Suncoast Chapter of the Surfrider Foundation
Chapter Meeting Minutes
5-12-09
Mulligan’s Sunset Grille
9524 Blind Pass Rd
St Pete Beach, Fl
Call to order at 7:31 by Jessica Respondek. As recorded by Julie Pappas chapter secretary.
Have a lot to cover so let’s get started. Jessica held the floor, she thanked everyone for coming out. Some new faces in the group and that’s awesome!
Since we weren’t given the opportunity to thank him properly last time, we wanted to first of all thank John Pappas for being Vice Chair for 2 years. John came out to every clean up, event, protest and meeting that Suncoast held. He had a huge part in planning the January fashion show and party as well as other events in the past. And continues to work on the Barefoot Wine Fest event for July. Jessica had certificates printed up for both Mike Meehan and John Pappas to show the chapters gratitude towards their efforts for the first years of the Chapters existence.
Jessica advised that the chapter would have a 50/50 drawing every meeting where you can buy a ticket for $1.00 and at the end of the meeting a ticket would be drawn. The winner would receive half the funds and the other half goes to the chapter. Tonights funds are earmarked for the Dune Restoration. Tickets were sold and collected by Jake Respondek.
Jessica advised that from now on when a member brings an idea to the Chapter they will be asked to take the project task work sheet and fill it out, then bring back to the chapter for discussion and implementing of the project. Members come up with good ideas all the time, and many of them should be acted upon by the chapter. This way we have a way of tracking and not losing the ideas.
Jessica asked everyone to email the chapter what they want to see on the meeting agenda and promised future agendas will be posted prior to the meeting.
Green Fest with Crunchy Mama was on May 9th. Good times. Julie and Jake attended for the chapter. They obtained nearly a whole page of email names, a few more signatures on the Upham petition and made some great contacts with Green Armada and local educators, for future collaborations to do good for the environment. Christy Ward, our host, gave us the spot for free and was very stoked to have us there. Julie brought one of the surfboards for raffle and they sold 3 tickets for that board. The goal for that surf board is the sell 30 tickets for 10 dollars each to make 300 and pull the winner. There were a lot more vendors for this 2nd year event and next year should be even bigger.
Saturday, May 16th is a dune planting and beach clean up organized by Brandy. Archibald park at the intersection of Gulf Blvd and Tom Stuart Causeway. Brandy and Andre, and Scott donated money to get the plants. Brandy got parking passes for the metered spots and had them ready to hand out if anyone wanted one. Brandy advised she wants to have this be an on going process out there and eventually get organized with the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts of America on future plantings and events, but that this event would be Surfrider sponsored.
Jessica advised that the chapter was invited to the Madeira Beach Middle School Curriculum Festival by Ron. A couple of people are needed to step up and run the table. Thursday May 21st from 6pm-8pm. Madeira Beach Middle School at the intersection of Tom Stuart Causeway and Duhme Road. Ron said we would have a table provided. This is the 3rd year in a row that Surfrider accepted an invitation to this event. It’s a great way to talk to the young activists and their families about the benefits of joining the Surfrider Foundation. Ron said Overhead Surf Shop will be there and he plans to set up the chapter table next to them. He said he is the coordinator for the school for this event so he is unable to run the chapter table for us.
.
Jessica mentioned that WMNF radio interviewed Jake Respondek at the Eco Fest in Largo park and gave him about a minute of airtime with his own quotes as well as material read from one of the Surfrider published flyers about plastics. She advised check out the link on webpage. She also said Suncoast had an article in Creative Loafing last week in regards to the Upham Issue.
June 1st is the Stakeholders meeting with Dr. Elko on Upham Beach. Held at the St. Pete Beach Recreation center. Said don’t worry if you can’t make the meeting because the chapter got permission to video tape the meeting. Jessica specifically said she’d like to see Roget and Bob there because they have been long time surfers at Upham Beach.
