Bristol Citizen Corp Council Meeting

November 30, 2007

Present:  Chief Norm Skantze, Steve Gunn, Donna Quinn, Leslie Dion, Chief John Clark, Tom Winn, Beth Colby

1. Call to Order:  Leslie called the meeting to order in Joe Denning’s absence at 9:10 am.

2. Secretary’s Report:  The Secretary’s Report was sent out by e-mail. 

3. Cert Coordinator’s Report:  Donna reports that we have received a portion of the grant funds that pay for the Coordinator’s portion.  We have to decide how we might want to use some of our Public Education money.  She reviewed info on the website last night and has some information to share regarding gaining support in recruitment and partnerships.  We need to get more information out in the newspapers.  In Laconia they have offered open trainings and then if people want to join we can then do background checks on those interested.  The only problem with that is that we do not get money for training people that are not officially volunteers.  Norm suggests that we offer the training for those that are already involved and then just open it up to the public.  In Laconia they take different components and offer them at different times.  Some that they have offered are CPR, Road Closures, etc.  There is a general basic one that is about two hours long.  There is a train the trainer course as well that some of us could take.  Norm suggests we just go ahead and do a training.  Donna said that you can do them with Chambers, PTO’s, Service Organizations, Day Care Centers, Senior Providers, Scouting organizations, FNOK Bristol rep, etc.  Norm suggests that the Elder Wrap group might have someone that would be interested.  Donna will follow up with Ron Giles who has expressed interest.

  Chief Clark has the name of someone that he thinks may want to become involved and he will get it to Donna. 

  Beth asked if we should include hospital reps.  Norm said that we would then get into a whole new area of issues.  CERT may be able to help them with some of their needs once it is up and running instead of them being a part of CERT.  Norm feels that we should be collaborating with CCNTR and they were going to have a representative here today but she has given her notice.  Once that position is filled we will follow up with them. 

  Norm would like to get Donna a Town of Bristol website so that she has access to successfully e-mail everyone involved.  Donna will do this.

  There was clarification made to the difference between CERT and the Citizen Corps Council.  CERT will be the volunteers.  The Council is the leadership oversight.  There should be no more than 15 on the Council.  John feels that we should have someone from Freudenberg on the Council and also someone from the lake community.  He has a couple of people in mind and will follow up on it.

  Citizen Corp Council possibilities:

• Lynn Preston – FNOK

   Donna said that we need to keep in mind that we want this to be Newfound wide

and we may want to include reps from each of the towns on the Council.  This is

difficult to do as the grant was town specific.  At this point each community is       supposed to do their own and then work together.  John said it might be wise for us to       invite members of the Selectboards from the other six towns to discuss what we are       doing and how they might get involved.  Donna said that as we talk about recruitment       she thinks we should include volunteers from all of the towns.  John said we might       want to ask someone from Ragged Mountain to participate as well.  They are looking       at extreme build up of their area and this will have an impact on Bristol.  Beth said       that Bob Frese is the person to speak to at Ragged.  Norm said that he thinks we need to get our group up and running before we branch out to the other towns.  If we can get twenty good volunteers up and running we can then help the other towns do the same thing.  Once we are at that point we will be able to work together regionally.  The volunteers are going to become employees of the Town of Bristol. 

  John said that he is concerned that if we limit it to Bristol residents to start we may 

be excluding some great assets to the team. Beth said that she thinks it would benefit us to have people from other communities on our team if we identify them as an asset to what we are doing.   It was agreed that we need to have the Council set up with people that are identified to bring the needed skill sets to be a balanced group.

  John suggests we need to first identify who we need to add to the Council and thinks we should approach Frank Hinkle the Chief of Alexandria.  Donna said that she agrees but also feels we need to go forward with the start of volunteer trainings.

  Steve said that we really need to put at what we want to have as an output before we decide which area we should focus on.  Tom said that he agrees but also thinks we need to come up with some priority names for the Council.

  Norm said that one of the outputs of this group would be to help deal with any local or regional emergency issues come up.  John said that he thinks that the citizen volunteer group to support emergency services serves the purpose of having more general knowledge out in the public of what we do as well.

  Beth suggests we set a goal of getting 20 CERT members by February and work from there.  We will then have time to approach them, advertise and plan for the training.  Donna will work on setting us up with a website that people can go to for the application.  John suggests that we ask John Bianchi to take a picture of the Council and some community collaborations. 

The following names were suggested:

• Major ___________________ (Norm)
• New member of Conservation Commission (John)
• Don Gangemie (Donna)
• Bill Phinney (Steve)
• Andrea Woolsey (Beth)
• Scott Phinney (John)
• Ron Giles (Norm)
• Phil Dion (Norm)
• Scott Haines (John
• Jeff Shackett (Donna)
• Jon Shackett (Beth)
• Wendy Williams (Beth)
• Jim Crawford (Les)
• Bill Grout (Les) – tell him that John suggested him
• Fred’s wife from Blueberry Shores (Norm)
• JoAnn - Beach Lady (John)
• Doug Hedstrom (BUCC)
• Betsy Schneider (Donna)
• Merle Lyon (John)
• Melva Day (Norm)
• Jodie Favorite (Donna)
• Everett Begor (John)
• Sue Seaverns (Beth)
• Ray Bailey (John)
• Barry Wingate (John & Norm)
• David Evans (Beth)
• Alan & Marilyn Blakeley (Les)
•  

Meeting Date:  Do a formal invitation to these people.  John suggests that we might want to hold it at the Homestead.  Steve thinks that there is a benefit to having it in a Town Building.  The date picked is January 7^th at 6:30 pm at the Fire Department.  We will meet as a group to plan at 6 pm at the Homestead on Friday, 12/28.  John will call to make reservations.    We will have a training calendar for them that evening.

  Donna will send out an initial invitation with general info on CERT and tell them that they will be approached shortly by a Council member.  The council member will have an invitation to bring them.  It will also be listed in the paper as an open invitation.

  Norm said that we need to spell out at that meeting that this is only going to be about 4 meetings per year. 

  Norm moved to make Tom Winn the Vice-Chair of the Council.  John seconded and

the motion passed. 

  Donna thanked Steve for spending his community time from work here with us and for FNOK allowing this type of activity.

Beth moved to adjourn.  Norm seconded and the motion passed.