Thank you to outgoing President Katie Esposito (standing in center) for six years of wonderful leadership!

On February 11, 2025, the Friends of the Urbana Regional Library (FURL) held its planned annual meeting. The agenda included the adoption of revised bylaws and the election of the executive board, among other items. The meeting was well attended despite being held over Zoom due to a sizable snowstorm.

First, the bylaws, which a committee had been working on for some time and shared the changes with the members, were voted on and accepted. This was quite a project led by outgoing President Katie Esposito. Many thanks to Bylaws Committee members Carolyn Biggins, Tyler Chadwell-English, and Diana Manevskaya for their time and contributions. Revised bylaws clarified the board member’s term limits, roles, and voting procedures, among other things. Check out the adopted document here on our Bylaws page.

The second agenda item was the election of a new FURL Board of Directors. The new president is Diana Manevskaya; the vice president is Tara Congdon; the treasurer is David Spaans; and the secretary is Carolyn Biggins.

Committees and committee chairs will be discussed and voted on at the next FURL meeting to be held March 11, 2025.

At the meeting, we thanked the outgoing board members for their contributions to FURL over the past years. While we planned to celebrate it with tea and cupcakes, the weather prevented us from doing so. We gathered later to thank Katie for her leadership over the past six years. Katie thanked FURL and expressed her confidence that the new board will provide the kind of guidance needed with the help and support of the FURL members. Katie also promises to continue to participate in the varied events as a FURL member.

We would also like to thank Gretchen, FURL’s outgoing secretary, whose dedication and great ideas were essential to FURL’s functioning. We would be remiss in not thanking David Spaans for 15 years as treasurer. That has been a stellar piece of work on his part, and we are hoping for someone to volunteer to learn what he does and become the new treasurer.

Katie and Gretchen, you will be missed on the board, and we hope to see you at our events as volunteers. David, thank you for staying the course. Here is to our new board members and all who are involved in FURL.