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Friends of Wachusett Mountain is a non-profit group dedicated to conservation,
environmental education and land stewardship at Wachusett Mountain.

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Minutes & Reports

For more information, please e-mail scott@friendsofwachusett.org.

Wachusett-related events & meetings that were not run by Friends of Wachusett Mountain (FWM) are listed at the bottom of this page.

Previous year FWM minutes & reports can be found here: 2006

October 1, 2007 Meeting Minutes

Prepared by: Dave Goguen, Secretary
Location: 66 Edro Isle Rd Westminster, MA

7:00 pm     Project Update Vestibule
In an e-mail received from Dwayne Erickson, the State is requiring completed engineering and specification documents to be reviewed for satisfaction of state engineers and planners. Dave Goguen agreed to bring the documents to the final phase. Of concern are growing demands from the state at each level.

7:15 pm     State Representative Shows Interest
Scott reported on a conversation with Representative Lew Evangelides in which the representative showed a demonstrated interest in the WMSR and the FWM group.

7:30 pm     Notification of Annual Meeting
The directors indicated a stepped up effort to notify the public of our upcoming meeting. Another e-mailing as well as notices at the reservation were mentioned. Local newspaper outlets will also be investigated. A roadsign for the day will also be produced.

7:45 pm     Membership discussion
It was agreed by the directors present that membership will be taken at the annual meeting. Ginny will produce a membership form, the treasurer will accept checks to be deposited in the temporary account he is to set up as agreed at a previous meeting. He will provide the collected forms to the secretary for registration and forwarding of a membership card.

8:10 pm     Discussion on displays, activities
Scott will produce a display illustrating Grants and current research projects. Dave will produce a display illustrating the proposed vestibule project. Ginny will be producing a slide show presentation for computer display at the membership / info area. Scott and staff will provide an activity including insect trapping and identification. Further investigation is needed for refreshment and snacks for the activity, possibly through the DCR or Wachusett MTN Ski area. An additional area for suggestions or ideas for the Friends to focus on will be available and staffed by a member to be determined.

8:45 pm     It was agreed upon that we will meet at 12:00 before the activity at the location. Superintendents House location.

9:00 pm     Meeting Adjourned.

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September 10, 2007 Meeting Minutes

Prepared by: Dave Goguen, Secretary
Location: 66 Edro Isle Rd Westminster, MA
Attendance: Scott Smyers, Ginny Metevia, and Dave Goguen.

7:00 pm     Meeting began.

7:05 pm     Discussion of Annual Meeting and activity day:
The date and time confirmed with Dwayne Erickson / DCR. October 13th, 1:00 - 4:00 pm. Intro @ 1:00, Activities @ 1:30, Meeting @ 3:30 - 4:00.
Who will be notified: Friends e-mail list, other Friends groups, Wachusett Mtn Ski Area, State Rep Lew Evangelidis. Postings through the DCR.
The Board agreed upon goals of the Activity before the Annual meeting:
* Interest people in citizen science
* Membership drive
* Information about The Friends of Wachusett / specific projects

7:30 pm     Discussion of possible activities before the Annual meeting:
* Trapping and identification activity
* Proposed Vestibule display, Weather station demo, Grants display
* Plan for simple snack food and drink / Entertaining childrens activity
* Membership info area / What people would like the Friends to focus on
* Possible photographic slide show

8:00 pm     Discussion on membership drive:
Can we sign up members? Can we accept money? How much will membership cost? The board decided to accept members along with checks to be deposited into a temporary account authorized at the previous meeting. Membership will be for one year upon receipt. The secretary will keep a roll of members and expiration. Individual $15.00, Family $20.00. Members will receive a quarterly newsletter, occasional discounted events and e-mail updates about The Friends of Wachusett.

8:20 pm     Discussion on possible future locations for events other than the DCR sites:
* PMLD has expressed an interest in becoming involved
* Wachusett Mountain Ski Area has been very generous

8:30 pm     Set meeting for planning the Annual Meeting / Activity day:
Monday, October 1st. 7:00 pm. Location to be determined

8:45 pm     Meeting Adjourned.

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June 25, 2007 Meeting Minutes

Prepared by: Dave Goguen, Secretary
Location: 3 Gregory Rd, Princeton, MA
Attendance: Scott Smyers, Ginny Metevia, Lou Trostel, Mary Trostel, Jim Samdahl, and Dave Goguen.

7:00 pm     Meeting began.

7:15 pm     Scott Smyers was nominated, seconded and unanimously elected President.

