SWONA Board Special meeting June 9, 2015

08/23/2015 11:11

Tuesday - June 9, 2015

SWONA Board Meeting

 

 
   

7:00pm

604 Cushing St SW, Olympia, WA

 

Present:  Bethany Weidner, Brent McBride, Linda Condon, Whitney Raines, Michael Bennion, and Angela Rush

 

Treasurer’s Report:  Current balance is $702

 

Discussion

Donna Feddern, Manager of the Olympia Branch Timberland Regional Library, made a presentation on social media and its possible uses for the SWONA neighborhood organization. Group discussions included possible agenda topics for the upcoming quarterly meeting on June 18 and plans for the 25th SWONA anniversary celebration to be held in August.

 

  1. Guest presenter Donna Feddern described the basics of social media tools Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, and explained how those might be useful for SWONA in terms of outreach and greater visibility to residents within the southwest Olympia neighborhood. She went over the basic functioning of the websites, the ways in which they can interrelate, and suggested ideas for possible uses.

Thoughts to be considered for future discussion are how to set up administration of the social media websites, who should have access for posting information, levels of access, which of the websites we might want to begin using (all?), and what account name to create – SWOly was suggested.

Several City of Olympia departments currently have active Twitter accounts:

  • Parks & Rec
  • Olympia PD
  • City of Olympia in general.

 

  1. Quarterly meeting agenda items were suggested and discussed:
  • Follow up on the meet-the-candidates evening
  • Provide details of the August neighborhood celebration
  • Dog barking problems that have been reported. Invite someone from Animal Services to make a presentation?
  • Roundabouts: etiquette, rules, signs needed?
  • Venting session – general comments that need to be heard
  • Decatur Raiders – who are they, what beneficial action might they make?
  • Recruit for party committees and volunteers

 

  1. SWONA 25th Anniversary Celebration, August 1.

Michael had researched the availability and pricing of various party and event items and the rental businesses that provide those. The Celebrations store in Lacey seems like an excellent resource. The following are topics that received considerable discussion.

 

Publicity

Methods for publicizing the celebration were discussed, along with the costs of photocopying and postage and how much of either of those the City will cover. In addition to mailing, door-to-door delivery, flyers can also be posted throughout the neighborhood on power poles and in businesses.

  • Michael will sketch out design ideas for a flyer.
  • Bethany will check with a friend who has access to software and has created previous announcement pieces.
  • Angela will (once again) make arrangements to obtain a mailing list of addresses for the southwest neighborhood area.

 

Food

Discussion about food brought up a number of questions and a few concerns.

  • Budget – how much do we really have to spend?
  • Who to serve? Is it just neighborhood folks queueing up?
  • Do we charge? or ask for donations?
  • Cooking – food trucks? volunteer chefs?
  • What type of food to cook and otherwise provide?
    • hot dogs, marinated meat, burgers, etc.
    • pizza – Vics?
    • lemonade
  • Bethany will check with Vics Pizza about a donation, and with Rashid about meat marinade and cooking.
  • Grills – rent or ask for volunteers to bring gas grills
  • Can we offer alcoholic beverages? In a low key way? We may be able to get a beer or wine donation from local businesses.
  • Plates, cups, napkins, utensils
  • Shall we include ‘bring a dish or food item’ in our publicity?

 

Decorations

Several types of items will be included within the category of décor, and discussion on this topic lead to several questions as well:

  • Tent/pop-up awning – rent? (Celebrations has available for approx. $300) Borrow from folks who have?
  • Tables/chairs?
  • Whitney will check with church about borrowing.
  • Helium tank and balloons.
  • Celebrations has helium tanks for rent.
  • Balloons, streamers, a big sign, banner.
  • Linda will take the lead on these items.

 

Entertainment

Music and children’s activities both seem like the way to go.

  • Bands and music
  • Bethany will check with Dennis Hastings to see if Rhythm & Rye can perform.
  • Angela will check with Greg Black to see if the Blacklights can perform.
  • Children’s activities
  • Bethany will check with the moms who organized the SWONA Kid Block Party for ideas. Maybe can recruit more volunteers as well!
  • Brent will check on getting fire trucks and EMT vehicles to make an appearance.

 

More Organizing

Bethany suggested that we have an additional meeting, outside of the monthly board meeting, to continue putting the anniversary celebration together.

So…

Next Meeting:    Thursday,  June 18, 2015 at 6-8pm

                                Bethany’s house, 1415 Sixth St SW

 

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