Last Night's Town Hall Meeting

It was a bit of a surprise to me when I walked in to the Monroe Council Chambers last night at 7:00 pm to find a full house! There was a Town Hall Meeting concerning our community's transportation needs and was headed by Sharon Fipps from Benton County Transportation. Why there is no bus service between Monroe and Junction City or between Monroe and Corvallis has often been a subject of conversation at the library here. Last night's meeting addressed this issue and Monroe's community came out in force to voice their needs. It came as a surprise to Ms. Fipps that there was a need to travel between Monroe and Junction City; she was prepared to hear mostly comments on the need to travel within Benton County. Travel between Monroe and Junction City crosses county boundaries and makes it difficult for either county's transit system to take on this challenge. There were many comments and suggestions from our community members, and even one of our Latina community members came and voiced concerns coming from our Hispanic population. It's downright hard sometimes to get between here and Corvallis or Junction City when there are doctor's visits, shopping trips or social events happening. And in the interest of saving gas in these hard times, something should be done to make travel possible and/or easier. Mostly what Ms. Fipps spoke about would happen in 2011-2013. This is very far away when the need is now. One idea suggested was for the City of Monroe to own it's own van/vehicle and hire it's own drivers to bring community members to either Corvallis or Junction City where they could then pick up on either Benton or Lane County's transit systems and continue on to their destinations. I loved this idea! Wouldn't there be grants out there that would make the purchase of a vehicle possible for something as innovative as this? Think about the publicity our small town would receive for solving this problem of transportation on our own! This sounds like a great possiblity to me...

January 12 Meeting Minutes

SBLP Meeting Minutes - January 12, 2009

December meeting minutes approved

Financial Report-Attached

The Corvallis-Benton County Library Foundation added a line for donating to SBLP on their fund raising mailer they send out each year.

Land Update-

Teresa Landers reported that the contract of purchase for the sale of the land was signed with the railroad! SBLP will be the one purchasing the land. We can now do the wetland survey. We also need to do the environmental study on the land. Then the partitioning--has to go through the City of Monroe City Council. Closing date for the sale of the land should be the end of April. Dena also found out that South Benton Community Enhancement's insurace will cover SBLP. Roger Irvin reported that we should update the city zoning where the land is. Right now it is zoned industrial. This should be done in a private session with the Monroe City Council.

Fundraising-

Our new Publicity Chairperson, Sharon Kavanagh reported her ideas. She envisions several events in rapid succession. The following is a list of ideas to generate donations for the new library

1. (Get on Board or All Aboard!) A grand kickoff celebration event at the high school commons for the whole community. Some ideas for this event include book activities, high schoolers reading to children, furniture with books out for little ones. Have the architect's model of the new library out in the middle. Sharon asked Roger Irvin to MC the event, he agreed. We will ask Lori Stephens to do her computer presentation on what the library will look like. She would like small speeches given by Lori Pelkey, Dena Elliott and Teresa Landers. A donation table will be prominent with opportunities to make pledges to the project. Also a huge suggestion box. Coffee and small refreshments will be served.

2. Within a week, have Dena Elliott's belated retirement fest (Dinner with Dena) to honor her years of service at the Monroe Library. Dinner will be served and a current list of Dena's friends is needed.

3. Approximately three weeks later we will start having desserts at the homes of patrons who love the library. They will invite 20 friends and ask to donate/support the new library. Should have a SBLP board member come to each dessert. A list needs to be started of potential patrons to host these desserts.

4. Art idea: have an art fair this summer after Art in the Park is ended. Show the children's art from Art in the Park. Maybe have the children do art at the show. Make buttons and bookmarks with art to sell at the circulation desk.

5. Before kickoff-everyone on the SBLP board is encouraged to make a donation or pledge to support SBLP. Many grants require this.

6. Find someone younger to do something on YouTube, Flicker, Facebook etc. We need a web presence besides the blog. Can we get an Eagle Scout to take this on as their project?

7. Howard Steele again offered to donate all the ticket money for a concert he will give. (Country and Cowboy western)

Next meeting will be February 9.