7:25 pm     Jim Samdahl was nominated, seconded and unanimously elected Treasurer.

7:35 pm     Ginny Metevia was nominated, seconded and unanimously elected Vice President.

7:40 pm     Dave Goguen was nominated, seconded and unanimously elected Secretary.

7:45 pm     Board discussion conducted clarifying term length of Directors:
Directors serving 2 years will be, Scott Smyers, Ginny Metevia, Lou Trostel, Dave Goguen.
Directors serving 1 year will be, Mary Trostel, Jim Samdahl, Holly Jensen.

7:50 pm     Term length of Directors, as noted, accepted.

7:50 pm     Directors authorize an interim checking account as "Friends of Wachusett Mountain"

7:55 pm     Directors authorize Jim Samdahl and Lou Trostel to finalize "Articles of Incorporation" leading to the filing of "Form 1023" non profit status.

8:00 pm     Scott Smyers briefly introduced an integration project involving UMass Lowell / Oxbow Assoc. / Friends of Wachusett Mtn. These research teams are utilizing a grant awarded with Scott as field coordinator in a concerted research and educational activity.

8:10 pm     A brief recess for refreshment graciously provided by the host.

8:15 pm     Scott Smyers updated the Directors on recent state level meetings where funding is being spearheaded for Wachusett Reservation as recently publicized in the media.

8:30 pm     Jim initiated a proposal that the Friends be involved in the September hawk watch on September 15, 2007. The Directors agreed that this activity would be a worthwhile endeavor.

8:45 pm     A date was set for the annual meeting on Saturday, October 13th. An outdoor activity including food and membership drive followed by the annual meeting was suggested with further investigation.

9:00 pm     Meeting adjourned.

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June 16, 2007 Multi-School Invertebrate Research Field Trip

Ryan Bevilacqua (Fitchburg State) holding red eft salamander
Multi-school invertebrate
research field trip
Left to right, Ali Nord, Jess Poppe (AB, AB-going to Tufts), Amir Dolaty, Veronica Conant (UMass Lowell, Biology), Ryan Bevilacqua and Chris Picone (Fitchburg State)
Multi-school invertebrate
research field trip
Dip netting for frogs, tadpoles, and inverts in Echo Lake
Multi-school invertebrate
research field trip

Location: Echo Lake
Attendance: Ali Nord, Jess Poppe (AB, AB-going to Tufts), Amir Dolaty, Veronica Conant (UMass Lowell, Biology), Ryan Bevilacqua and Chris Picone, Ph.D. (Fitchburg State).

These photos are from our introductory field trip with students from Fitchburg State College (and professor Chris Picone), UMass Lowell, and Acton-Boxborough Regional High School.

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May 14, 2007 Meeting Minutes

Prepared by: Scott Smyers
Location: John Hitchcock Visitor Center
Attendance: Scott Smyers, Ginny Metevia, Lou Trostel, Jim Samdahl, Dwayne Ericson

Topics:

Scott submitted the letter regarding the Vestibule Project to DCR. The letter suggested methods to get the construction completed by professional contractors with their own insurance so the state wouldn't have to worry themselves over insurance. Similar to the Scusset Pavilion Project on other DCR land.

We discussed how it is a shame that the annual quantitative bird surveys were not going to continue because of cutting the staff ecologist position. How can we people motivated and organized to continue that research? No answers yet.

We held an official Organizational Meeting from 8:00-8:20 PM:

The Friends of Wachusett Mountain voted to appoint a Board of Directors: Scott Smyers, Lou Trostel, Jim Samdahl, Mary Trostel, Ginny Metevia, Dave Goguen, and Holly Jensen.

It was moved by Jim that we accept the directors and was approved by a unanimous vote.

Jim explained how we may have a raptor field trip to co-sponsor in September. He'll be working on the details in the near future.

The next meeting will be on June 25 at Jim's house.

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May 12, 2007 Vernal Pool Workshop

Check back here for a report on the workshop.

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April 14, 2007 Research Committee Meeting

Location: John Hitchcock Visitor Center
Attendance: Scott Smyers, Ginny Metevia, Holly Jensen, Brian Bettencourt, Chris Picone

Topics:

Scott Smyers, Brian Bettencourt, Chris Picone
Scott Smyers
Brian Bettencourt
Chris Picone

Potential research projects were discussed followed by a field excursion to the Bolton Pond area of the mountain.

