Master Gardener Foundation of Washington State
Executive Board Meeting
April 2, 2025
Held on Zoom
ATTENDANCE
Present were: President Tana Hasart, Exec VP Cathi Lamoreux, Treasurer Gilbert Plascencia, Secretary John Strong, Debbie Benbow, Erin Hoover.
OPENING
President Tana opened the meeting at 4:00 pm, and began with a brief discussion of WA Green School. As we know there has been a little confusion about some of the details surrounding this new training program. It is brand new, and some things are being finalized as we proceed toward implementation. Debbie is working on clarification page(s) on the website to alleviate as much confusion as possible.
FINANCIAL
Gilbert reviewed the March reports, which show limited activity. He pointed out that we have a CD maturing April 6. Its current balance is $25,645 @ 4.1%. The best CD option with WSECU to roll it into is 7 months @ 3.6%. The group agreed to have him do just that.
AEC
Cathi announced that we still have open slots for speakers. Please forward suggestions to her.
The planning team will meet with LiveOak next week, and one of the topics will be registration. It may be more complex this year to accommodate the Shared Learning Experiences. They will likely send out a request to some of us to test the online registration.
We are still looking for 2026 AEC leadership. We may need to be prepared to skip a year, if we can’t get someone to fill the director’s spot. Future conferences present challenges that haven’t been solved. The conference format, timing, program, leadership and costs are only getting more troublesome.
It was suggested that we urge chapters who will be sponsoring the AEC, to commit prior to registration opening, so that they can submit names of registration scholarship winners in time.
Tana suggests that we members of the board might consider doing personal calls to local presidents to help recruit talent for all open positions and committees, including the AEC. It is also important for us to find a way to encourage board members to be more active in their representation. That would include providing talking points for their reporting back to local boards, and asking for written reports in return about local response.
1% FOR THE PLANET
Tana discussed this organization and their invitation to us to apply for their recognition. There was some skeptical questioning about the organization. Gilbert’s check of their 990 filing showed they have a large amount of money, but it is unclear how they spend it beyond a hefty salary schedule for their leadership.
Tana cautions us to remain open to the idea of involving ourselves with them. Potential benefit to us is that they can put us in front of potential major donors. She said that Jennifer is going to Dean Wendy Powers to discuss the idea.
BOARD HANDBOOK
Tana will follow through with using our new handbook as a guide in training new board members. A portion of each of the next few full board meetings will include training on a section of the handbook.
MOAs
A first run-through by the team reviewing the draft MOA is scheduled for April 18th. Following that, Jennifer will send it to WSU legal. Tana would like us to have it reviewed by our own attorney.
Points being addressed include rights and responsibilities, the unique issues and needs of various local counties, and to ensure we avoid potential difficulties of the kind recently experienced by the Benton-Franklin foundation.
COMMUNICATION TEAM
Debbie reported that her group’s focus is currently on leveraging social media and helping local chapters with content and material for their own social accounts. The Communication Team meets later this month.
GOOD OF THE ORDER
Erin announced that the Evergreen Thumb podcast is now an ‘official’ podcast of WSU!
ADJOURNMENT
The meeting was adjourned at 5:50 p.m