Attendees:
Dena Elliott
Janeece Cook
Page Pedder
Howard Steele
Serena Logan
Catie Mange
Craig Pelkey
Lori Pelkey
Teresa Landers
Sharon Kavanagh
Roger Irvin

Agenda-SBLP Meeting Jan. 12, 2009

WELCOME

1. APPROVAL OF MINUTES

2. FINANCIAL REPORT

3. LAND UPDATE: TERESA

4. FUND RAISING

A. PLAN

B. IDEAS: EVENT TO START US OUT - SHARON K.

C. FUND RAISING: COORDINATOR/CHAIR

5. GRANTS

A. CDBG GRANT

B. GRANT WRITERS

C. GRANT WRITING COORDINATOR/CHAIR

6. OTHER BUSINESS

7. AGENDA FOR FEBRUARY

SBLP Dec. 8, 2008 Meeting Minutes

Approval of last month's meeting minutes

Treasurer Report -

What to do with $96.57 left on Design Grant was tabled. Later it was decided this money would be used to pay for Posters similar to the brochures

Old Business

Policy changes-Discussion yielded consensus to adopt a Steering Committee

Monroe Light Parade- the decision to make a float and enter into this year's light parade was cancelled due to not enough people to help

New Business

Land- RR wants land completley insured-this will be discussed at the next South Benton Community Enhancement meeting, Dena Elliott will report to us in January
Once we own the land, a celebration should happen. Unveil the model, pass out brochures, have dessert and coffee. Have this at the High School? Publicity committee should take this over. Sharon Kavanagh volunteered to be the Publicity Chairman.

Bank account signer- It was agreed that Catherine Mange will be a replacement signer on the bank account replacing Janet Begg.

City Council Liaison report- On Nov. 20, three people from the city planning commission, three city councilors and one new councilor met with Catie Mange and Lori Stephens who reviewed the design of the new building. Several questions arose about the wording on the brochure soon to be printed. Ideas were discussed about these changes and it was agreed to change the wording on the brochures. Catie Mange reported on the Nov. 28 Monroe City Council meeting where she reviewed our last meeting with them and officially reinvited everyone to attend all our SBLP meetings.

Lori Pelkey and Lori Stephens were invited to the Jan. 6, 2009 Lions Club meeting to present the New Library Design to their group.

Next meeting will be January 13, 2009 at the Monroe Fire Hall.

Attendees:

Serena Logan, Dena Elliott, Laura Oakes, Alyce Bayne, DeeDee Smith, Craig Pelkey, Catie Mange, sharon Kavanagh and Lori Pelkey

Final Agenda for October's South Benton Library Project Meeting

Please come to our October South Benton Library Project Meeting. We will meet this Monday, Oct. 13th at 7:00 pm at the Monroe Fire Hall meeting room. I have invited the three Monroe City Council candidates to come and see the progress we've made toward our new library building in an effort to encourage their participation on the project. I hope to see you there too as your efforts are greatly needed and appreciated.

Sincerely,
Lori Pelkey
Monroe Community Library
541-847-5174


Agenda for Oct. 13th SBLP meeting

Approval of last month's meeting minutes

Treasurer Report

Old Items
1. Status, Review and Finalization of Brochure using BCCC grant
2. Railroad news/ Money granted for land
3. Tri County news article
4. Ford Family Foundation/Rural Development Initiative interest

New Items
1. Restructuring committee: composition/structure, who should vote, how votes are weighed, conduct of meetings, positions open, etc.
a) How decisions are to be made in and out of our monthly meetings.
b) Email: It's use and limitations - establish guidelines in this type of communication.

2. What should/can we be doing (if anything) while we wait for final word on land?
a) If we wait to pursue certain things at what point do we proceed?
1) Possession of title?
2) In escrow?
3) Firm option to buy?

3. Status and input on Won Productions, Inc. marketing/publicity proposal.

4. Understanding Teresa Landers (Deputy Library Director for Corvallis-Benton County Public Library) and Monroe Community Library's staff role with our committee.

5. Upcoming Grants to apply for
a. BCCC
b. any others?

The Pout-Pout Fish-Great Storytime Book!

