1. The meeting was called to order at 7:30PM. We welcomed two new faces (Joan Beaubien and Jennifer Johnson) who attended the meeting because they are very concerned about the pollution and silt build up in our lake. Also Barbi Rowland brought her laptop and took lots of notes as she is attempting the arduous job as the new editor of the Navigator.  Total people in attendance were 13.
2. The minutes of the previous meeting were read and accepted.
3. Ed Henderson gave a detailed treasurers report including the total expenditures on all the winter projects at the dam and fisherman's pier ($2400).  We still have not gotten a bill, nor paid for approx. $560 for concrete and approx. $180 for 2 workers from Jim Watson. After above bills are paid, the grass carp are purchased and herbicide spraying complete, our account is expected to fall to around $1,000. The general consensus is that we cannot do any more projects at this time until we have some fundraisers and rebuild our account.

Old Business

4. Much discussion ensued concerning the possible Spring Fishing Tournament. The general consensus was that we would "fish" around to see if there is enough interest to support a tournament.  We put a tentative date at Saturday, April 16th.  A chairperson will be drafted later. Sue Kelly volunteered to have some teenagers make posters to put up around the neighborhood.  Ed volunteered to send a flyer/ announcement to Barbi Rowland to put in the Navigator. Rob McNulty reminded us that we may want to give an extra prize to anyone catching a tagged bass (there are 12 bass in the lake with special tags from the 2003 fish study project). We discussed asking STEVE JACOBS to help run the food since he did an awesome job at the Blues on Beach event. Kathy suggested a 50/50 raffle since we really do not lose money on such a raffle.  Kathy volunteered to ask the 10:30 club to donate breakfast items to give to all fisherman/persons that are participating.  Roy volunteered to phone Jeff Robinson to see if Jeff and his Blues Cat Band would like to play at Fisherman's Beach on the date of the Fishing Tournament.  Others suggested other musicians be invited to play music before Jeff and Blues Cat Band.  The fishing tournament would be held at FISHERMAN'S BEACH/MATHENY PARK to help showcase all the good work and improvements to that park.
5. Barbi Rowland informed us that she is working on the next Navigator and will be the Editor. She said the Board told her there was no budget for the Navigator so the newsletters would have to be paid for with advertising and all work would be on a volunteer basis.
6. Bill Gruber and Board member, Rob McNulty gave us quick update on the last Board meeting.  The board has allotted $9500 total for Lake Maintenance for this year.  Rob also stated that many of the members of the Board have helped with or attended FONL events.  We will continue to send a representative to these board meetings (2nd Tuesday of each month).  See the list below: March  8--Chuck April 12--Sherry May 10 --Roy and Libby June 14--Sue Kelly July  12--Dot Shaw August 9--_______
7. Leonard Matheny gave us updates on other areas of concern around the lake. Hedges are overgrown- trimming will be handled by Rob and the board. The remaining pile of rocks, which were hauled-in to prepare a bed for the concrete at Fisherman's Beach, needs to be moved.  We decided to wait and let the beach dry out a bit before attacking this job.  One swing needs to be repaired.  Beer Barrel buoys and swimming ropes need to be cleaned and repaired and put correctly anchored in place before month of May. The “NO WAKE” buoys broke loose and need to be repaired and re-anchored with sturdy chains this April or May. We decided to begin this work when the weather warms the water up some more. Chuck reported that he repaired the “Swim at Own Risk” sign at Fisherman's Beach.
8. Rob updated us with Grass Carp Project. The Grass carp can be put in the lake at end of March or in April. We will firm up the date for the grass carp stocking at our March meeting. We are purchasing the larger carp (13 inch long, young carp) because then the fish will have a better chance of survival. The total money needed for the entire grass carp project would be $4600. Sue has the flyer all finished and ready to send out. If FONL and the board can not raise all of the funds, then we will get just a portion of the grass carp needed. The herbicide treatment will be later when the algae mats begin to appear for it must be sprayed directly on such mats.

New Business

9. Chuck made a motion to skip the reading of the minutes in the future to save time and instead bring several copies of the minutes for people to review and to remind people to read the minutes on their email before they attend the meeting. The motion was seconded, discussed and a vote was taken. The motion passed.
10. A motion was made and discussed to replace Steve Jacobs with a new Vice President as Steve has had extra duties at his job and has not been able to make regular meetings for quite some time.  Also Steve has mentioned wanting to help the new Navigator editor.  The job of Vice President includes helping with the minutes and running the meetings in the absence of the President, and a Vice Pres. should attend as many meetings as possible. Therefore, after some discussion, long-time member, Kathy Gruber was nominated and accepted to serve as Vice-president for the remainder of the year.  There was a vote taken and she was elected. “Thank you” to Kathy for stepping-in to help.  Sherry will inform Steve of the changes.
11. Ed gave us an update on our new website. Ed has been voluntarily serving as our webmaster and presented data which showed that we have had over 4000 hits on our website in the last year and 400 hits in one month. Ed has put many wonderful photos, wildlife pages, past meeting minutes, and other items on our new website. We now have our own domain name which is http://friendsofnorrislake.org so be sure to check it out.
12. MEETING WAS ADJOURNED AT 9PM.

WE ENCOURAGE OUR NEIGHBORS TO ATTEND A MEETING OR A FONL EVENT AND MAKE A DIFFERENCE IN YOUR LAKE COMMUNITY.