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April 9, 2007 Meeting Minutes

Prepared by: Scott Smyers
Location: John Hitchcock Visitor Center
Attendance: Scott Smyers, Ginny Metevia, Jim Samdahl, Dwayne Ericson, Holly Jensen, Mary Trostel, Lou Trostel, Evelyn Jiminez

Topics:

Dwayne is going to be meeting with Frank Colby from UMass Lowell and others about installing the weather station sometime in the beginning of May.

Need to get the letter regarding the vestibule sent to DCR. Scott will complete and send soon.

Discussions have begun again about completing an instrument survey across a portion of the Bicentennial Trail to explore options for a Universal Access trail (e.g., accessible by wheelchair). Dwayne will be meeting with Chris Knuth of Geo-Services who has agreed to donate their services to provide the survey information.

Jim and Lou are going to continue to work on the revisions to Bylaw. We agreed that we could reduce the number of required members of the Board of Directors to seven.

What are we going to offer folks interested in joining our group? Some ideas include a print Newsletter, educational programs - at least one per season, and a sticker or mug or something. Ultimately, we may be able to charge people to participate in some of our programs, but members could attend free.

Scott has organized a few local professors and professional biologists to meet on April 14 to discuss a coordinated research program focused on biomonitoring. Since we have no real funding, students or volunteers will do most of the actual work. Therefore, we want to make sure we proceed efficiently, but obtain useful, meaningful data.

Dwayne and Evelyn brought to our attention that on May 12 the DCR is coordinating a Park Serve day where all the parks coordinate volunteer programs where regular folks can help with building or any needed project identified as priority by the DCR staff. We'd like to do something at Wachusett featuring some of the research and educational aspects of what we are trying to do. Scott will lead a vernal pool ecology program. Scott will work up some sort of descriptive text for an announcement.

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March 17, 2007 Green Day Event

Location: Wachusett Mountain Ski Area, Princeton
Attendance: Lou Trostel, Mary Trostel, Ginny Metevia

Recap:

Mary Trostel "manning" the Friends table
Mary Trostel
Mary Trostel and Bryan Lavin, Marketing and Events Coordinator for Wachusett Mountain ski area.
Mary Trostel and Bryan Lavin

The Friends of Wachusett Mountain group was invited to participate in Green Day activities held at Wachusett Mountain ski area on Saturday, March 17th. Mary and Lou Trostel and I were on hand to recruit potential members and explain what the Friends group is all about. At days end, we were happy to have recorded e-mail addresses for 5 or 6 interested people.

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March 12, 2007 Meeting Minutes

Prepared by: Scott Smyers
Location: Wachusett Mountain Ski Area, Princeton
Attendance: Scott Smyers, Lou Trostel, Mary Trostel, Don Stoddard, Ginny Metevia, Dave Goguen, Jim Samdahl, Deb Cary

Topics:

Discussed revisions to Bylaw and related documents. We tried to address comments from Corey Howard and delegated final edits to Lou and Jim. Jim and Lou are going to try to meet to form the official list of the proposed Board of Directors so we can form the official BOD by the next meeting.

Don brought to our attention the opportunity to promote our group at the Green Day event at the ski area which is this coming Saturday. Mary and Lou agreed to show up to man a table and collect names. Ginny said she hoped to make it as well.

Dave didn't have any luck getting a bank account since we have yet to file our articles of incorporation, we're out of luck for now.

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February 12, 2007 Meeting Minutes

Prepared by: Scott Smyers
Location: Wachusett Mountain Ski Area, Princeton
Attendance: Scott Smyers, Don Stoddard, Chris Brown, Holly Jensen, Doug Williams, Ginny Metevia, Mary Trostel, Lou Trostel, Jim Samdahl, Dwayne Ericson, Dave Goguen

Topics:

Insurance cost estimates were discussed by Don Stoddard based on his experience with the Friends of Willard Brook. $400/yr for $1 million of liability insurance.

We set ourselves a one-month deadline to complete paperwork to file with government. March 12, 2007.

Dave will try to set up a simple bank account for the group, but has made it clear that he is not volunteering for the Treasurer responsibility.

We need to come up with a fancy and professional email message to ask folks to actually join and pay a membership or provide a donation. What should our message say? Much discussion, but no real conclusions. We'll all think about it.

Tentatively decided on a $15 membership fee per person or household.

Scott will complete draft of Vestibule letter to DCR for internal review. The letter will explain how we can use volunteer labor and donated materials to construct the vestibule without compromising the DCR's liability. Dave and Dwayne have met on this issue several times and we are now ready to move forward for DCR approval.

