ANNUAL REPORT OF THE SEASON 2007 – 2008

This season focused on spending treasury funds for more Friends’ perks and new programs, and we still finished the season with more money, thanks to our core fundraisers. Beginning monies in May, 2007 = $26,630.08;
ending monies in April, 2008 = $37,440.00

Through our newsletters and library PR, we promoted our new “perks” to Friends members, the new passes purchased for the Eric Carle Picture Book Art Museum in Amherst and Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge. As it turned out, all five of our passes had more usage than in previous years.

We voted monies for the wish lists for the following groups: The Children’s Department, the Teens, the Reference Department and for Outreach. We helped out later with requests for the library, renewing the BookPage subscription (doubling the amount since it had been such a popular hand-out), buying computer program licenses for the 15 new computers purchased by the library, and 2 card tables that we would use as well.

We supported the Pioneer Valley Legislative Breakfast fund as well as the financial plea from the Western Mass. Regional Library Bookmobile (we purchased 13 books for this fundraiser).

Our yearly events were again successful: Holiday Basket raffles, Spring Basket Extravaganza, Book and Bake Sale, Paperback Sale, Chocolate Sampling. Thanks go to Secretary Kathy Goodchild for chairing two new programs this season: two Genealogy programs presented by George Kingston and a gardening program presented by Elaine Williamson.

With National Friends of Libraries Week in October, we again promoted membership to our group. Director Tom Witowski made a tri-fold sign equating membership costs and the perk of savings by using our passes when visiting area museums. The library staff helped by targeting frequent library users of the Interlibrary Loan system. Most patrons when asked to join did so with little protest! They were glad to help us support the library. Another successful venture.

With an updated policy voted on by the Library Trustees, library staff will no longer be collecting separate video fines. Therefore the designated funds earmarked for library video expenditures from our treasury can now be considered as general fund monies.

President Laura Palmer called a meeting of area Friends officers. Representatives came from Longmeadow, Palmer and Wilbraham. Being an informal meeting, we discussed what programs worked in their library, how much support each had from their library, what ideas could be shared for a common event we could host together. Emails later came to Laura from Hampden and Monson, asking to be part of our discussions. Hopefully, we can continue with local involvement of area groups.

This season, we were joined at many meetings by guests of our membership. Some were curious and came to listen, others had ideas to share. It was nice to know others were taking time to join us for an evening.

Our secretary, Kathy Goodchild, has handed in her resignation. We wish to thank her for the many years of service that she volunteered to the Friends Board. Her energy, ideas, and laugh will be missed.  Good luck in your future endeavors, Kathy.

Again, I wish to thank our officers and board members for their committed time, always helping in the support of our library and its programs. It is much appreciated.

Respectfully submitted,

Laura Palmer
Friends’ President

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