TBD) where we should discuss forming our committees. I also suggested that we invite someone from another playlot that has been renovated, to give us some insights into their experience and answer a few questions. The idea would be to extend such invitations regularly, so we get the benefit of the various playlot renovations which have taken place recently.New business included our next park events – Spring Eggstravaganza (Saturday April 8th 10am-12pm), and Earth Day Park Clean-up (April 22nd) – please mark your calendars and we will be doing more planning at our next meeting.

Thank you, again, and please let me know any ideas or comments in the meantime. Look forward to seeing you soon! Our days in the park are not far away!

Amy

October 19, 2005

Hi, everyone! We had another great meeting tonight. Here is the summary:Sheila and I updated everyone about our progress since the last meeting. We’ve met with the Wrightwood Neighbors Association, who granted us seed capital to get up and running. We attended the Chicago Park District Meeting to present our council and project to the superintendent of parks. We were acknowledged by the CPD and they asked the park planner who is working on Jonquil Park to make plans for our park, as well. This will be a more efficient way to plan for both parks and lead to more complimentary designs.We have initiated designs for a logo which will be used for all Supera Playlot correspondence and signs. We have an offer from one of our volunteers to construct a website for our playlot and its activities. Both of these initiatives will enhance the advisory council’s community presence. Our kick-off event will be a Halloween party on Sunday October 30 1-3pm. The CPD is providing virtually all supplies for this event and some staff, but we need volunteers for set-up, help during the party and clean-up. I will circulate a separate email describing the party and asking for volunteers. We will use the time during the party (while we’re having fun) to spread the word about the formation/activities of the council, register new members and let people know about our next meeting.Robert Steele presented a summary of our next steps. He observed that our council is forming well. He explained that our next meeting should be where we all complete membership applications in order for us all to formally join the advisory council. This will be the official formation of the council, development its roster of members, giving people roles and responsibilities. The members will nominate and vote on their selections for President, Vice President Secretary and Treasurer of the council. Robert provided summaries of those roles, as well as descriptions of the three main committees for which the president and officers will appoint chairpersons. These committees are Finance/Fundraising, Programs and Landscape/Physical Plant. Please take some time to consider any officer or committee role which you would like to consider for yourself (or others). We will add additional officers or committees over time as we see fit and the by-laws allow. Robert also gave us outlines for our meeting agendas and minutes, to help us compose these in a consistent manner.

THE NEXT MEETING IS PROPOSED AS MONDAY, NOVEMBER 14TH AT 6:30PM. IT IS CRITICAL THAT EVERYONE BE THERE TO VOTE FOR OFFICERS AND COMPLETE MEMBERSHIP FORMS. PLEASE RSVP TO LET ME KNOW YOUR AVAILABILITY. I will let you know about the location, once I know how many people will attend.

We discussed some next steps including meeting with the aldermen, coordinating some fundraising and survey efforts with Jonquil Park and our next event at the park (hot chocolate sale street side at the park with caroling and holiday crafts?) to keep our momentum going through the winter.

Thanks to everyone for your continued involvement!

Amy and Sheila

September 15, 2005

Hi, Everyone!Many thanks to those who attended our meeting on Thursday. It was great to meet all of you and I think that it as time well spent! We were joined by Robert Steele, CPD Community Outreach Manager; Tom Bracy, Area Manager North Region and Kara Donaldson, Park Supervisor for our area.While I am not able to provide full minutes of the meeting, I wanted to summarize the highlights for everyone. After a few introductions, Robert led the meeting by describing the history and role of park advisory councils in Chicago. He gave us a lot of information that describes the steps we should take to form ourselves and help initiate a group structure that will help us accomplish our goals in a more organized fashion. These papers will be copied so that everyone can look at the relevant ones. There are some formalities that are very important to instill in our process, since we endeavor to request donations from others, for which we are fiscally responsible! He outlined the basic sub-committees that we should form (Landscape, Programs, Fundraising/Finance) and the typical officers that we should elect (Present, Vice President, Secretary, Treasurer). He encouraged us to allocate roles based on our existing expertise! This will greatly enhance the speed with which we can achieve our goals. Please encourage anyone you know with specific skills to join our group! Don’t forget to consider people that live in other parts of Lincoln Park, but who use Supera for playing. We can also create other committees or officers that we deem appropriate as time goes on. He made a few specific recommendations about the next steps which we should take:1) Attend Chicago Park District’s annual capital budget meeting – Amy Hand and Sheila O’Sullivan to attend September 22

2) Attend Wrightwood Neighbors Association board meeting – Amy and Sheila to attend September 19

3) Get some events underway – we have proposed to CPD a Halloween party at Supera on Sunday October 30th from 1-3pm.

4) Partner with a sister agency that will act as our fiscal agency (to accomplish tax deductibility for the donations that we solicit)

5) Contact elected officials such as aldermen, state representative, state senator, county commissioner (we are organizing)

6) Organize our next meeting – Thursday October 13th at 6:30 (probably at same location – will advise).

Please note that we are planning to meet every 3-4 weeks in order to keep momentum going, but will keep the meetings to an hour or so! Please let me know if I have missed any points or if you have any ideas to share at this point.

Thanks and best regards,

Amy Hand

Earth Day T-Shirt Contest

Hello.  It's time to have your K-8 students help us design the t-shirt for this years Earth Day Parks & Preserves Clean Up.  The entry form can be downloaded at our website: http://www.fotp.org/downloads/2006TshirtEntryForm.doc  This years theme is "It's My Park, It's My Preserve".  We are hoping that students art will depict active park or preserve scenes.  The Winner will receive an award and be part of our Earth Day kick-off for the Earth Day Celebration. 

 Thank you for passing on the word about the contest.  Entry's are due March 21st! 

 Regards, 

Mary Eileen 

Mary Eileen Sullivan
Director of Volunteers
Friends of the Parks
55 E. Washington, Suite 1911
Chicago, IL  60602 312-857-2757×13
www.fotp.org