Roll call 5:13pm
Heidi Bryan, David Miller, Tami Manning, Sarah Finnell, Patrick Endres, Marylee Bates
Open in prayer –
Marylee opened us in prayer
Accept minutes from May 2017 meeting
MSP (Patrick, Sarah) to accept the meeting minutes.
Signature items
Patrick Endres made a resolution to authorize Marylee Bates (ED) the permission to sign on behalf of Fairbanks Youth Advocates Corporation for contract agreements with the Fairbanks North Star Borough. This signer authorization is to remain in place until revoked by the Board.
All accepted the above resolution.
Board Recruitment
Patrick and Marylee shared a discussion they had with Rodney regarding enlarging the board.
“These new board members are people you already know”
Announce that the FYA Board is “now accepting applications”
Hold a board meeting tailored to potential board members
Heidi will write informational letter.
All agreed to bring names of potential prospects board members to the next meeting.
ED Report
Story from the shelter: Two OCS kids. One FYA worker became a foster parent for one of the OCS kids. The other youth became suicidal.
Only 10 homes in the Fairbanks community that accept teenagers. Christmas time had 5 or 6 kids who went back to Family/Relatives, slowly the kids left – no child wants to be the one left in a shelter. They want want we all want..to be loved and accepted.
We received a Holland America grant for adding an additional camera to the front entrance of The Door and Putting a light and camera on the “park” for security.
House-parent hire: We have interviewed several prospects
Discussed the idea of expanding a Youth Development program that would include Coffee Cart idea morphing and Library Location, SaltChuck Company Investment. Noel Wien Library interested in the coffee cart being run out of the library. North Pole Coffee Company, Tom Bartels is all-in. Wants to help out in training and equipment.
FYA Long Term / Campus Planning
Vertical Structure/5 Year outlook: Vertical versus Horizontal expansion. Patrick would like to have a brainstorming session with the board around these ideas.
The board agreed to ask three different survey firms to provide a bid to complete a plot plan for FYA properties. Marylee agreed Julie can help with this. Patrick asked if Julie, VISTA, can focus on public information as the next component of her project.
Admin Center: A more stable administrative center for the ED and supporting staff.
Marylee has made tremendous progress with staff development and building the structure of her team, however, she has had a transient office, currently using one of the rooms remodeled for a counselor expansion concept at Clearwater. 5 years from now both Dave and Marylee most likely will have transitioned from their current positions at FYA, and some of us may have other developments/changes as well. Consider what FYA might look like with either or both of them.
An administrative brain center is vital to organization and structure. I’m not sure what/where this would take place? Perhaps remodel the lower level of the greenhouse and convert it to admin? How much space would be required for this? What will eventually happen with the brown house? How can we bring a degree of permanence in this area?
Public Information: Short and long term Public Information Campaign Plan
A long term public information operations plan is critical. This would include web, social media, tv, radio, newsletter, other literature, and all of our public presence strategies. We have shot-from-the-hip with this thus far, although with some success. I think it is time to really take a hard look at this in the scope of a 5 year plan, or at least a 2-3 year plan. What would the organization of this look like. Who is our constituency? How do we reach the diversity of our constituency? Churches, TV, Radio stations, other organizations? The (VISTA) job description is currently focused on developing/researching a campus plan. If possible, this could be amended/modified to include Public Information and the person in this position could research the specific demographics to our community and explore options/ideas to guide us.
Endowments:
Take the next step towards an endowment friendly option for donors. If we have a portal in place to receive estate or endowment donations, that would broaden our net to capture those seeking to utilize an organization like the Alaska Community Foundation, or similar.
Patrick will contact The Alaska Community Foundation to explore options and information for the board to review future participation
