Meeting+2011+Feb+3

Thursday 8:30-10 1214 Jordan Hall, NCSU Campus
 * Wake County Nature Preserves Meeting**

**Attendance Notes**

Steelman out. Attending: Sullivan, Lobsinger, Hess (chairing, notes), Connors, Cienek, Holcombe, Perlmutter


 * Summary Notes** (by Hess)


 * Next WakeNature Preserves**
 * Overall objective is to develop a small portfolio of preserves to start building momentum. Spread out among munis and geographically preferred
 * High priority (work toward completion end of calendar year): Hemlock Bluffs, Cary - Hess and Connors to have a conversation with Laura White and perhaps Mark Johns at Hemlock Bluffs to evaluate possibilities - Hess to initiate
 * High priority (work toward completion end of calendar year): Swift Creek Bluffs, Triangle Land Conservancy - Cienek says that this is possible
 * Would like to do SCB with adjoining NCDOT mitigation land to the north and Wake County's Futrell Tract to the east
 * Good baseline data are available for SCB; at least a partial management plan is available
 * Cienek will follow up within TLC, particularly with land manager Walt Tysinger
 * Lower priority (begin conversations, set up for next year): Yates Mill would be the most appropriate County park to add - lots of information available, and it's already being managed in a preserve-like manner
 * Lower priority (begin conversations, set up for next year): Bass Lake, Holly Springs
 * Someone needs to contact Sabrina Thomson about this - there was interest at one point


 * Promotion / Marketing / Organizational**
 * Web site
 * Keep it simple
 * Ask Shawn Gillen if he's willing to design a basic WordPress site for us, pro bono
 * See if we can get our logo animated for the web site - have the logo form from animals running and flying into it
 * Chronology for year - where to go to see neat things - could start broader than current WNPP sites - highlight county-wide
 * Look for grant funding for web development
 * Signs
 * TLC will put into a proposal to WalMart this spring
 * Urban Community & Forestry Grants
 * Connors will look into
 * Due 1 March, so longshot for this year
 * Connect with Museum's Nature Research Center - Perlmutter leading
 * Need input from Ramsey on celebration, N&O articles, etc
 * Need input from Steelman on MOU


 * Turnipseed Further Work**
 * Pond draining for restoration - assess in April and do it quickly if it's low; otherwise wait for summer
 * Map out vernal pools on entire property, and note which are supporting amphibians - late March / early April
 * Monitor lupine and do additional planting - some plants are being germinated at the Museum of Science (Connors) - plant on site if germination is successful
 * Service Raleigh is looking for projects - Holcombe-Smith and Lobsinger will track

**Annotated Agenda Items**

Colleen with Wake County inventory/database update (moved by request to Feb 17th meeting)

**PRIORITY AREAS FOR 2011** 1) Announce / Celebrate Turnipseed Preserve as the first WNP (What is our timeline? actions? who will lead?) 2) Establish a website and develop other promotional and marketing materials - and other activities to increase public awareness of what we're up to and about (Need update from Kaytee) 3)Get some signs (Need grants for this $$. What is status of WalMart grant application?) 4) Perhaps we could incorporate our work with the Museum's new Nature Research Center (NRC). We could do outreach through the NRC to better teach the general public about our mission, showcase our WNP sites and explain our efforts. Gary P in contact with the new NRC director (Meg Lowman) and could suggest this as further partnership with the Museum. Gary will be taking the director of the NRC on a tour of Turnipseed - current dates being considered 19/20 February
 * Promotion / marketing / website - keep in mind that Dan Holly at the N&O is interested in doing an article

1) Swift Creek Bluffs (Triangle Land Conservancy) through the designation process (need to touch base with Leigh Ann about this process and what their potential timeline could be) 2) Biotic surveys of other potential WNP candidate sites (Swift Creek Bluffs, Temple Flat Rock, Lake Raleigh Woods) - how to get students and other professionals involved 3) Reach out to Cary re Hemlock Bluffs (new director Danny Hopkins) - also talk with Laura White (director of Hemlock Bluffs) about this (we will need to set up a meeting-- who will take the lead?) 4) FOR784 (Environmental Impact Assessment) completed a draft General Management Plan for Lake Raleigh Woods (LRW) in December 2010. Presenting this plan to Kevin McNaughton (Facilities ) and Tom Skolniki (University Architect's office) prompted Provost Arden and Vice Chancellor Leffler to establish the LRW Advisory Panel. The panel will include Larry Nielsen and Gary Blank, among others representing CALS, CNR, and units of the administration. Gary Blank was invited by the Chairman of the University Physical Environment Committee to discuss findings of the plan with them at the March meeting. Charles Rudder and Gary are completing editing and data archival of the draft plan so it can be conveyed to the Facilities Operations. Whether an application for WNP designation can proceed will be a matter for the Advisory Panel to address.
 * Other WakeNature Preserves designated - Hemlock Bluffs, Swift Creek Bluffs, others?

1) Continue with biotic survey of Turnipseed WNP (bryophytes, mammals including bats, and mussels) 2) Pond restoration at Turnipseed, with Leopold Wildlife Club 3) Finding out a way to get Turnipseed open quickly, even if in a limited way
 * Continue work on Turnipseed/Get Turnipseed open for some kind of use

1) Finalize MOU (Toddi and Kaytee) 2) Signatures on Memorandum of Understanding - we should really have NCSU and Wake in place by theTurnipseed announcement, others as soon as possible. (We need to strategize about how best to move' this forward, serial, parallel??) 3) We need some discussion about WRC involvement in light of continuing budget cuts (Scott Anderson has some comments). This might be an issue for other organizations as well - do they have the resources to commit to partnership? 4) Get Raleigh signed on to MOU 5) Grants for signs (Who can we go to?)
 * Organizational and funding issues - MOU, grants for materials and activities

UPDATE ON RALEIGH NATURE PRESERVE TASK FORCE

Website Update:

I talked to IT and it will be a $20 setup fee and then an additional $1.80 for 100 mb of space that we would rent on a yearly basis. Depending on if we will have graphics and video we will need quite a bit of space. It would be a storage locker that we would would then take our template and upload to, this could be done by wordpress or dreamweaver (still working out the kinks on this one). The website name would be http://www.ncsu.edu/project///wakenature// but would be linked to our www.wakenature.org domain name.

See example below of similar type of set-up: http://www.fi.ncsu.edu/project/new-literacies-collaborative/

If we decide to go this route the next step will be filling out the application for a project locker and submitting.

From george: I know how to do this, and I know how to get stuff up to the locker. Happy to help. Would like, though, to see and discuss what would be on a website like this as opposed to our wiki.