It's Time!

[allison...@gmail.com]

Hello Mini-Grants Committee!

The application window for the 2025 mini-grant season is officially closed. We have 13 applicants with proposals totaling just under $10,000. As a reminder, we only have the funds for $7,500, so there are some proposals that may be only partially funded, or not funded at all.

Please take the next two weeks to read over the applications! They're already uploaded to our Mini-Grants Google Drive (link here). There's a folder under 2025 labeled "2025 Applications" with all the PDFs. Once you've read them through, please head to the 2025 spreadsheet and rank the applications on a scale of 1 to 13, with 1 being the highest priority to fund. The spreadsheet will automatically total them, and I'll rank them in the sheet once everyone has voted. Lowest cumulative score is awarded the overall #1 spot, and so on.

Let's plan to meet virtually the first week of February (3-7). We will sort out the disbursement of funds amongst the applicants during this meeting, and it also a time for any committee to advocate for (or against) any particular applications. We'll need to have our results to report to the board at our next meeting on February 10th. I'm at sea Feb 3-21, so any time in the evening would work for me. Please let me know what dates you and I'll set up the Zoom meeting.

Let me know if you have any other questions, and happy reading!

Allison

[melissa baston]

Hi Allison,

Am I doing something wrong?  I only see 2024 info.

Melissa

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[Corey Leamy]

Hi Allison,

Thanks, I'll get cracking on those.

I will be leaving for Colombia early on the 4th. Can potentially meet on the 3rd or evening of the 4th.

Cheers,

Corey

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/coa-minigrants/CANPdfyssi1avzMX8KiMzqr%3DEVnh-1em9FmayvMUvwDFuxfGoxw%40mail.gmail.com.

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Corey A. Leamy
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[Allison Black]

Hi Melissa,

You're listed as an editor for the whole Mini-Grants Google Drive folder, which has 2023-2025 in it, so you should have access to everything. Try this link? Mini-Grants

Let me know if that doesn't work for you!

Allison

On Fri, Jan 17, 2025 at 11:47 AM melissa baston <mba...@gmail.com> wrote:

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[Peter Grund]

Thanks, Allison! Look forward to taking a look. I can see all the applications there. Evening-time, I would be available 6-8pm on Feb. 4, 5, 6, and, if necessary, 7 (but I can't do the 3rd).

Peter

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[Corey Leamy]

Howdy All,

Checked the task of reading through and voting off the to-do list. 

Cheers,

Corey

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/coa-minigrants/1183092728.1905038.1737406882617%40mail.yahoo.com.

[abby...@gmail.com]

Hi All,

Entered my rankings.

Allison,  Did we ever learn if A Place Called Hope has someone certified to drive the boat with outboard?

Thanks,

Abby

[Allison Black]

Hi everyone,

Thanks for checking in Abby. Yes, I did hear back from them. Below is their response:

"Two of APCH Executive Board members currently hold these certifications. Janet Colandrea and Russ Miller.  Russ is on the APCH rescue team that would be involved with water related crisis. APCH Rescue team members, Todd Secki, Alex Brune, are pending certification with Bob Lizotte who teaches the class and lives locally to APCH. We are aware of the requirements and are proceeding to further comply as soon as possible."

Jim and Peter, please try to enter your rankings at your soonest convenience (mine will be up tomorrow). I'll distribute the money on the spreadsheet based on the rankings and then we can decide if we need to meet virtually, though it seems it might be tricky to schedule based on everyone's schedules :). I'll be in touch soon.

Thanks everyone!

Allison

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/coa-minigrants/de38bf00-9197-4737-ae58-8a6cbfdbffd4n%40googlegroups.com.

[Peter Grund]

Mine are in!

Thanks,

Peter

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/coa-minigrants/CAKDpKM5FNhe3pvYSd55oBK-dtOTJCxVgvd_eDyyU9TJu2Q-u%3DA%40mail.gmail.com.

[allison...@gmail.com]

Hello Mini-Grants Committee,

Everyone's votes are now in, so please take a look at the updated spreadsheet. The money has been distributed based on rankings, with the exception of CAS. Since two different CAS centers sent in applications and were ranked near each other, funds were split between them. Let me know if you have any questions about anything. Once the committee has signed off on this sheet I'll email applicants to let them know the results, and we'll also let the board know at the upcoming meeting on Monday. Link to the sheet is here, for easy access.

