 Hi, my name is Roger Burley and I welcome you to CTN 5 member highlights. I am president of Oceanside Conservation Trust of Casco Bay. For well over 30 years we have been working in the western part of Casco Bay to preserve and protect the very most special places on the islands behind me and along the shore. We do this to not only protect the land but to provide access to the public who can get to these properties one way or another on the islands that might be by powerboat, sailboat, kayak, canoe, who knows. We are very selective in properties that we work to preserve but the goal really is to create a balance between privately owned properties and properties that the public can enjoy when they don't have an opportunity to own their own. The shoreline of the state of Maine and these islands have been used by the public for thousands of years going back to the red paint people. Over the last 150 years or so most of these properties have been bought by private individuals or organizations and in many cases no trespassing signs go up where people just feel that they're not welcome. So our work is really for the public's benefit and when we select a property it really must be thoughtfully done and right behind me here is Claverd Island. It's a 34 acre island, one of the three islands within the town of Falmouth. It's northeast half has been for sale for a couple of years and when no one stepped forth to buy it a local movement was started by a grassroots group of people to see what they could do to capture this property for the public benefit. So that group is the Friends of Claverd Island and they are working in conjunction with Maine Coast Heritage Trust to raise 1.6 million dollars by this coming August 15th to buy this property and to preserve it. There is a lovely three season cottage on the island which will be resold hopefully to help reach the goal of 1.6 million. When the project is done Maine Coast Heritage Trust will own and work to maintain this property and otherwise it will be there for people to go to walk on the beach to walk the trails to have a picnic to simply enjoy it. There will be no overnight camping but otherwise it's there for everybody. Access can be from several points including Falmouth town landing. Recently I spoke to two key members of the Friends of Claverd Island Susan Gilpin and David Gooch. Susan will talk about the history of the project and David will talk to the funding of the project. Susan you have been the lead spokesperson. Tell us some brief history of and where this project stands at the moment. Okay. Well Claverd Island looks like a wonderful place because it is a wonderful place. It has an undisturbed succession forest with mature trees over a hundred years old. It has bald eagles nesting in those trees. Ospreys it has five beaches and there's a path all the way around the island that's big enough to like drive in a golf cart. It's also very close to shore. It's only a mile. You can kayak out there. You can go out in a little punt. It takes it took me 25 minutes to get out there and 20 minutes to get back because the weather got worse and I was in a hurry. So one day I was out there with my friend David Gooch and a bunch of other people and David said you know this island is for sale and I said this island is for sale we should buy it and turn it into a park and everybody said yeah we should buy it and turn it into a park. So about two weeks later I thought to myself you know maybe we should. So I went to the open space committee in the town of Falmouth. I went to the Falmouth land trust. I went to the Maine Coast Heritage Trust. I went to everybody I could think of and I invited them to come out there with us one day and see it and they came and we walked on the island for two hours and then we all stood in this little green opening in a circle and I said to them well what do you think? You think this is actually a good idea and they said this is a good idea and we will support you. So that was the beginning of our effort to preserve Clabbert and open it for public access. Wonderful and David was a deadline of August 15th of this year to raise the necessary funds to complete this purchase. Where does the campaign stand at the moment and how do you plan to close the deal on this opportunity? With the help from a lot of friends. We're out of Angel Hunting in a big way right now. We're looking for people who see the value in this island that we see and are willing to put their dollars where their mouth is and we've been very successful so far. We've raised a substantial amount of private money. We've had the support from the town. We do have the parcel of the house and three season house that is going to be for sale that puts us a long ways towards their goal but we have a $1.6 million fundraising goal and we're about halfway there. We really need to have the community step forward. I've lived and found with all my life and I've gone by those no trespassing signs time and time again. I'd love to start selling those trespassing signs to people who want to see thoughtful public access to Clabbert Island. Well there you have it and Clabbert Island that we've been talking about so lovingly is right here behind us. There is information on the screen about how to make a contribution to Maine Coast Heritage Trust in support of this project. Thank you.