June 12, 2005
Lisa Andrews' home in New Bedford

Meeting called by : Phyllis Spy, President

Attendees: Diane Wall, Donna Connors, Joanne Ouellette, Lisa Andrews, Alan Ouellette, Mike Lagrou, Jody Renouf, Mark Rosenstein, Jackie Marmen, Vikki Walsh, Bonnie A. Williams, Trudy Wallach, Diddy Wheeler, Bill Harkins, Donna Spirito

Phyllis Spy presented the President's Report including information pertaining to the fall Halloween Frolic and the announcement of Bob Church attending as MC. Inclusive in the report were other schedulee upcoming MaFF Activities, adoption & education days.

Bill Harkins presented the Treasurer's Report including all financial activities since the last meeting. Each member was given a copy of the report with color graphs, balance sheets, and individual transactions posted. Expense forms have been updated to indicate submission to Bill Harkins' address and the future goal of being able to submit the forms online.

Trudy Wallach presented the Foster Network activities which included 68 successfully adopted out ferrets as well as 40 ferrets currently in foster care.

Diddy Wheeler reviewed the activity involving calls received through the MaFF Hotline. She not only has received various ferrets related calls, but all type of other animal calls as well.

Discussion from the group reviewed the renewing of memberships as well as the possibility of giving a three-month free membership for adoptive families for ferrets from the foster care network. Ronnie DiComo has been handling sympathy cards for members who have ferrets that have gone to the bridge as well as congratulation cards for newly adopted ferrets. Diddy offered to assist with those types of issues as well.

The group discussion led to the website, accolades to Mark for keeping up the website current as well as how busy the forums have been. The boutique has had two orders for tee shirts. It was decided that a nocitce would be posted on the website that we would be closed to non-emergency or rescue intakes for the time being until the number of ferrets in foster care were adopted out. Foster parents were encouraged to bring the foster ferrets to as many adoption days as possible in order to have them seen by prospective adtoptive families.

The group discussion continued to cover the Department of Agriculture regulations pertaining to moving rescued animals across state lines. At present the guidelines only outline the regulations for dogs and cats although we all agreed that all the precautions and quarantines we are currently using that we should continue to be attentive to.

Upcoming events mentioned included: August 17th Mansfield Animals in Disaster Seminar, June 25th Celebration of Animals, upcoming Ferret Picnic mid to end of August.