The Friends of City Square had its annual meeting on Monday, Oct. 15, and Gov. Grace Bloodwell reported that the organization has grown in membership by 33 percent.
The annual meeting took place at Sorrelle’s with a good crowd of folks there to celebrate the organization, say bye to retiring board members and welcome new members.
“We have had a 33 percent increase in membership, which is good,” said Bloodwell. “That’s been done thanks to membership chair Rob Benoit, who really helped drive new memberships this year. We have 244 members and we’d like to have 300 next year.”
The Friends have been very active this year in scheduling several concerts over the summer, having clean ups and replacing many of the plantings in the park – with many of those original plantings reaching the end of their lifespan.
Treasurer Eric Phillipi reported, in that same vein, that the organization’s $200,000-plus endowment might need to be spent down as the park goes through a transformation.
“The plants and trees are getting old and dying and they need to be replaced,” he said. “We have this endowment that we’ve save for a long time. Those days are behind us. We’re going to have to make more capital expenditures using this money to replace these plantings.”
He said replacing the rows of Boxwood trees in the park last year was a good example of what is to come.
Another major part of the meeting was saying good-bye to prominent Board members, including founding member Ken Stone.
“We wouldn’t have this park or this organization with Ken Stone,” said former Gov. Annette Tecce.
That made way for several new members to take seats on the Board.
They included:
- Tracy Hoeger, attorney, for an unexpired one-year term.
- Tracy Zimmerman, Charlestown Tea & Treats, unexpired one-year term.
- Mark LeBel, policy expert on clean energy, unexpired two-year term.
- Sandra Butler, resident since 2013, three-year term.
- Marisa Olsen, writer and marketer, three-year term.