ECOFA was founded to
provide information to the members and the general public about multiple use
management of forestland
FEBRUARY 3rd
BOARD MEETING:
Attendance: Kathy
Meyers, Koral Clum, Alan Water, Patsy Schmuki, Mike Schmuki, Chuck Frink, Rob,
John Quimby, Jeremy Scherf, Dave Myers
OLD BUSINESS:
Alan reported that the projector is ordered and will be
installed by the March meeting.
The Annual Banquet will be held April 6th at the same church
as last year; Mike made the motion to charge $15 for the banquet meal, seconded
by John. Motion passed. Registration
deadline is March 25th. Set up time will be 5 PM, members should be there by 5:30, and the meal
will be served at 6:30PM. Discussion of
the length of the live auction led to the decision to limit the live auction to
35 items, with the other donations being in the silent auction. Jeremy graciously agreed to be our
“auctioneer” again this year. We have yet to secure a speaker for the banquet. Koral suggested the topic of the ‘’ONX” app
available, that shows boundary lines, your position on the property and the
landowners names. Their employee is very
proficient with it. She will check with him to see if he is willing to brief us
on it at the Annual Meeting.
The Ohio Tree Farm System Phone Survey was discussed. 600 of
the 700 surveys sent out have responded.
Alan has 170 follow-ups for ECOFA.
Last month’s signup sheet had 12 persons that volunteered to do phone
calls. Alan gave the volunteers a cover
letter explaining the telephone process and a script to follow. Copies of the surveys were handed out also. The survey information can be written on the
survey sheet or input into the computer survey.
The main purpose of the survey is to contact people to see if they want
to stay in the OTFS database or even participate. If they do, then request the landowner fill
the survey out with you, the volunteer.
Alan “tested” the phone survey with 10 landowners on the list. He made
contact with all but 2, who never got back to him. The 8 he did contact wanted to remain in the
database. Other regional forestry groups
are helping out as well.
The Tree Farm System is reaching out to the regional
forestry groups for volunteers for their Mentor Program. Mentors would be available to answer
questions of other tree owners. Each regional forestry group will send the
individuals to be trained as mentors. We
will ask for 6 to 8 individuals who would be willing to mentor. Alan will discuss this with the general
session after the treasurer’s report.
NEW BUSINESS:
Treasurer’s Report:
Alan – dues are coming in well. We received a donation from Linda Sims for the
Wooding donation to the Forestry Camp. We also received $6 for refreshments at
the last meeting.
Forestry Camp Donation:
OFA Camp was in the red in 2015. Rob moved to donate $1000.00 to the
Camp, Chuck seconded, motion passed to send $1000 to OFA for forestry camp.
JEREMY: has been selected as regional forester for
this area of the US. He will be
attending the National Convention to see if he is selected as National Tree
Farm Inspector of the Year.
The General Meeting commenced at 7:00PM
with the Pledge of Allegiance. President Kathy Myers introduced the new officers
and trustees for 2016. New guests this
evening were Phil from Guernsey County and Dave from Tuscarawas County. Alan gave the treasurer’s report. 76 members
are signed up for 2016.
The Ohio Tree Farm System applied for a grant from the
National Tree Farm System for a mentoring program in which current tree farmers
could answer questions of new tree farmers.
They received enough funds to have regional training sessions. Anyone
interested in becoming a mentor should contact Kathy .
Sarah Kapper from
Stark SWCD informed the group that they have their annual tree sales program
underway. Persimmon and pawpaw are
included on their order form.
Levi Arnold of Guernsey SWCD informed the group that this
month’s Wild Wednesday” is about Asian
Carp. The meeting starts at 6PM at the
Deerassic Park, across from Salt Fork State Park. He brought order forms for
their current tree sales for anyone interested in ordering them.
Jeremy Scherf was excited to see lots of familiar faces from
Guernsey County at tonight’s meeting.
OFA has new OFA Camp posters out.
Kathy Myers of our forestry group had recommended to the OFA that
posters are better to send to schools than just brochures, so the kids could
see it. They changed up this year’s
poster so it looks different, and better catches the kid’s attention. The forestry camp needs more campers than
last year to break even. This year’s goal is to have a timber harvest during
camp, so the campers can see an active harvest, see how the trees are marked,
and the management during harvest. Randy
Clum will be overseeing the cut. . The Division of Forestry has a new Bare Root
Planting Chart out.
Jeremy introduced
our speaker. Lynn M. Abrams-Spilker is of Cambridge, Ohio and
specializes working with farm and timber bookkeeping and taxes, as well as
financial advising, and starting of small businesses. She is located in Cambridge across from Wal-Mart
on SR 209.
Her goal with her clients is to help you establish and use
an effective farm and record keeping system for your farm or timber operation
so you can see where you are, and where you are going, so to eliminate
“surprises” in your business planning.
Bookkeeping can be
as simple as a wire bound notebook, or on computer spreadsheets or QuickBooks. If you can write in a check register, you can
handle doing QuickBooks. These are tools
to use to keep track of your expenses and income. Your expenses can be deducted annually or at
the time of your timber sale. The main
thing is that they have to be organized in some way, for your tax consultant to
help you. She recommended NOT using the
“Wal-Mart bag” of organizing. Write your
time down. Chainsaw purchase and repair.
Mileage. Tractor, mower, and other equipment purchase or repair. If you go to a
meeting or a tree farm tour, to better
your knowledge of your tree farm, write it down and anything else that you do
to update or maintain your tree farm.
These are all expenses. “Schedule
F” is the Profit or Loss From Farming sheet on your tax form. It lists various labels eligible for
deduction.
She also explained the Capital Gains or Losses sheet on your
tax form. If you didn’t have an
appraisal done at the time of your tree farm purchase, you can have a forestry
consultant “back-grow” your tree farm to determine the value of the trees at
time of the purchase of the land. If you
sell 60% of the trees, you would use 60% of the purchase-date value of the
timber .as a basis
Decision making is made a lot easier when you know what your
profit and losses are. You should be doing your decision making in October. QuickBooks
puts this at your fingertips. You can do a previous year comparison to help you
see where you are heading, or where you need to go, or do. A balance sheet shows you what you own and
what you owe, and makes you see if you have a positive or negative equity. This
all helps you to create a strategy and monitor your progress. At this point you can set your goals. Are you reaching your goals?
Thank you, Lynn, for a very informative presentation!
Another inspector award for Jeremy Scherf
Jeremy Received a National Honor .
On Feb 11th 2016 in Seattle WA. Jeremy was awarded the National Outstanding Tree Farm Inspector of the
Year. We are so lucky that he keeps our
organization as a priority.
Congratulations to Jeremy and family..
Belmont, Guernsey, Harrison, and Jefferson, Counties
Jeremy Scherf
2050 East Wheeling Ave.
Cambridge, OH 43725-2159
Phone 740-439-9079
Toll free 1-866-274-0102
Fax 740-432-7711
Office day is Wednesday
Erie, Lorain, Huron, Medina, Ashland, Richland, Wayne,
and Holmes counties John Jolliff
950 ODNR
Mohican Rd. 60
Perrysville, OH 44864
Phone 419-938-6222
Carroll, Columbiana, Mahoning, Stark and Tuscarawas Counties
Dan Bartlett
3601 New Garden Road
Salem, OH
44460-9571
330-222-1486
Office day is Wednesday
Coshocton, Muskingum, Noble and Monroe Counties
Adam Komar
6665 Cutler Lake Rd.
Blue Rock, OH 43720-9740
Blue Rock, OH 43720-9740
740-961-0194
office day Wednesday
office day Wednesday
Knox, Morrow, Licking, & Perry Counties
Andy Sabula
8995 E. Main St
- Plant Industry Building
Reynoldsburg, OH 43068
614-425-7767
Greetings from your new ECOFA Vice
President.
If you
have topic ideas for the monthly meeting, please email them to me at treesrus@roadrunner.com, or give me a call on our business
line – 330-364-2386. I would be interested in hearing what you are
interested in hearing/learning about! I would welcome a list of topics,
or if you have personally heard an excellent speaker somewhere in your travels,
I would love to have their contact information, or a lead that might help me
track them down. Thanks!- Koral Clum”
Note: Lola Lewis was to be our speaker for
March and her topic was tree pruning.
She has notified us that she cannot make it that night and has contacted
Canton city arborist Dick Drake to fill in…
Upcoming Events or Seminars
Wild Wednesday programs will occur on the last Wednesday of
month with this month’s meeting at Deerassic Park near Cambridge with a class
on Asian Carp.
February 27th , in Reynoldsburg, is a
Winter Tree and Shrub ID session
Ohio Woodland, Water & Wildlife Conference
Wednesday, March
2, 2016Mid-Ohio
Conference Center,890 West Fourth St Mansfield OH 44906
Please join us for the day. Continuing education
credits for ISA and SAF will be offered where appropriate. Registration is $60 before 2/15/2016 and $80
after that. Call 614-688-3421 for questions
March 9th and 10th in
Columbus the Ohio Forestry Association will conduct their annual meeting with awards. The deadline for reservations is 3/4/2016
after that date the dinner price is increased.
Banquet Reservation Form
Our annual banquet is on April 6th at St
John’s Church basement . The silent
auction starts at 5:30 PM and the dinner will be served at 6:30 pm. Please fill out this form and send it in by
March 25th so that we can plan for the dinner.
Name:______________________________
No of people attending ______X $15 =_______
Make your check out the ECOFA and send
inwith this form completed to PO Box 486,
Carrollton, OH., 44615ZH
Hope to see you there and don’t
forget to bring an auction item
ECOFA
PO Box 486
Carrollton,
OH 44615
Our new meeting location is the Dover Public Library in the meeting room. The address for the Dover Library is 525 North Walnut St.
Dover, Ohio
Mar 2nd
Richard Drake – Proper pruning techniques
Apr 6th
ECOFA annual banquet and auction….at St. Johns church in Dover
May 4th
John Quimby –Biological controls on the tree farm
June 1st
Bob Hart---making sure you are being treated right by Oil and Gas companies.
The
Dover Public Library can be easily found by getting off I-77 at the Dover exit
No. 83 (Rts 39 and 211). Take rt. 211
east (at the cemetery Rt. 211 turns to the right) to West 5th ST.
and Turn left on West 5th. To Walnut St and turn left again to the
Library on your right. There should be
street parking there and a gravel lot around the corner on west 6th
.st.Have a safe and Happy Holiday season with blessings of joy to all our family foresters
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