Farmers Weekly Review

The Foundation board met at 9 am on February 7^th with the following members present: Jim Robbins, Diane Tordai, Lyle Tewes, Debbie Werner, Kris Mulderink and Rita Luedtke.

The financial statements were reviewed, and everything is steady. They looked at investments, and all was better than a year ago. Income outside of the estates was also up. The financials were approved to be placed on file for the next audit. Lyle reported that they had filed all the tax paperwork and taxes for the 2022 fiscal year.

The next item was reviewing the online auction, raffles, and live auction held on January 28th. Larry Lorenz was thanked for doing the live auction and the five items brought in over $2,425 along with the raffles adding $960. The cash donations and online auction items brings us over $24,100, which beat the last couple years on the online auction proceeds. The group had many comments on how much fun people had with the auction online and the last 30 minutes was extremely fun, but many bids were lost to competition the last 15 minutes.

Lyle reported that we had 133 bidders and over 884 bids were actually made during the online auction. 59 people had winning bids on the online auction with 117 items on the online auction. Pick-up started on February 3rd with about 10 people and is continuing through through February 7. About 1/2 were picked up by 10 a.m., and we are expecting more this afternoon.

The game night and ice cream at the annual meeting were a huge hit. The atrium was too cold set at 62, and temps just didn’t come up with 200 people present. So, we need to start at 66 degrees next year. We need to move the tables about 6-8 inches farther apart and move the raffles to front where registration is to see if that will also help with ticket sales.

They reviewed the applications for scholarships, and Lyle reported that we currently have 11 college and six high school applications turned in. Tracey has been in contact with all the guidance counselors on applications which are due March 1^st. They will keep the numbers the same for next year at this point, with 54 total scholarships 26 higher educations, 26 high school and two ag teacher scholarships. They will keep the process for a Master Gardener scholarship at $150 to promote the program with Nancy.

The next item was election of officers for the 2023 year, and they are as follows: President — Lyle Tewes, Vice President — Kris Mulderink, Treasurer — Jim Robbins, Secretary — Debbie Werner, Rita Luedtke and Diane Tordai. The next meeting will be held March 28^th at 9 a.m. to review the judging of the scholarships for the 2023 year. They are hopeful to get the applications out for judging by March 6^th, but all depends on mail delivery. They will need to have these judged by a target date which set for March 21-22 to allow time to get everything entered into the scoring system.

Debbie indicated she could take the applications for judging to Rita, Kris and if Jim needed them dropped off. Lyle and Diane and Debbie will pick up their applications to judge themselves as postage will cost more than gas mileage if we have to mail 115-120 applications.