MINUTES

MANSFIELD ADVOCATES FOR CHILDREN

Wednesday, April 2, 2008

Mansfield Town Hall, Conference Room B

6:30-8:00 PM

PRESENT: K. Grunwald (staff), N. Hovorka, MJ Newman, S. Baxter (staff), K. Russo, J. Higham, B. Lehmann, J. Stoughton (staff), J. Goldman, D. McLaughlin, A. Bladen,

REGRETS: L. Oransoff, C. Guerreri, R. Leclerc, S. Daley, L. Dahn, K. Paulhus, A. Bloom

AGENDA:

Item	Discussion	Outcome
Open	Chair A. Bladen called the meeting to order at 6:35 PM. -Vote to adopt 3/5/08 MAC Minutes: J. Goldman pointed out that “next steps” under Small Groups refers to the Infant/Toddler group.	The minutes were accepted with that clarification.
Announce-ments	Updates on: - Collaborative Agent: agreement has been finalized with the United Way of the Capital Area. K. Russo clarified that the United Way is not closing the office for the Windham Region, as has been reported. They will now formally become part of the Capital Area office. -Joan Buck sent a “thank you” note to MAC. -Week of the Young Child- S. Baxter handed out placemats designed by Nancy Hovorka, which will be distributed to local restaurants. -Membership/Recruitment- S. Baxter asked members to please complete personal information cards. -Superintendent Search Focus Groups: K. Grunwald and S. Baxter attended focus groups on the superintendent search and commented on the importance of considering early childhood issues. -Goodwin Before School Program: S. Baxter reported that there are 11 children enrolled. - Reminder- S. Baxter reminded members that small group meeting minutes & attachments should be sent to her for inclusion in the MAC packet.
Local Planning Grant-Opportunity for MAC Local Planning Grant –Develop List of Stakeholders	S. Baxter provided background on this grant application. We have received a $10,000 T.A. grant to rewrite Local Planning Grant: Kevin and Sandy have met twice with the consultant who is working with us on the application. The question is whether or not we should pursue this grant. Members generated a list of missing stakeholders for the Local Planning Grant Work Group (see attachment).	After discussion (see attachments), the group decided to support our application for this Local Capacity Building grant. Members will be asked to recruit participants for this group who represent these stakeholders.
Meeting Evaluation	Brief discussion re: +Positives and ^Negatives about this meeting.

Meeting adjourned at 8:10 PM

Respectfully submitted,

Kevin Grunwald