ANNUAL REPORT FOR THE FRIENDS:  SEASON 2009 – 2010

This season started with a “picnic” at the library, celebrating the end of our 25th anniversary year. A caterer was hired; the picnic tables were set up in the library’s Community Room; food was set on tables on the first floor; and the caterer cooked hot dogs and hamburgers in the parking lot. The weather cooperated. Over 60 Friends helped us celebrate and fun was had by all.

We welcomed a new member to our Friends’ Board, Diane Tiago. She wasted no time getting involved. Diane has chaired the project dealing with the revision of our current by-laws.   After working with the attorney’s office from our original corporation filing (501 c3), we had a better understanding of the difference between our “Articles of Organization” and our “By-laws”. At our annual meeting, we hope to vote on these revisions, which mainly deal with updating the wording.

In addition to financially supporting the wish lists of the Children, Teen and Adult Services, we purchased for the library one big ticket item – a Disc Repair System. This unit cleans and buffs dirty and damaged (scratched) discs, be they from movies or audio books. It has been used by staff almost daily and with great success, putting back into circulation items that before would have been discarded. It definitely was well worth the investment.

We also supported the following: “Book It To Your Library” Road Race (run by the Western Mass. Regional Library System), an Adult Chess program coordinated by Haven Williams, tickets to a game featuring the Springfield Armor basketball team (incentive to the program they presented at the library), and the Pioneer Valley Legislative Breakfast.  We also purchased the licenses for the eight new computers used upstairs at the library.

Our fundraisers continue to be a great revenue source. All book sales were successful. The Beach Reading! 2009 paperback sale is always welcome in the summertime. This year’s Spring Book Sale (with the Bag of Books Sale involving its leftovers) brought in almost $1500. Definitely above average results. Our ongoing Used Book Sale, housed in bookcases by the front door to the library, continues to be very profitable, for a passive fundraiser. Donations are received from the public and Joanne Nichting (staff) takes the responsibility of supplying the shelves with good, clean donations. Thanks, Joanne.

The basket raffles continue to be very popular. Thanks to Anita Themistos and Marcia Wunch, our seasonal baskets were well received. This year’s Spring Baskets & Beyond fundraiser outdid itself! Sixteen exceptional offerings were donated and we made the most money ever for this event - - well over $2300. Great job to all who provided a basket and thanks to the staff for selling the tickets. Six tickets for $5 really was a great purchase incentive!

We had set two goals at our September meeting and both we have met. We wanted to increase our membership to over the 300 level. As of the end of this season, our group has 315 members. Super. And secondly, we wanted to update our by-laws. A committee of five volunteers met and the results will be voted on at our Annual Meeting in May.
An additional project was started this spring regarding email addresses of our members. Every now and then (between newsletter printings), information comes to the Friends of which the members need to be informed. By using email, communication can be sent quickly. A Friends email address was created: foelpl@gmail.com.  So a database of addresses was created, a test message was sent out and of the 130 members who had supplied addresses on their original membership registration, only 20 email addresses bounced back. Not bad. Hopefully this account will be kept current.

As far as our financial standing, it was also a successful year. We started this season with a balance of $38,935.91 and ended with $41,817.77.

Thank you to a great group of Board Members. By planning together and working together, we succeeded in little ways to complete another positive season. We had fun working for the library.

Respectfully submitted,

Laura Palmer
President

[back]