Last week at StoryTime I read a sweet book by Deborah Diesen called The Pout-Pout Fish. First of all I have to say how much I love to read stories at StoryTime here in the library. I think I've alluded to this several times here on the blog. But, since I love books so much, every once in a while I just have this urge to tell everyone about a wonderful children's book that comes along. The Pout-Pout Fish took me by surprise! It's got great rhythm and a sweet message. I'm very particular about loving kid's books. You all know that SkippyJon Jones is my personal hero and it's really hard to find a book that lives up to anything that Judy
Schachner writes! But I heartily recommend The Pout-Pout Fish to anyone who loves children's books or who has little children to read to in their life! Come on in to the library today and I'll help you find many more children's story books!

Last Night's (Sept. 8th)SBLP Meeting

I want to let you know about a major decision that was made at last night's South Benton Library Project meeting here in Monroe. Many of you didn't make it to the meeting but have expressed an interest in what has been happening concerning the new library building. We are moving into an active stage in our building project development and it's an exciting time. It's because of this that I cannot stress enough how the presence of each one of you at our meetings and the effort you make works for the good of everyone involved. What we are doing this very minute will benefit many generations to come.

At the meeting last night, we met Courtney Rader. She is the Volunteer Coordinator for the Corvallis Benton County Public Library but she also has her own consulting business. She has many years of experience doing fund raising for nonprofits and has been involved with capital campaigns as well. She has given us a proposal to accomplish the fund raising strategizing part of building our new library. She wrote it giving us an opportunity to spend as little or much as we feel we can afford by bidding it on an hourly basis with an initial retainer. She would also do it for a flat fee if we prefer. After much discussion on the subject of hiring Courtney, a motion was made, seconded, voted on and passed to retain her services as a Fundraising consultant for SBLP. Courtney brings a great amount of enthusiasm to our team and feels like raising 2 million dollars is very doable. She stressed that it will be hard work, but we will have a beautiful library built for our efforts. I listened carefully to her proposal and liked what I heard. I believe she will bring valuable assistance and direction to South Benton Library Project. I have attached her proposal with this email. Please feel free to let me know what you think. In the near future we are going to need some major team players who are willing to give of their time and effort to bring our new beautiful library building into reality. I know you are all committed to your library. I see it in your eyes when you come in to browse and check out your books. You all are on the front line of knowing how much we really need a bigger place to accommodate our growing community.

In a few days, I will post the minutes to last night's meeting on the blog. Again, this is no substitute for your actual presence there at a meeting, but will give you a flavor of what we do each month. I encourage you again, to attend next month's meeting on Oct. 13th at the Fire Hall. I do know that some of you may have conflicts and are unable to attend meetings. PLEASE call me so we can discuss how you might be able to help without coming to these particular monthly meetings. As we learn more about the nuts and bolts of fundraising I know we can find a way for you to help make this new building a reality.



Sincerely,

Lori Pelkey
Monroe Community Library
541-847-5174

September SBLP Meeting...

Hello Everyone,

It's that time again! Our next South Benton Library Project Meeting will be held this coming Monday, Sept. 8th at the Monroe Fire Hall at 7:00 pm. I really hope you can make it. At the last meeting we all decided to bring a friend to our September meeting. So, here's your chance to come to the meeting with a friend or family member!

At this month's meeting we will be talking more about the wetland study that must be done. We also will be hearing the latest news on purchasing the land from the railroad. You'll get sneak peak at the brochure that's being printed very soon too. And we will be hearing from a Fundraising consultant that has some great ideas for bringing the money together to build the new library building! So you can see we have some exciting things to hear about on Monday evening.

We’ll see you there!

Lori Pelkey
Monroe Community Library
541-847-5174

And the Survey Says.....!

