Minutes
North BrunswickHumane Association
March Monthly Meeting (3/14/11)

In Attendance: Michele Andrea, Jay Soloway, Vincent Sheehan, Linda Sheehan, Erica Bundy, Gilda McCauley, Eileen Lorner, Sharon Weinstein-Canavan, Lisa Coletta, Dan R. Smith, AnnMarie Walters, Katie Nordhaus, Jocelyn Caffrey, Jane Prestup and David Prestup, Brenda Sauer, Alex Bobev, Christa Von Peters.

The meeting was called to order at 7:39pm by Jay Soloway. The minutes from the February monthly meeting were read and accepted.

The Treasurer’s Report was presented by Vincent Sheehan. The opening balance was $50,392.63 with deposits of $185 in donations & $175 in membership fees leaving a closing balance of $50,752.63

Items for Discussion:

  • New Public Relations Officer- Jay spoke about this new officer position and explained that the responsibilities of this office will be to maintain a communication channel with the community on behalf of the North Brunswick Humane Association. All members were in agreement.
  • Nomination of Officers – (President, Vice President, Secretary, Treasurer  & Public Relations) the nominations of Officers was made, Jay Soloway was elected President, Sandi Erickson was elected Vice President, Vincent Sheehan was elected Treasurer, Michele Andrea was elected Secretary and Erica Bundy was elected Public Relations officer.
  • Tabling Event at Pet Smart’s Grand Opening on RT 18 – Phillis setup this event with Pet Smart. Michele spoke on behalf of Phillis about the event and the fact that Banfield Pet Hospital has offered us a rebate arrangement. We have pre-numbered certificates from Banfield. If a person is adopting an animal and presents the certificate to Banfield they will get a free first visit and NBHA gets $30. Thanks Phillis for your effort.
  • Dog/Cat Food Bank– Ann Marie & Claire will get with Sandy on the Master List of Community residents receiving food donations. Ann Marie indicated they are not receiving calls for new deliveries, it’s been quiet.
  • NBHA Spaying/Neutering Subsidy– Jay explained spaying/neutering of both dogs and cats will be a pre-requisite on all requests to the Food Bank. Michele will get with Phillis to see if she made any progress on contacting local Animal Hospitals on rates. The members agreed will need to formalize the procedures on how we can reach out to rescue organizations that have their own spaying/neutering programs in order to provide our support in the form of communication to the community and or give a grant to these organizations. More to come.
  • Update Educational Outreach – Ann Marie reported the program is ready to begin for the spring. We have roughly 9 schools in/out of North Brunswick supported by this program. Ann Marie will pass out a sign up sheet at the next meeting for those who want to sign up to present at these schools to the students.
  • Revised “Who We Are” & “What We Do” one Page Handout– this one pager was passed out by Michele recommending we add Spring/Summer animal care tips on the back of the sheet and distribute as Take Ones at all local businesses. This is also a good communication tool on NBHA’s efforts within the community. Erica will load the image on Face book and Sandi will do the same on the NBHA website.
  • Channel 15 (Community Cable Channel) Presentation/Show – no update at this time.
  • Flea Market Event – (May 21st) by next meeting Jay will have more information.
  • By-Law Committee – Jay indicated no update at this point. We are trying to centralize the information and be able to update and hand out a copy to all members next meeting.
  • North Brunswick Library Food Drive– Sandy updated the members on this event. The library was able to get over 500 items of dog/cat food donated in the month of February. Sandy will work with the local rescue organizations and donate food for their use. A Special Thanks to the North Brunswick Township Library. YOU ROCK!
  • Membership Cards for Annual Renewals – Renewal membership cards were distributed by Michele. Reminder annual renewals were due in February. If you want to mail in your renewal, please mail to NBHA, P.O. Box 7522, North Brunswick, New Jersey 08902.
  • Clean up of Channel 15 – Michele reported we completed all the changes that needed to be done.

New Business:

  • Storage Facility– Jay reported the Lackland Storage facility was giving us free storage up to now and they notified us they cannot continue with this practice. They want to charge us $40 a month or half price. Access Storage has offered us a larger storage facility for free- guaranteed for 1 year. We have to the end of March to get our stuff out of Lackland. We will notify members when we need help to move.
  • Project Shelter– Ann Marie raised the subject of how are we going to handle the communication to the public on Project Shelter no longer being a viable solution. Ann Marie’s daughter is in the public affairs business, she offered her services to us to handle the press release for us. We need to remove all the verbiage we have on advertising relevant to Project Shelter. The board will work with her daughter.
  • Donation Cans– Michele and Sandi will work on the new art work for the cans.
  • L’Oreal fundraiser in August – Vince said NBHA is on the list for this event. More to come.
  • Low cost vaccination clinic at Katie’s Pet Depot– Eileen spoke in regard to this subject. Vince indicated we will have to work with the medical provider on this. Vince has assigned his store manager to work with all parties concerned.
  • Easter Bunny photo shoot at Katie’s Pet Depot-Eileen spoke about this subject. It costs $50 for the Bunny Costume; NBHA gets 50% of the revenue from the photos. Pet Depot will advertise on their email blast. Members questioned if the public is into Easter photos as much as Christmas. More too come.
  • Karaoke Fund Raiser– location unknown –Eileen has the equipment if we wanted to hold an event in a shopping center strip mall. More to come.
  • Senior Cat Adoption Day –possibly at Katie’s Pet Depot- Eileen is looking to develop a Senior Cats & Senior Folks program. Acting as an intermediary on behalf of NBHA with those seniors looking to adopt senior cats. As a first step, it was recommended that Eileen contact a Shelter and see what can be arranged.
  • Next Meeting is April 11th
  • Adjourned at 8:55pm- Thanks All- Great Meeting!