Thank you all for your time and effort in reading all of our applications this year.

Allison

[Peter Grund]

Thanks for all your work on this, Allison! I had a couple of questions. Why did the Meriden Conservation Committee get $400 instead of their requested $500? I get it that that would take us above the budget, but I am curious why this request was lowered in particular.

In terms of the splitting of the CAS money, I'm not sure I follow what was split. The guidelines seem to say that one recipient can only receive a total of $1000, but CAS got 2x$775. Is CAS not considered one recipient in this case because it was two different requests/projects? And if they are considered two different projects, why $775?

I've never been on this committee before, so sorry if these are obvious things that I should know!

Thanks,

Peter

https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/coa-minigrants/61c1a129-d40e-4435-9623-69eff225139en%40googlegroups.com

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[Allison Black]

Hello Mini-Grants Committee,

Peter, thank you very much for asking for clarification. Historically each CAS center has been treated as an independent applicant (note the awards for 2020 listed on their respective rows), so we'll do the same for this year. I think I accidentally split those last funds evenly instead of designating them appropriately to the higher-ranked CAS recipient, so thank you for pointing that out. It has been amended in the spreadsheet. CAS (Milford) now receives $950, as that is the remaining funds in our budget, so the Meriden Conservation Committee grant request is not funded. 

**My two biggest concerns as the chair of the Mini-Grants Committee are the following**: 

1. Our guidelines state that preference is given to new applicants, however half of this year's new applicants (2 out of 4) did not receive funding due to their rankings. I understand that project proposals may not be appropriate for COA Mini-Grants, or that applicants just may not have a strong application in general, but it's worth noting, and as a committee we should remember this moving forward.

2. Secondly, our guidelines also state that grant awards may be limited to two consecutive years per applicant. With our current rankings, Roaring Brook Nature Center will receive another grant this year, after receiving $500 in 2024, $1000 in 2023, and $500 in 2019.

Just some food for thought! Please take a second look at the sheet to see if there's anything else that I missed. I appreciate your efforts on this. We'll need to finalize it all by the board meeting on Monday evening.

Thank you,

Allison

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/coa-minigrants/554556077.8529884.1738983233136%40mail.yahoo.com.

[Peter Grund]

Thanks, Allison, for the clarification. I am sorry to see that the Meriden project did not receive funding, but that is how the numbers fell out. I am fine moving forward with this. 

For next year, it would be helpful to me at least to have a meeting to discuss some of the issues you raise, but perhaps also a meeting after the rankings are in. Not having been involved in this committee before, I found the comparison of the proverbial apples and oranges a difficult one. The explicitness of the applications also varied a great deal, with some giving hardly any information or specification in terms of budget. (I read a lot of applications in my job, and some of the lack of detail would be disqualifying there, but that is a different context, and different committees work differently by necessity.)

Thanks again, Allison, for all your work on this!

Peter

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[allison...@gmail.com]

Hi All,

Some exciting news! We've received a donation of $250 to put towards Mini-Grants, which means we'll be able to partially fund the next eligible applicant, the Meriden Conservation Commission. I've asked for the donor's contact information so I can write them a thank you note on behalf of the committee.

I plan to send emails out next week informing applicants of our decisions and will cc the Mini-Grants email on them all, so I apologize in advance for the flurry of emails you'll likely be receiving during that time frame.

Thank you all again for your work on this,

Allison

[Corey Leamy]

How exciting!

-Corey

On Feb 14, 2025, at 13:21, Allison...@gmail.com wrote:

Hi All,

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/coa-minigrants/74bb9587-9bc1-43aa-9305-c8847c447b5fn%40googlegroups.com.

[Peter Grund]

Excellent!

Peter

Sent from my iPhone

On Feb 14, 2025, at 1:32 PM, Corey Leamy <leamy...@gmail.com> wrote:

How exciting!

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[melissa baston]

That’s great news. Thank you. 

Sent from my iPhone

On Feb 14, 2025, at 3:56 PM, 'Peter Grund' via coa-minigrants <coa-min...@googlegroups.com> wrote:



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