Scott has collaborated with Dr. Brian Bettencourt from UMass Lowell to apply for a Healy Public Service Grant. If awarded, this grant will focus on expanding the population genetics studies of spotted salamanders from Wachusett and other populations in Massachusetts as well as providing supplies and funding for other research and educational programs coordinated by the Friends of Wachusett Mountain.

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Great hike!

Our first public event was a success!

Winter Hike 2007
Winter Hike 2007
Winter Hike 2007
Winter Hike 2007
Winter Hike 2007
Winter Hike 2007
Winter Hike 2007
Winter Hike 2007
Winter Hike 2007
Winter Hike 2007
Winter Hike 2007
Winter Hike 2007

Take a look at a few photos from the first Friends hike, which took place on Sunday, February 11th.

Led by Doug Williams and Ginny Metevia, the hike was co-sponsored by the Department of Conservation and Recreation, and the Appalachian Mountain Club.

If you attended the hike and would like to share your experiences or photos, Send us an e-mail and we'll post them here.

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January 8, 2007 Meeting Minutes

Prepared by: Scott Smyers
Location: Lou and Mary Trostel Residence, Princeton
Attendance: Mary Trostel, Lou Trostel, Scott Smyers, Ginny Metevia, Jim Samdahl, Doug Williams, Holly Jensen

Topics:

The Commonwealth of MA has officially not renewed the contract for the Ecologist Position at Wachusett Mountain State Reservation. We were all upset about this and hope that maybe, just maybe, the Patrick Administration will pay more attention to the ecology and conservation issues in all our state parks and forests. This decision will most certainly have a negative impact on the quality of the reservation on the short and long term.

Articles of Organization have been drafted by Jim S. and will be reviewed by the volunteers from Friends of Wachusett Mountain (FWM). We need to make sure it is on the correct official Form.

The vestibule has been tentatively approved by the DCR engineer, but needs to go through their legal department. It appears that if we get actual professional contractors to volunteer do the work (including their own liability insurance) we can probably find a way to get this thing built without having to put a project to bid. This is the part that gets confusing. We'll find a way to make it happen and keep everyone happy and get this built so that it doesn't cost the DCR any money.

We had further discussion on the idea of having an official winter hike with our group. The idea is to have a hike promoted by FWM, DCR, and the Appalachian Mountain Club. Doug W. and Ginny M. have agreed to work on scheduling and lead a group on a hike with a bit of an after hike gathering for socializing and discussing what's next for FWM.

Weather Station. There has been direct correspondence between Dwayne Ericson of DCR and Professor Frank Colby of Univ. of Mass. Lowell regarding the details of installation and data management and data display. They plan to set up a meeting soon with other DCR representatives to discuss how to make this happen.

Scott S. discussed some research ideas regarding coordinating volunteers to monitor spring peeper calling intensity from around Wachusett Mountain. Ultimately, we hope to have the data displayed on our website with comparisons to other locations across Massachusetts.

Geocaching. We discussed this growing new outdoor activity that uses GPS on advanced scavenger hunt games. Since people are already participating in this activity on and around Wachusett, we'd like to take a role in promoting responsible geocaching. Basically, don't trash the off-trail woods to get to your target location. We would like to help promote this idea with some basic guidelines we will try to get posted on our website. We discussed how if 100 people converge on one spot per year, there is likely to be some impact on the vegetation and other habitat features.

Form 1023 filing fee. Ginny M. found some info that states we can probably file a $300 filing fee instead of $750. This is very good news.

Wachusett-Related events

Events not run by Friends of Wachusett Mountain, but took place on or around the mountain or Reservation.

May 19, 2007 Montachusett Mycological Society Mushroom Walk

Dr. Lawrence Millman lead a mushroom walk for the newly formed Montachusett Mycological Society. The setting was the Wachusett Meadow Wildlife Sanctuary.

If you attended the walk and would like to share your experiences or photos, Send us an e-mail and we'll post them here.

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Saturday, May 12 Park Serve Day

Read more about Park Serve Day here: Park Serve Day

May 5, 2007 Earth Day Clean-up

at Wachusett Mountain Ski Area

Over 250 volunteers helped clean up the ski area. Check out the pics at www.wachusett.com

Previous year minutes & reports can be found here: 2006

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Help keep destructive fish out of the Summit Pond

Special Thanks To

Oxbow Associates, Inc.

Please click the link above or check out our Friends of Friends page.

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Friends of Wachusett Mountain Contact Information: P.O. Box 301, Princeton, MA 01541.
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