9.15.25 Library Trustees Meeting Draft Minutes

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Guilford Free Library
Trustees In-Person and On-Line Meeting
Guilford, Vermont
Monday, September 15th, 2025 – 6:30 pm

Trustees present: All! Laura Lawson-Tucker, John Shaw, Jeannette Tokarz, Josh Nelson, Judith Serkin, Nika Fotopulos and Meghan Ohrstrom

Others present: Amber Hunt (Librarian)

Meeting began at 6:34pm

We warmly welcomed Meghan as a new interim Trustee, replacing Sandra Cortes, till town meeting in March 2026.

The minutes from the August 2025 meeting were approved.

Librarian’s Report – Amber

Amber shared a thorough monthly report of the Libraries programming and stats as well as the administrative progress.

Amber has been getting ready to submit grant reports, for example the VT dep’t of Libraries grant that payed for prizes awarded to patrons who met the summer reading challenge. 

She shared upcoming meetings:

  • This week meeting with the Windham Community Library Directors.
  • Next week she’ll be attending a meeting to review the asset management fund with Josh, Jeannette, Erika and Elly. 
  • In early October, she’ll be joining a meeting for the Catamount Library Network. 

Last month she had a successful meeting and gave a Library tour to the State Librarian and other consultants. They were impressed with our programming, enjoyed the creative and playful rock snake, and appreciated the children’s room. They also gave praise for the organized and clean state of the basement. They saw our limitations with wheel chair accessibility and size.

Co-Chairs Report – Judith and Laura

Judith met with Amber to revise the annual Trustees calendar. This will be presented at the October meeting.

Librarian evaluations are requested from Trustees. Please send a few highlights and suggestions for Amber by email to Laura and Judith by October 3rd. 

Treasurer’s Report – John

We are close to the beginning of the fiscal year, there isn’t much to report on. We are on track!

Friends of the Library update

We explained briefly the history of the Friends group to Meghan and the present work of sorting out the separation of the Friends and Trustees finances. 

John shared that he met with Erika and Elly and there is now an account available through the town designated for Guilford Library funds. As a municipal Library we can offer tax deductible donation status. However it is not as a 501c3.

Old Business

Nika and Judith will join Amber at the Library to join the select board meeting by zoom on October 27th – 6:30pm. 

New Business

  • Annual appeal: Amber has printed a copy of the annual appeal mailing list from last year. Trustees and Friends are invited to review it to update  addresses, remove or add new ones. 

There was a conversation about using the grand list for the annual appeal as well as transitioning in the future to an email format. 

For this year we will continue with the mailing list. Nika and Judith will work on the annual appeal letter with the help of Amber. And we hope to send it out in October. 

Jeannette asked if anyone would volunteer to write a submission to the Gazette by Oct 1st for this annual appeal. Anyone?

  • The finance committee took note to discuss updating future electronic paypal payments through the Library website to the new town account at their next meeting. 
  • Nika updated that she and her family will be moving to West Brattleboro, just over the border. She will discuss her future Trustee status with Judith and Laura and share updates when there is more clarity. 

The meeting was adjourned at 7:38pm

Meeting minutes by Secretary,

Nika Fotopulos

Meeting Audio Recording: