Fairview Outdoor Education Center, Clear Spring, MD

The summer conference kicked off on Friday night with the few members that were present setting up the conference site and talking about lookouts. The conference kicked off on Saturday at the Fairview Outdoor Education Center in Clear Spring MD. The center is part of the Washington school district in MD.

The board meeting was called to order at 9:55 AM by chairman Argow

Directors present:
Chairman / South East Director Keith Argow
Eastern Deputy Chair/ SNE Director Henry Isenberg
PA/ Keystone Director Steve Cummings
NJ Co Director Bob Spear
NY Director Marty Podskoch
Secretary Ray Grimes

Non Directors that were present:
Iris and Bill Baird NH FFLA members
Ed Hazzlet Director for Fairview
MD state Forester Steve Koehn
MD Regional Fire Manager Forest Service Richard Lillard

Chairman Argow welcomed to MD for the 2004 summer eastern conference of the FFLA. Keith introduced Steve Koehn State forester for MD.

Steve got up and welcomed everyone to MD. Steve gave a talk about some of the fire towers in the state that he dealt with while he was still in the field. He did not have full list of all the lookouts in the state and asked for any help. There were few hands that went up and would help Steve out with locating all the lookouts that were in the state. Steve had 2 stories about lookouts one when you paint a lookout make sure it is not windy so you do not have to pay to have vehicles re painted due to the fact they were covered in gray specks of paint from the lookout on a windy day. The second one was when you put nuts and bolts in to hold the lookout together make sure they are going the right way. One of the lookouts that had some work done on it had to have the nuts and bolts replaced due to the fact when they were put in they were put up side down. When a crew went to do some work on the lookout they only found the nuts and not the bolts to hold the tower together

Steve asked for any suggestions on how to save some of the lookouts. There was a discussion about this and a few ideas that were brought up was get groups involved with lookout, possibly try adopt a lookout for groups to do and try to restore the lookout tower. Another idea was to take pictures of lookouts and former sites and does a little write up about it.

Iris Baird brought up about getting some email from individuals that did not send it to her but in exchange was bug or virus from some one that was discussed there email as a email from an FFLA member. There was a discussion about this problem and it was mentioned to try to reduce the appearance of showing the cc address use the bcc that one does not show the addresses but hides the address and the only address that you see is the one that you put in to column. The idea was to help from unwanted people getting ffla members email address and passing a bug or virus to that individual.

The next conference that is coming up is the western conference in Truckee, CA. Cathy and Marie is working hard on the conference for Oct 8-10

The chairman advised that the FFLA organization has passed the 800 mark of members

Keith advised that we be down to 2 cases of the flyers for the FFLA

There was a discussion among the directors at the conference about reproduce the flyers, maybe do some changes on the flyer. The topic came up about how to cover the expense of reproducing the flyer 1- increase the dues to cover some national expenses like the flyer, another idea was to get some type of cooperate sponsor that would help out by letting them have their logo on the flyer. No decision was made and more discussion will follow at the western conference in Truckee, CA.

Keith advised that there would be some changes to NWOA and the magazine. The first thing would be instead of 2 pages for the FFLA and NHLR it would be cut back to 1 page for NHLR and FFLA. This was done to the fact Keith had comments from the readers about in the magazine. Also was mentioned was the plus membership for the FFLA, eliminate the plus membership and every FFLA member will receive the magazine and if you are a NWOA member you receive a 2nd copy or you could give NWOA an address to be sent to as a gift to an individual, school or library.

The FFLA has an ad in the Home and Fire magazine

Henry reminded that any member that paid for life membership is not forgotten and is kept up to date with newsletters

Iris advised there has been no archivist report or reporting on what constitutes as a fire lookout. The chair appointed Henry Isenberg to do a survey on what constitutes as a fire lookout. The chair also had appointed Dave Bula to do a report on policy on lookout sites.

OLD BUSINESS

Steve Cummings advised that he still holds the records and FFLA seal, Steve then pasted them on to the chairman for safe keeping. Steve asked if the FFLA has been sending yearly reports to state of PA, Steve advised that the organization does not need any problems if the IRS checks down the road and we have not filed yearly reports to PA Steve brought this topic up if down the road the organization goes for a grant or some thing to that order. It was advised that the secretary would contact Joe Higgins FFLA legal counsel about this matter.

There was a discussion about ARCHIVE STORAGE for FFLA records. The chair advised that important and original research on Lookouts should go to a climate control place like the Forest History Society in Durham North Carolina

Iris mentioned that the original papers should go to FHS and the chair should keep a copy. Iris also mentioned that there should a be a list of papers that the chair should have on hand with them so when a new chair a elected they know what papers they will be hand to them from the previous chair.

NEW BUSINESS

Bob Spear announced that the summer 2006 conference would be in NJ. This will also commemorate the 100th anniversary of the NJ Forest Fire Service

Here is a list of future sites for conferences
2005 Board meeting Roanoke, VA
2005 Summer eastern conference in RI
2006 Board meeting needs a host
2006 Summer eastern conference in NJ 2nd weekend in August
2006 Summer western conference needs a host

See state reports with Bob Spear's report

The summer meeting ended after 5pm after Marty Podskoch did his slide show on lookouts in the Adirondacks of NY State