Meeting+2008+Mar+20

Wake County Nature Preserves Meeting Thurs 2008 Mar 20 8:30-9:30 1214 Jordan Hall, NCSU Campus


 * Attendance Notes:**

Attending: Hess, Charlynne Smith (new), Ramsey, Blank, Wallace, Cienek, Petrovick, Connors, Cheshire


 * Announcements:**

The Spring 2008 NC Partners in Flight meeting will be held from 9:30-4:30 on Thurs, March 27 at Blue Jay Point County Park. An agenda is located at this web address: http://faculty.ncwc.edu/mbrooks/pif/Meetings%20and%20Minutes/NC%20Partners%20in%20Flight%202008%20Spring%20Meeting.htm


 * Annotated Agenda Items**

//Please add items you'd like to see on the agenda by Tues18 Mar 5PM//

//Please add your pre-meeting discussion of these items under the item right here on the agenda, or on the appropriate linked page.//


 * Introductions (old and new members)** (5 minutes)

Charlynne Smith is with NCSU's Dept of Parks, Recreation, and Tourism Management and is a GIS professional.
 * NOTES**


 * Debrief of Mayors Association meeting** (Blank / Hess / Ramsey / Snow) (15 minutes)

The presentation went well and the mayors passed a resolution endorsing our project; we will receive this in writing. They were very supportive. The final presentation is posted on the Mayors Council Meeting page.

What next? - Hess will send a note to the mayors next week thanking them for their support and with the one-page summary of our partnership attached.

From Jamie: I agree it went very well. Here are my take-aways from the meeting. Hope others there will chime in as well.
 * we got a great reception and did an equally great job of laying a foundation for future efforts to work with municipalities
 * discussion topics included: question about how much public open space there is in the County, Wake Forest newest parks, Fuquay-Varina talk with both planning and operational sides, acquisition of land in addition to already owned land, concern about if we were asking for money, urgency of purchasing land in Mark's Creek
 * by sending the executive summary to the mayors, it will give them all a more full description of our interests and our project. This will also be a good introduction for staff (hopefully the mayors will pass it on!)
 * we need to stress that we are only interested in the __best__ natural heritage lands -- I was concerned about the questions about how much public open space there is was not really relevant, since most of that land may not qualify as a nature preserve. Should we revise the mission to say "the most ecologically valuable..."?
 * when we present to OSAPAC and others, we should highlight the long term vision of a system of well recognized, well managed and high quality nature preserves across the county, regardless of who owns them
 * we need to build survey data into the power point for future presentations
 * it might be helpful to refine our examples to provide more diversity -- and I think the examples slide should be moved to later in the presentation
 * in the presentation, it should be "Wake Audubon Society"
 * we need to decide the best way to bring in municipalities
 * we need to also focus on the volunteer side of this project


 * NOTES**
 * We decided not to add "the most" in front of "ecologically valuable" in our mission - we can deal with issues like that as they come up without "micromanaging" the mission statement.
 * There was some discussion about the vision of a system of preserves. Basic idea is that people could get a pamphlet describing all of the nature preserves in Wake County, regardless of municipality. Some concern was raised that we might not want to identify the exact location of all of these areas, because some will be ecologically sensitive and we have a management recommendation to control access (ie, guided tours) to some exceptional natural areas.
 * We will beef up the PowerPoint with some survey information. General idea is to present a core presentation that can be modified (by removing or rearranging slides) to meet audience needs.
 * We need some basic statistics about open space in the county for use in presentations, answering questions, and any kind of brochures we might want to deliver. It would also be nice to have some of that on the web site.

//Action//
 * How to proceed with municipalities will be the major agenda item for our next meeting.
 * Hess & Ramsey will work on presentation.
 * Hess will send thank you to mayors next week


 * GIS course work for project** (Hess / Cheshire) (10 minutes)

Hess and Sinclair will attend Cheshire's class on Tues & Wed to introduce students to our partnership and the product we are looking for. Sinclair will introduce them in detail to the heritage data on Wed.
 * NOTES**

Products desired (draft):
 * All municipal and county park land and open space, showing overlap with Significant Natural Heritage Areas (SNHA) and Natural Heritage Element Occurrences (EO) - in map form.
 * An excel spreadsheet with a list of all park and open space parcels showing for each (a) size of parcel, (b) number of acres of SNHA within the parcel, (c) list of SNHA's in the parcel, (d) number of EOs in the parcel, (e) list of EOs in the parcel.
 * others to be determined

//Action//
 * Cheshire & Hess will develop a one-page product description for class
 * Hess & Sinclair will meet with class


 * Other GIS possibilities** (Hess / Smith) (10 minutes)

Charlynne Smith, with NCSU's Parks, Recreation, & Tourism Management Department, has expressed interest in working with GIS classes on this project. We can discuss possibilities with her.

Charlynne is interested in developing a capstone, service-learning course for GIS students and would like to work with our partnership to develop the first offering of the course in the fall. Possibilities raised ...
 * NOTES**
 * map book with information about each nature preserve property
 * begin work on mapping out the priority wildlife habitats (critical for identifying outstanding natural areas)

//Action//
 * None immediately, but Hess will keep up conversation about this with Smith


 * Service-learning training** (Hess) (10 minutes)

The College of Natural Resources / Center for Excellence in Curricular Engagement team met 19 March to talk about a service-learning training session. We'd like to do it at NCSU and Marks Creek. The best date we could come up with - before faculty leave for the summer - is Thursday 1 May 8:30-3:30. Basic idea is about 1.5 hours of intro on campus, then we go out to Marks Creek and - **here's where I need your help** - do something useful. Then we come back to campus for lunch, reflection, and debriefing about service-learning. We need partner participation. This is one of our regular meeting days, and I'm hoping many partners can spend the day with us to start learning how all of this is supposed to work.

For faculty who are interested, we will have a follow-up training session on the following Wed, 7 May, also probably 8:30-3:30, to get down to the nuts and bolts of how to modify curricula to include service-learning.

Hess described this as an "immersion" experience that provides a one-day introduction to what service-learning is and how it works. All partners would experience service-learning from multiple perspectives and gain better understanding of how it works. 1.5 hours at NCSU getting background info, drive out to Marks Creek and perform a useful service as a group (1.5 hours on site), return to NCSU for lunch and reflection.
 * NOTES**

Ideas for service suggested were ...
 * GPS trail locations
 * herp coverboards
 * bird identification
 * water quality measurement
 * plant ID

Agreed we need to keep the list reasonable and doable within 1.5 hours. Major discussion item for next meeting. Hess/Clayton will organize.

//Action//
 * Hess will get out announcement to all partners next week.
 * Hess / Clayton will work on organization - more schedule details by next meeting
 * Agenda item for next week - what service to perform?


 * Other business**

Gary Blank has asked the partnership to make a presentation to his Protected Species class, which meets on 2, 9, 16 April at 6PM. Hess, Snow, Ramsey, Cienek, Wallace would be a good crew to do this. **Please post availability here** Hess can make 2, 16 Cienek and Walt Tysinger (TLC Land Manager) can make 2, 9, 16 Wallace can make 2, 9, 16 Ramsey can do 9

Charlynne Smith noted that her husband, Mike Smith, is currently working to create a volunteer organization to work on a Yates Mill inventory - there is potential overlap here.