President's Letter

January 2020
By Michele Worden, AEMG

A fire is crackling as I write this, contemplating the beginning of the new year.  The garden is blanketed in white, asleep. Outside appearances are deceptive as inside we are engaged in a flurry of activity preparing for the business of MGANM and Master Gardeners in 2020.

Reminder – do not forget to renew you Master Gardener certification for 2020.  Payment for re-certification is separate from dues made to the Master Gardener Association of Northwest Michigan.

Every year brings changes, and this year we have changes coming to our nonprofit partner Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the Grand Traverse Conservation District (GTCD).  

Historical Note:  We were the first nonprofit partner of the GTCD.  The native plant gardens surrounding the Boardman River Nature center were conceived of and installed in partnership with Master Gardeners in 2005.  At that time, the president of MGANM was Ellen Lapekas, who was also in a leadership position in the GTCD. Master Gardeners have been active in maintaining them as an educational demonstration garden ever since they were installed in 2006.  You may remember a presentation about the gardens at the 20 year anniversary celebration in 2016 the GTCD Executive director at that time, Marsha Clark and me.

Our MOU for 2018-2019 stated that Master Gardeners and/or MGANM members needed to volunteer 80 hours each year at the Grand Traverse Conservation District and/or Boardman River Nature Center in order to maintain nonprofit partner status.  Nonprofit partner status allows us some cabinet storage in the building and to hold monthly meetings in the Community room for no fee. The current nonprofit rental rate for the Community room is $40 per hour. This means the nonprofit partner MOU has a value to Master Gardeners of 7 meetings x 3 hrs x $40 = $840.  This amount would not be affordable if we had to pay it each year. Also, it has been valuable to have the Boardman River Nature Center serve as a home base for MGANM.    

We have easily met this volunteer goal in the past.  GTCD is one of our top volunteer projects and in 2019 through November we already volunteered 176 hrs according to the Volunteer Management System.  This is a $4,400 value in volunteering based upon the Independent Sector published 2019 rate of $25/hr for volunteers. In addition, Master Gardeners volunteer a significant amount of hours in Environmental Stewardship, some of which we believe is in service to the GTCD.

However, this year GTCD is adding a new requirement.  In addition to the 80 hrs of volunteering, they have asked us to provide docents to staff the main desk at the Boardman River Nature Center 3 hours each week.  This raises the number of volunteer hrs by 3 hrs x 50 weeks = 150 additional hrs. It is an increase of almost 300% in required volunteer hours. They would also like us to report our volunteer hours using their online form.

Because of the new volunteering requirements, the MGANM board is seeking your input.  Please take a moment to take this survey here.  We need to understand our ability to meet the new requirements, and if not, seek a new place to meet for 2020.  Whether we go forward with the new MOU will depend on whether the Master Gardener community can support our requirements in the MOU.  We are meeting with the new executive director at GTCD on January 15, so we will need your response by January 10 at the latest.

Thank you for all you do.