Jessica advised at the last board meeting Thomas volunteered to run the chapter site on myspace.com, facebook.com and a twitter page. The chapter will be posting events on GulfSurfForum.com and will continue to promote chapter ideas/stance soley thru chapter meetings and website. We will also focus on asking Gulfster.com for event marketing assistance. She also asked the chapter to email to the board about things they’d like to see on the chapter website. Julie and Jake are working on organizing the pictures page by making a link to a photo bucket account where all the pictures could be viewed as a slide show. Jessica said she would like to see the chapter website updated weekly. Currently Julie runs the website, pays for the site, and updates it on a regular basis.
Jessica plans to make a biannual newsletter to go out by mail. Among other things the newsletter will highlight one retail member who really stepped up for the chapter. She suggested the first retail member to be mentioned would be Lenny’s Surf Shop on St. Pete Beach, for all the work, support and passion he puts into Upham Beach.
The chapter needs to decide what to do on ISD this year. It’s possible that a movie night would work since the last one done in 2007 was a huge success. Julie mentioned that the beach theater welcomed us, let us charge what we wanted for the door and let us keep the door earnings while they kept the concession earnings. Scott stepped up and said he would call the local Surf Shops to see if they had plans for ISD. Julie advised that she gave national her home mailing address and phone number for the event goods to come directly to the chapter as they do not deliver to PO boxes.
Surf EXPO is August the 20th -22nd. Its not clear if National will provide a room so its possible the chapter may be able to pay for a room for someone to go. More discussion will be forth coming on this event.
Julie told the chapter about Barefoot Wine Rescue the Beach project. Julie and John have been working with National and Barefoot Wine since January on planning this huge event. Would love to see a lot of people to come out for the clean up and party event. The chapter secured a permit for beach cleanup on July 11th at Upham beach from 11am to 1pm. The clean up is open to everyone of all ages but if you’re 21 and up barefoot wine will be handing out bracelets as your pass to a private concert to be held later that night from 6-8 pm at Cha Cha Coconuts on the St Petersburg Pier. National recording artist Mason Jennings will play at this party. Julie advised that promotional items, posters and such will be coming shortly. She asked that everyone spread the good word about the event. Soon we’ll need people to take flyers to the local shops. Again she would love to see a lot of exposure for this event. By the next chapter meeting a plan of action form will be presented to the chapter for review.
Jessica advised the fertilizer ordinance is still on going with Hillsborough Manatee and Pinellas Counties. Anyone wanting to volunteer to help work on this issue should contact Jessica.
BLUE WATER TASK FORCE has a donated lab! So the chapter needs to work on fund raisers to get this national initiative off the ground. Work with David Eilers on the details.
Jessica suggested each board member take on a beach cleanup each month.. Scott agreed to take on the June cleanup. The chapter agreed to skip clean ups in November and December due to the holidays. However one is needed down south at our adopted beach in Bradenton in October so we will be doing 2 clean ups that month. Jake suggested getting with other organizations and conduct a monofilament clean up along the rocks on some of the jetties around here. Ron said that was a great idea that maybe we could get some promotional shots out of it by having people on stand up paddle boards cleaning among the rocks. The chapter agreed that a clean up by water would be fun. Jessica mentioned National has provided a data card so we can keep record of what we collect and turn in for national statistics.
Scott suggested as a fund raiser where we pair local artists with student artists and in collaboration together they create a piece of art to be sold. He says we could get them to do surf themed art and he was thinking of talking with a local shaper about shaping a blank and then having these artists do the design on it, have the board glassed, then we could auction it.
Speaking of surfboards, the chapter received 20 surfboards as a donation from a local shaper down south and needs suggestions on how to make funds from them. Word from national is that the chapter will have an auction site set up with at least 2 boards for raffle there. The chapter also started raffling off 3 of the boards. Jake offered to take pictures of the board and with Julies help write up descriptions of the boards to post on the web site and other places. The chapter agreed that we need to move those boards, quick and not hold on to them too long.