Yes! A big "Thank You" to our South Benton Community who took the time and effort to fill out the Income Survey that was sent to some of our households! It is official that we qualify as low/moderate income! That means we are officially eligible to apply for CDBG and possibly other grants or loans as well. In a few days I will be posting the minutes from our July 14th meeting where we had Lori Stephens of Broadleaf Architecture answering questions about access to the new library site from HWY 99, Bill Patton of Streamline Engineering answering questions about the small wetland area on the property and Roger Irvin of South Benton Community Enhancement letting us know about the latest progress the county is making with the Railroad in purchasing the property.

Lori

Will You Be Taking Your Kids to the Library this Summer?

So, everyone, are you taking your kids to the library this summer? The Summer Reading Program in most states this year is "Catch the Reading Bug". You can take your kids to visit and join the programs, check out books for summer reading and in most libraries attend fun performances too! In our library, here in Monroe, we will even be having a performance with BUGS! What I love to tell both moms and kids is that during summer kids can read whatever THEY want! Yep, no teacher telling them to read this or that. They can chose. What fun! Moms...here's a hint...look at the running sidebar on my blog. I have some of my favorite read-aloud books there. These are storytime tested fun books! You could sneak some home and catch the reading bug with your kids! Oh and here's another hint... I did this and still do it for my kids...and it works at the library too! I put "bait" around the house! Yep, I unashamedly bring home NON-Fiction books that look interesting and just lay them on the couch or by the fireplace. Bam! I catch them every time browsing through the bait! Go to the kids section in your library and find some books about any fun or strange subject. Believe me any thing will catch their attention if it's just sitting there on the couch! Make sure you put fresh "bait" out often so they don't get bored... And what's really cool is that, little do they know it, but they are reading without you telling them to! Try it!

The Return of the Repile Man

Yes! The Reptile Man is returning to the Monroe Community Library on Wednesday, May 21st at 3:30 pm. He'll be at the Fire Hall again because we are expecting another big crowd. So, come early if you want to get a good seat.

Richard Ritchey's educational presentation will include over a dozen reptiles. Come learn about snakes, tortoises, turtles and lizards!

South Benton Library Project News by Catie Mange

Happy Spring! The efforts towards a new Monroe Library are steadily moving forward. However we still need more volunteers from the community to assist us with publicizing our efforts and the progress we’ve made. We meet regularly each month at the Monroe Fire Hall on the second Monday of each month at 7:00 pm. Call 847-5174 if you have any questions regarding these meetings. Please join us to learn more about what we’re doing and how you can help.

A couple of weeks ago we sent you an income survey for the South Benton Library Project. If you haven’t returned that survey form please fill it out and send it back now. We are very close to having enough responses for a valid survey, but we still need a few more completed forms. If you’ve lost the form, please call Scott Wilson and he can take your information. His number is 541.924.8473 (daytime) or 541.753.2156 (evening).

Thank you for your cooperation and we hope to see you at the next meeting

Happenings at the Monroe Community Library

Now that we have made it through tax season, everyone can breathe a sigh of relief! But wait, you still have to deal with high gas prices and the high cost of just about everything else. There is good news at your library in Monroe! We're local! For most of you we are just a short walk or bike ride away. No gas involved! We have so much to offer you too. If you check out our website, http://www.thebestlibrary.net you can see that we are more than just a small city library. Monroe's library is a branch of the Corvallis-Benton County Public Library. This means that you have access to everything that is in either the main library in Corvallis, the Philomath Library, Alsea's new library or the Bookmobile. You can request anything you see on our library's website and, using your library card number with PIN, it will be brought to you here at the Monroe Library! You'll get an email or a phone call telling you it's here and you can come down and pick it up. It's that simple. Don't see what you want on our website? Heard of a new book that the library doesn't own yet? You can request the library to buy it! Remembered an old book that was a childhood favorite and you don't see that we have it? We can put out an Inter-Library Loan request. This means our library borrows it from another library for you! Now that's service!

I am pleased to announce the return of "The Reptile Man" on Wednesday, May 21st at 3:30pm. The Reptile Man has been a big hit in Monroe for a few years now, so if you missed him last year, here's your chance to enjoy some really creepy crawly friends! After school ends in June, we will again have our Summer Reading Program here at the library. This year's them is "Catch the Reading Bug!" There will be a slight change in the day of the week we will have performers here at the library. This year's performers will come on Wednesday afternoons at 12:30 pm. If your children attend the Art in the Park program, they will be walked to the library for our Summer Reading Program performances each week. Look for flyers at the library and coming home with your kids from school soon. We will also be having fun things for the teens to do at the library as usual this summer.

