Friends of the Mission Hills/Hillcrest Knox Library
June 24, 2023
The meeting was held in conference rooms at the Mission Hills/Hillcrest Harley and Bessie Knox Library. The meeting was called to order at 10:00 A.M. by Anne Box, President. An attendance list is at the end of the minutes.
Minutes: The minutes of the May 20, 2023, meeting were approved as submitted.
Financials: Don Rudesill reviewed the May, 2023, financial report. Bookstore sales were $3,174.74 including $829.28 via Square. Amazon sales totaled $851.10, Abe sales were $197.76 and book cart and donations were $73.09. We had one membership of $48.25 ($50.00 minus Square charge) and interest income of $248.74.
Expenses included $41.99 for Amazon supplies, $17.99 for postage, $470.83 for programs for children and adults.
Our total in all accounts is $170,697.72 as of the end of May.
Librarian’s report: Steve Wheeler said that there are meetings planned for children every Friday. Next Friday, the 30th, at 10:00 A.M., Michael Raynor, a found object juggler, will perform. The program is for all ages.
On Tuesday, June 27 at noon, Chiara Capobianco will perform a harp program.
Wednesday June 28, at 12:30 P.M. Brain Balance will present Healthy Aging.
Friday June 30 at 2:00 P.M. Cygnet Theater will perform scenes from musicals. This is a children’s program.
Saturday, July 8 at 2:30 P.M. Oasis will present Genetics, A Line of Evidence in Peopling of the World.
Steve provided the following fund balances as of May 31, 2023:
Materials: $6,974.64
Equipment and Supplies: $8,229.68
Performers and Contracts: $4,894.21
Unmatched Trust Fund $10,466.93
Expenses for the month included $150.00 per week for Signing Storytime and $179.24 for craft and makerspace supplies. The Summer Reading Program will have expenses for each performer.
Steve said that coupons for those who complete the Summer Reading Program will allow children to choose a book in the bookstore and will have an approximate value of $2.00 for adults.
Steve pointed out that the new display of covers and bookplates in front is from the Special Collections at Central Library.
Bookstore: Jean Stein said that all shifts are covered, including Wednesday from 4 to 6 P.M., which we had not been able to cover previously. Anne suggested closing at 5:45 on days the library closes at 6 P.M. This was agreed.
Amazon is now verified again per an email from Holly Murten who could not attend the meeting. Holly also asked about contacting the bookstore at Central to see if they would be interested in having sets of books that are too heavy to mail if posted online.
Sue Eubanks presented information on a cart for children’s books to replace the black cart we have been using. The cart is small, colorful and should be attractive to children. We approved the cost of $38.00.
Sue also said that we need to stick to our inventory control schedule of pulling the oldest materials from the shelves after three months.
We discussed establishing procedures for termination of volunteers for cause. Send examples of volunteer duties and termination procedures to Anne for consideration.
We will have a two for one sale of DVDs in July. We have more than we can shelve and more coming in all the time.
We agreed on the management team for the bookstore of Jean Stein, Sue Eubanks and Pat Littell. Each has specific responsibilities, and they will work together to decide issues that do not need to be discussed at monthly meetings.
Elaine Kalin and Mary Rose Mueller were not in attendance, but the ads and articles agreed upon in previous meeting have been added to the “Sentinel” and the “Uptown News.”
Chuck Leib suggested that trade paperbacks could be priced at $2.00 instead of $1.00 if they have a higher than usual price on Amazon. We agreed to this, and Sue will change the price list.
Website: Al Hoefer said that we have renewed and paid for the domain name and protection at a cost of $34.99.
At the previous meeting, Al agreed to try to determine if the bar code scanner we had could be used to access ISBN numbers on Amazon and Abe. He reported that it did not work, and that the company appears to be out of business. Chuck agreed to research bar code scanners and find one we can use.
Membership: Chuck reported that we have one new member. The membership came from the website.
Corporate Friends: Anne said that Corporate has a new treasurer, president and four new directors. Four of our members were recognized at the annual meeting.
Other items: Anne said that the old library building is now historic, but there is no plan for its future. Nancy Carol Carter reminded us that many residents wanted the building to become a senior center, but that the city never acted on the request.
We agreed to donate $100.00 to the Library Foundation at their request. This is to help pay for a challenge to the Libraries and Parks petition denial by the Registrar of Voters.
The next meeting will be Saturday, July 15 at 10:00 A.M.
The meeting was adjourned at 11:20 A.M.
Attendance: Anne box, Steve Wheeler, Don Rudesill, Chuck Leib, Sue Eubanks, Jean Stein, Nancy Carol Carter, Marilyn Hopkins, Kim McDaniel, Jean Stein, Al Hoefer, Anna Boone and Pat Littell