Friends of Taylor Wildlife Preserve
​Annual Meeting Minutes
​Saturday, March 21, 2026

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  1. Attendees-    Peter Taylor, Lily Taylor, Jeff Taylor, Julie Taylor, Daniel Hunter, Lunden Abelson, Tom Bujak, Mike Zickler, Fern Tatum, Jonathan Snipes, Becky Taylor (via Zoom), Sandy Rea and Stephanie Judson (via Zoom), Chuck Turner
  2. Approval of 2019 Annual Meeting minutes-    Minutes from the 2019 Meeting were distributed and approved unanimously by those present. It was noted that no Annual Meetings were held for the years 2020 thru 2025 due to Covid restrictions.
  3. Officers and Executive Board members -  (A) Review of 2 year renewals- the following were removed from the Board: Carolyn Bujak, Suzanne Day, Jenna Forte, Chuck Mattern, Takashi Mizuno, Kitty Taylor Mizuno, Michael Robinson, Larry Tatum, and Tom Wells, Stephanie Judson, Sandy Rea. Additions to the Board include Fern Tatum, Jeff and Julie Taylor, Becky Taylor, and Chuck Turner.
    (B) Officer changes – Mike Zickler was replaced as Chair by Julie Taylor, and Carolyn Bujak was replaced as Secretary by Lunden Abelson.
  4. Treasurer’s report  - Lily Taylor presented the report verbally from her written version, noting expenses, membership revenue, and balances in our WSFS savings account and investment account at Friends Fiduciary. Lily also noted that the annual reporting requirement for 501(3)(c) organizations has been met annually since our last meeting. Many thanks to Lily for her diligence and oversight in keeping us financially sound.
  5. Past Activities  - Multiple members contributed to the discussion of activities in the past few years, including cleanup days held by Raritan Valley Community College and Clean Ocean Action; clearing the narrow lane of overhanging trees and brush; and various trail clearingprojects. Peter reported on an onsight visit by a NJ Natural Lands Trust representative to review our MOU with them.
  6. Ongoing Activities: 
    Various activities were discussed.
    1. Trail Maintenance - Jeff and Daniel volunteered to spear head trail maintenance. They will pull communicate plans out to rally any support from others.
    2. River/trash clean up - Lunden is going to going to look into holding some river cleanups. To assist in future river cleanups it was discussed that relationships would be explored with various schools and orgs who might be interested in or seeking community service. In addition Lunden and Daniel are going to explore if we can get dumpsters donated forfuture river clean ups.
    3. Bird Walk - Mike and Fern are going to explore a spring bird walkA bird walk will be scheduled; Fern suggested the second weekend in May, and Mike will contact Steve Sobocinski who is available to lead it. 
    4. Maintenance of structures - We discussed that the bird lookout on the middle path is obscured by plants. We discussed clearing plants and possibly building it higher. Fern volunteered to do more research about some of the plant life in that area to get ideas of the best way to remove it while being thoughtful about native plants and sustainability. Clearing of the emerging vegetative growth in the area of the Observation Deck on the narrow lane was proposed, and will be addressed after consideration of how much removal is appropriate, and how/when to safely conduct it. 
    5. We discussed that the wooden bridge needs some work. Tom and Mike are going to research materials and best way to approach this repair. Some maintenance of the boardwalk trail is necessary to replace a few damaged boards. 
    6. We discussed the hole forming under the slew on the Wright Cove trail. There were different opinions on how to best fix the hole. It seemed that the opinions were not unanimous on the best way to fix the hole in the path. 
    7. Benches - we noted that the bench on wrights cove is not usable
    8. Signage - we talked some about signage and the lack of clear signage about where to go and how to be a good visitor to the farm and preserve 
    9. Trash and Kiosk - we talked about the picnic table and kiosk and that it is fairly worn. We also discussed the accumulation of trash and the plan to not invite trash by removing the trash can. 
    10. Peter was going to reach out to G about some trail maintenance. 
    11. ​Julie, as incoming Chair, will work on organizing what our key goals should be and how best to accomplish them.