See you soon at the Library!

Finally! What you've all been waiting for.....

No, not the money for the new building! But... we will be having the first meeting of 2008 next week. I would like to invite all South Benton area residents to come on out to our meeting which will be held again at the Monroe Fire Hall.

South Benton Library Project Meeting
Monroe Fire Hall
Monday, February 11, 2008
7:00 pm
Come and join us!

SBLP Meeting for November 2007

Monday, November 19, 2007

7:00 PM

Monroe Fire Hall

Agenda

I. Call to Order

II. Treasurer’s Report

III. Fundraising Committee Report

IV. Publicity

a. Christmas decorating

b. Raffle Quilt Donation

V. Roger Irvin-Report on R.R. Land

VI. Next Meeting Date?

A Window into Monroe's History

This past Saturday, a few of us met at the Depot here in Monroe and took a "tour" inside. I brought my camera and took a bunch of pictures and I hope to add a few on our blog here and there. This first one I wanted to share with you right away because it's just so much fun! Does anyone out there know who is Carl's Girl? She's so cute in an Olive-Oily way! Makes you wonder doesn't it?

August 13th Meeting Minutes

Minutes: August l3, 2007

Randy George chaired the meeting with 12 people in attendance.

Craig Pelkey gave the financial report.

The $20,000 grant has been received.

The Salerno Family has designated the project for memorial donations in memory of their son, Nikolas.

The Funding committee reported of their meetings:

Grant sources have been designated and amounts targeted.

A budget is being prepared

They will be applying for their first grant from MYHOMETOWNHELPER by Sept. 1, 2007.

The design committee reported of their meetings and progress with the architect.

The need to acknowledge donors was discussed and Alyce Bayne will be handling it.

Members of this project will be contacting Peter DeFazio August l4, 2007 at the Monroe Town Meeting. We will introduce ourselves and ask for his support.

Different types of publicity were discussed and will be looked into before next meeting.

Next meeting: September 10, 2007 – 7pm Monroe Firehall

Respectfully submitted

Janet Begg

Tri-County News Article

This week SBLP has been featured in the Tri-County News. They went and talked to our architect, Lori Stephens of Broadleaf Architecture, and got all the latest news about her design process. You can either pick up this week's Tri-County News, or click on this link!
http://www.triwestnews.com/Pages/TCnews3.html

Thanks Tri-County News!

Library Design Sketches from Architect Lori Stephens

Drum Roll Please! Click on this link and you will see the preliminary design of the New Monroe Community Library!

http://www.broadleafarchitecture.com/monroelibrary.htm

Last Night's Meeting (Aug. 13th)

At our August 13^th meeting of SBLP we had four new community members attend and introduce themselves to the group. Each meeting has been this way, with new faces bringing so many new ideas and such enthusiasm. All together, there were 13 of us there last evening. As our group moves forward, we have all become more aware of the importance of this project we have begun. I can’t stress enough how much we need our whole community’s involvement working for a new library. As the old saying goes, “many hands make light work”. We also had a very nice member offer to write our "Thank You" notes and acknowledgments. Thank you Alyce!

On a different note, today a few of us from SBLP went to listen as Peter Defazio spoke and answered questions at the Monroe American Legion Hall. Our goal was to speak to one of his aides about SBLP and just kind of make them aware of our group and what we are doing to get a new library here in Monroe. The aide was very gracious and assured us that Mr. Defazio would be willing to write letters to help with any grants we are applying for. We might just take him up on that offer!

I heard an interesting thing last night at our meeting...and I'm going to go check it out tomorrow. I heard that the South Benton Communities Historical Association Museum is preparing an exhibit featuring none other than our own Historic Depot! The South Benton Communities Historical Association Museum is open on Wednesday afternoons and so I thought I would drop on by tomorrow and get all the details.