Notes from the January, February and March 2008 meetings.

Notes from the January, February and March 2008 meetings.

Most of the time at the past three meetings was spent coordinating the sale of the fundraising calendars. We sold calendars to friends and family and in the dog run. NYCPet, Muddy Paws, PS9, Must Luv Dogs and the new vet on Grand St. also sold calendars in their stores.

We collected $1249.49 in sales and spent 935.87 on printing and postage. So that makes a profit of 313.62. This brings our bank account balance to 1207.73.

Once the weather gets nice, we'll try to start taking candid photographs in the run that can be used in next year's calendar. The next calendar will contain more information about the history and activites of Cooper Bark and Cooper Park Dog Run. We'll let photographers advertise in the calendar.

We started to discuss what improvements to make in the run with the money we raised. Consensus seems to be that we need more benches, a new large gate to allow the trucks to deliver wood chips and an enclosed bulletin board. If possible, perhaps some sort of rain shelter can also be fabricated.

Everyone will reach out to people they know to see if they can build some benches. Mark will research the costs of materials for a new gate. Christina has already started pricing finished benches.

The day to install new benches will be in late May. Requests for volunteers will go out far in advance and the day will be well publicized.

In other business:

Mark is going to renew the registration of the cooperbark.com domain name.

Dave is going to design a business card that can be handed out to interested people who want to locate the dog run and have contact info for Cooper Bark.

Clean up day schedule:
January – Katherine
February – Mark
March – Dave
April – Tad

The coordinator of clean up day will put up a sign in the run to announce the date of that month's cleanup day.

Tad will draft a better-written version of our rules to make them more easily appreciated by readers. We won't necessarily create a new sign but the new version of the rules can be used in handouts, websites, emails, etc.

Tad will also draft a Cooper Bark mission statement. This will be an important tool in future fundraising.

We agreed that several of us would try to attend NYCDOG meetings in the future to network with other dog run groups and try to promote Cooper Bark. Mark will provide the contact info for NYCDOG to anyone who wants it.

In February, a woman's dog was bitten by another dog. The attacker was off-leash. The incident occurred near the Sharon St. park entrance and was not near the dog run. The victim was seriously injured and the attacker's owner was helpful. But the victim's owner was having difficulty identifying the attacker and its owner. Based on her knowledge of the Cooper Park dog community, Katherine was able to provide the victim's owner with some important clues at the February meeting.