Jessica suggested the chapter begin moving meeting venues around the area to better incorporate the Tampa and north Pinellas county members. She has reserved the Panear Bread Feather Sound location as a suggested going north to a location off Ulmerton Road in Clearwater/St Pete/Tampa corridor and the chapter agreed that would be ok.
Scott offered to let the Upham committee hold its meetings at his office in St. Petersburg.
UPHAM UPDATES:
Our chapter talked to Texas chapter representative about the presentation Dr. Elko put on about installing groins on one of their troubled beaches where she sated she had the Suncoast Chapter support – inaccurately. Jessica has issued a retraction to the blog site and obtained copies of the recorded meeting for our records.
The committee is gearing towards the June 1st stakeholder meeting with Dr. Elko. The committee has permission to video tape the meeting so if you cant make it no worries.
The chapter needs to decide what we want to do with Upham. Do we want to restore it naturally? Do we still want the big wide safe beach? Most said or nodded yes.
Jake researched dredging and spoke with 3 dredge barge companies, one which mentioned that they know of some towns and municipalities whom bought their own dredge to save money in the long run. Jake said the companies told him we need to provide statistics like water depth, current, jetty elevations and the like to get an accurate quote on a fixed dredge specifically for that pass. Ideally what we’d like to find for the county to purchase is a barge all Pinellas Counties troubled beaches can benefit from. So the search continues.
Jessica advised that the Upham committee plans to present all options (to the county) that they’ve researched and lay it out financially from lowest to highest cost.
Jake brought up the multiple incidents of drowning at Redington Beach rock jetty over the years. Said there were like 5 drowning out there and they heard that they were all related to the jetty.
Jessica suggested that the Upham committee would like to have 10 people to have one topic each to lay out to the county regarding the Upham issue if needed to be brought up.
Ron presented before and after pictures of the Dunedin Pass in north Clearwater. The pass closed during one heavy hurricane season several years ago. Since the pass closed it’s a thriving eco system with trees and shallow coves and white sandy stable beaches. He said it seems like eventually when the pass is allowed to close it evolves to become natural again.
Mike (suncoastmikey) advised that Hubbard’s Marina has a wall sized aerial photo of the beaches from Johns Pass all the way down to Pass-a-Grille taken a long time ago and it really shows how much Blind Pass changed. He suggested the members going down there sometime and checking the picture out for themselves and then somehow the chapter getting a copy of the picture to show what the area looked like. Mike is opposed to just letting the pass close. He says there are a lot of pleasure boaters that use the pass. He mentioned Mulligan’s uses the pass for their jet ski rental.. There’s also the chance that the water will become stagnant especially on the north side of the Blind Pass Bridge near the marina.
The chapter agreed that we want the best solution for Upham beach. The chapter members also declared that the opinion is that the groins are only in the best interest of the condo owners but not the best solution for Upham.
CP & E wrote the 1992 inlet plan. They suggest in that study to close the pass and allow the flow of sand from north to south to be restored.
Mathias asked if was possible to find a solar powered sand bypass system. No one knew if anything like that exists. But everyone agreed that would be a great idea because it would cut down on the noise of a diesel engine, and save energy and fuel costs. Jake mentioned that no one would go for having a diesel powered engine parked in the pass permanently; especially not the condo owners on either side of the pass. He said it would probably be something like a Detroit diesel engine and that would be like having a semi truck parked next to your place and running day and night. Not good.
Jessica announced that the next Upham meeting would be on May 28th at Scott Orsini’s office. If you want to join the Upham committee please do so, you are welcome, and please be aware this is an action task force thus volunteering is required to be apart of the committee. Right now the committee members each have tasks to complete by the next meeting but the committee is making great headway on the issue.
The next chapter meeting is Tuesday, June 9th and will be at the Panera Bread Feather Sound location.
The winner of the 50/50 drawing was Ron Henkle. He won 20 bucks. Righteous.
Meeting closed.