November 19, 2009 Meeting
Meeting was held at the EDC office. Members present included Rebecca
Edland, Ron Dahl, Dave Sayer, Bev Tranby, Orville Tranby, Pastor Charles
Johnson, Jan Steffen, John Swenson, Don Vigesaa, and Becky J Meidinger.
Rebecca called the meeting to order at 12:05 pm. The agenda was reviewed
and a motion was made by Jan and seconded by Pastor Johnson to approve the
agenda. Motion passed. A motion was made by Pastor Johnson and
seconded by Orville to approve the minutes as reviewed. Motion passed.
The financial report was given, showing a balance of $844.75 in the Friends
checking account and $3903.23 in the Oscar 0 account. Jan informed the
group that there were still outstanding bills to be paid to Lumber Mart and
there was interest of $1.88 in the Oscar 0 account. She said there was a
service charge of $6.00 on the Friends account because the balance had dropped
below the $1000. There were bills to be paid for approximately $1200 for
signage and most of those funds would be reimbursed through the grants.
There would also be bills for the construction materials for the interpretive
center and most of those would be able to be reimbursed through the grant funds
as well. She is working with Becky to finalize the grant reimbursement
forms for the Empowerment Zone grant and the Dept. of Tourism grant. Becky
explained that these funds that are being used and then reimbursed are all
coming through the Griggs County Museum, as they were the grant applicant.
The only funds that the Friends have at this time are from the sale of the coins
and some miscellaneous income from the celebration this summer. All other
funds actually belong to the museum and will be used to fund the development of
the interpretive center. They did provide the funds for the signage for
the new signs that will be placed where the old Scrap n Stay signs were located
along the highway coming into town.
There was some discussion about the service charge on the Friends’ checking
account, and Jan said she would talk to the bank and get the checking account
changed to a no interest account, so there would no longer be the monthly
service charges. A motion was made by Pastor Johnson and seconded by
Orville to approve the financial report. Motion passed.
Dave explained his idea for having some videos produced showcasing Oscar 0 that
could be put on You Tube, or have as a video for viewing by the people coming to
tour the site. He feels this would generate a lot more interest for the
site and the town, and would help to market the site. His plan would be to
identify funding that could provide a stipend for some videographers and film
teams, and then have some type of competition for the top five or so videos that
could then be used by the state for marketing purposes. We would need to
get a press release out about the competition, and Dave was going to connect
with NDSU and UND professors to see if they had input and whether or not their
film students would be interested in pursuing this. There was a great deal
of discussion about how this could work and the time frame to pursue this.
He suggested that a good contact would be Christopher P Jacobs. He will be
contacting the universities and other people over the next several weeks to
discuss this idea with them and see what comes out of it and report back at the
next Friends meeting. He was also going to contact Al Berger at UND to see
if he would help the students keep the videos factual. Mark will check
with the state to see what will be allowed for filming in the building and at
the site. After further discussion it was the wish of the board to have
Dave follow up and bring more information to the next meeting. Jan stated
she had the contact information about the person in Bismarck who developed the
museum video.
Orville updated the board about the progress of the museum board regarding the
development of the interpretive center. He has spoken to several people
about forming a committee to address this development and move forward with the
architect and engineer and they have already purchased some of the materials
needed to frame the building on the inside. He informed the group that the
state is willing to allow the museum to host some of the archives from the Cold
War exhibit that will be closing this fall. He feels this may end up being
about a 10 year project to develop a quality interpretive center. There
needs to be input about this from the beginning from people who understand what
could be possible. They would like to have a closed loop theater where
people could view videos. The connection has been completed between the
existing museum and the new building but has not been completely finished yet.
There was discussion about the command module that is currently located in the
garage out at the Oscar 0 site and whether or not this would be available to set
up in the interpretive center. Mark will check with the state to see what
they want to do with this.
Discussion then ensued regarding potential fund raising for the Friends group.
Suggestions included having an afternoon tea and inviting the board members from
other historical sites to come see Oscar 0 and to meet with the Friends group.
We should be trying to connect with other groups around the state and see what
they are doing to raise funds for their groups. There was discussion about
sending out a letter requesting donations to help with support of Oscar 0.
We all need to come up with some fundraising ideas that can be worked on this
next year. Other ideas included adding funds to the established endowment
fund; a marathon or snow mobile run; and a raffle as some of the suggestions.
Orville and Ron agreed to be part of a fundraising committee, but other members
would need to help as well. We discussed finding a way to encourage former
missileers to consider putting the site in their estates/wills. We would
need to have a plan to develop this level of fundraising, but having the
endowment fund in place is a good step for that. The coins and merchandise
will continue to be sold and the museum will be placing an ad in the newspaper
to sell their items and will also mention the coins as a gift idea. A
motion was made by Orville and seconded by Pastor Johnson to split the cost of
the ad with the museum. Motion passed.
The website update was discussed. Ron was asked about putting the minutes
on the website, and he thought it could be done and it could replace having a
newsletter. Ron needs to get copies of the previous meeting minutes so he
can work on doing that.
The 2011 reunion was discussed. It had been agreed that the first of the
weekend in August of 2011 over the 5th, 6th and 7th. The committee
can meet and discuss this at the next meeting. Rebecca will provide
information at the next meeting about the Small Town Summit Success meeting that
she and other city leaders attended recently.
There was a discussion about the need to have a nominating committee and do we
need to have an annual meeting? This was tabled until the December meeting
to discuss further. Becky will get the bylaws out to everyone prior to the
December meeting so these can be reviewed at that meeting with regard to these
issues. Rebecca wanted to discuss if this group would be an appropriate
entity to support building a new motel. There was some discussion about
this, but the group felt that this was not their mission. The bylaws will
be reviewed for things like this as well. We do need to post our meeting
dates somewhere, so this will also be discussed at the next meeting.
Meeting was then adjourned. Next meeting will be held at the Coachman at
noon on December 17th.
Submitted by Becky J Meidinger, Secretary
