[Bookstoprisoners] Minutes from 12/9 meeting

[Susan Porter Bruce]

Please feel free to add or correct.

Minutes of BtP meeting
Saturday, December 8, 2006

Volunteers present: Yvette, Jane, Jay, Sandra, Emma, Susan, Jamie.

1. We reviewed some of the guidelines for packing. It’s good, but not  
absolutely essential, to put wadded newspaper or paper bags into  
boxes. The important thing is to make sure they’re properly secured  
and properly addressed. We believe that some prisons can’t take  
bubble envelopes. Susan will get in touch with Jennifer to see how  
the process of contacting prison mailrooms is going.

2. Jay shared his discussion with Caleb, who works for the Prairie  
Center at the JDC, about providing books to them. After some  
discussion we agreed that he can come and select books, with the  
exception of African-American titles. Susan will get in touch with  
their program to find out more about how they operate, what kind of  
library they have, and what we might advocate for. We agreed that we  
would like to encourage the County to provide more and better  
services overall, and that our long-range goal is to advocate for  
prisoner libraries, rather than provide for them ourselves.

3. Sandra summarized the budget since September 1. She doesn’t have  
final figures, but Deb helped with entering expenses, and it is  
almost up to date.

Online book sales: gross $3908. $1581 of that goes to Deb, $699 to  
postage, leaving $1628, or about $125 per week in revenue.

Shipping costs were $1358 over 13 weeks or about $100 per week. $200  
per month  to the IMC and $100 per month for the copy machine.

We have already received about $250 from the Alternative Gift Program.

It’s important to note that our online sales fluctuate. The book sale  
brought in $2200. Deb and Nilloofar have offered to help with the  
accounting.

4. We discussed how to move forward with operational concerns about  
revenue and staffing our projects. We decided to ask a consultant who  
works on helping nonprofits organize to come in and advise us. Jane  
will make the contact. Susan will circulate an email in preparation  
for that meeting, which we hope might happen sometime in January.  
Susan will also check on applying to the Community Foundation for a  
grant.

5. At our next meeting we think we should devote a solid half hour to  
a discussion about our mission and vision.

6. We discussed how to publicize our effort to volunteers. Susan will  
send a listing in to the News Gazette. We would like to get more  
community service workers via Probation to come in, and also people  
we’ve worked with at the Jail. If anyone can figure out how to get  
them to volunteer, we’d encourage them. We would also like to get  
RSVP and Volunteer Illini more involved.

7. Jay showed us the beautiful Alternative Gift notification cards  
Suzanne created. We decided it would be best to send these with a  
note inside saying whom the gift was from and not sign it from all of  
us. Barbara had offered to do this. The cards are sitting in between  
the 2 computers. Someone needs to get her the information. Jay will  
change the PayPal information to make sure donations get sent to BtP.

8. Jay reported the hits we’re getting on our web site, which are  
steadily up.

9. Deb showed us the display board she made for the Peace Bazaar,  
which we can use at future events.

She reviewed some of the things she’s done recently in terms of book  
donations. There is now a bin at IL Union Bookstore for students who  
want to donate textbooks, with flyers on it about volunteering.  
Folletts may also be able to do the same. She’s checking on placing a  
bin at Espresso in West Champaign.

She suggested we might like to do a promotion at Borders during  
February, Black History Month, and will contact them.

Deb also suggested that she and Barbara would visit community and  
church groups to talk about our project, need for volunteers,  
contributions, etc.

Our next meeting will be January 6 at 2:00.

Minutes: Susan Bruce