FSGW Board Meeting Minutes Tuesday, March 6, 2012
Attendees: President Mary Cliff, Secretary Cat Tucker, , VP Bill Mayhew, Membership Chair Stephanie Kaufman, At-Large Sue McIver Newsletter/Publications Chair Roxanne Watts., Treasurer Jerry Stein, Dance Chair Penelope Weinberger, Publicity Chair: RosieLee Salinas, Program & Events Chair Betsy Platt
Absent: At-Large Michael Barraclough, One At-Large position is vacant
Mary called our meeting to order at 8:05 pm.
Minutes – December non-minutes + January minutes + February non-minutes, Motion approve all. 2nd by RosieLee. Passed.
Motion by Roxanne to make RosieLee the Publicity Chairperson. 2nd by Jerry Stein. Passed.
Motion to approve Nominating Committee made up of: Jerry Stein, Jim Cole, Neil Zimmerman, and Marty Sommerhauer Motion made by Penelope. Seconded by Bill. Passed.
Treasurer’s Report:
Made a $3,000 profit at the Minifest – biggest profit ever. The Board thanks April Blum for another job well done. Checking account is getting larger, so we are making more money. Have $2,500 in our budget for donations.
Membership Report:
1967 members – 83 over last month. Increases equally distributed between families and individuals 41 and 42. Betsy has 5 or 6 new memberships.
The official thank you to Alice
Dance Report:
New season contract with GEPPAC
Year is completely booked through January, 2013
DC Dance with FND – 12 hour local musician dance. September 23rd followed by ContraStock.
ContraSonic move – trying to do it on a Thursday in March, Annex the two months after that
Chesapeake Dance – last one had 436 people at it. Hoping for a repeat fabulous year.
Newsletter/Publications Report:
Want to purchase a trial analytics program that allows us to look at the hits on the website. Going to try and find a place to put the results on the website. Can’t tell what page they are hitting on right now. Over 6,000 people who tried to get to the site and couldn’t because there was no “fave” icon. We have created a “fave” icon. You can drag it into your toolbar – allows more people to find us.
Roxanne is sorting out a label situation that exists. Having some group calls and sharing the computer screen. Subscribed to Go-To-Meeting for $39 a month. 15 people can be on at one time. Would be $468 a year. Could potentially get half of it free because we are a non-profit. Could apply for a grant. Betsy said Go-To-Meeting could be great to use in various ways throughout the year. Roxanne will follow up with Go-To-Meeting to see about the possibility of a grant.
Doing an audit of all the pages of the website – to improve the website.
Logo not on the website, yet. Working on getting it back up there.
Newsletter distribution – is there a better way to accomplish this. Roxanne has asked how much would cost to ship various shipments. Roxanne said that it is cost prohibitive to send too many various shipment. RosieLee asks if we’ve checked on a Distribution Service. Roxanne suggests that we make a list of places where they need to go – send Roxanne the list of places where they need to be sent.
The board thanks Sandy Aubin for all of his work on the Analytic program.
Publicity Report:
RosieLee thinks that we’d look more professional if we’d buy signs that we can sick in the ground – banana signs. Roxanne suggests we order a quantity of signs like Real Estate Agents use. To use in front of events.
If trying to draw non-members into the event – don’t think that such signs will be helpful
New signage (we have yellow banner, 6 or 8 in-ground signs “Folklore Society event”)
A committee for social media – RosieLee is doing the Facebook page, but does not do Twitter. Do we have a Twitter account? Cat and Stephanie think “yes”. RosieLee is going to check with Katie.
Facebook page – keep Katie informed?
Program/Events Report:
1812 – went well. Full house – 120 attendees. Wonderful performance. Made a fair amount of money and received several memberships. March and April concerts coming up. A couple of possibilities on Monday, May 21st: Jaycee Cees would like us to sponsor Alicia Spiegel. The Jaycee Cees would like us to give them a $250 donation from the donations fund. Board supports this donation. Also, Harmonia would like to do a concert that night as well.
Sacred Harp Convention planning is moving along.
Roxanne wondered if we were going to do anything about this being Woody Guthrie’s 100th birthday. Woody Guthrie conference is being held at the University of Pennsylvania.
Old Business:
Complete vote: Election committee
Minimum requirements for nominees – important that the are members and familiar with folklore and folk music and familiar with the obligations of a large non-profit organization.
Job descriptions – came this evening. Each of should work on our particular job description.
Event injuries – updates – Leslie is recovering.
Cat Send the information to the Board as to whom to contact to for volunteering to help on the weekends.
New Business:
Charlie Baum requests that we authorize him to file paperwork and pay deposit for 2013 Getaway at West River Conference Center, first weekend October 2013. 2012 deposit was $3700; should be in that range. It has
made profit in recent years. Moved by Betsy, seconded by Penelope. Approved.
Need to authorize Getaway Committee Chair and members (Nancy King, Kathy
Mack, Carly Gewirz, Susan Weiss, Stephen Weiss, Dean Clamons, Lorraine VanBuren, Jennifer Woods
Moved by Betsy, seconded by Jerry. Approved.
Discussion was held related to the establishment of permanent committees to work with elected chairs; who will do it? Mary indicates that in the past many folks have said that it’s a great idea but the Board has never put them in to place. Betsy – has there been a discussion to decide if that is necessary and if the majority of the Board Members want to have committees? Mary - No. Betsy says that to create such positions would be a huge change from the way things have been happening. Penelope would like to advocate adding two committee members to each chair position and to fill them. Penelope thinks each committee chair should have two assistants – and chair and committee should operate together as a team. Could also include past chairs who could help the new committee chair person transition. Chair should be able to help form the committee – committee members should NOT be dictated by the Board. It was decided to table the discussion of the assistants to the Chairs until the April meeting. Mary says that we will need a job description to include: how each job works, and how would the assistants would be chosen. Mary suggested that we might want to consider adding a volunteer coordinator as a non-elected position to the Board. We could appoint a volunteer chair without changing the by-laws. We need to create a job description and then decide on a candidate.
ACTION: Cat will create a draft job description of a potential Volunteer Coordinator.
Motion was made to purchase a table at the Gala which will be held May 19th from 6 pm to midnight, Betsy made the motion, 2nd for Penelope Passed.
We need a place to post committee reports for the official record – is there a place for them online? How do we develop this area? Will discuss further at future meetings.
Marketing ideas to increase the number of young members were discussed – kids series; regular jam sessions; preview to 50th Must start on the preview to the 50th soon. Huge folk community around Boston. One of the principal things – must pass the folk talents on to the younger generation or the Folklore Society will die. We need to develop partnerships with groups who have young members. ACTION: Sue asked the Board to think about such groups with whom each of us has contact touch points and to send to her - she will create consolidated list. It was also suggested that we designate a place in the newsletter to focus on the activities of our younger artists.
There are young people playing folk music and it’s great to see the under 30’s doing it. Would be nice create venues where they can pursue it locally, get better at it, and then eventually get paid for it, e.g. jam sessions. There are young people worth hiring. Penelope says that there are venues in the District where young musicians gather to jam.
It was agreed that we do need a sound equipment committee to discuss the purchase of new equipment. We need to get such a committee functional very soon.
Motion was made by RosieLee to adjourn the meeting. It was seconded by Sue. Passed Meeting adjourned at 10 pm.
Next meeting: Tuesday, April 3, 2012 at Glen Echo Park. HTMLCONTROL Forms.HTML:Hidden.1 HTMLCONTROL Forms.HTML:Hidden.1 HTMLCONTROL Forms.HTML:Hidden.1
Respectfully submitted by Cat Tucker
FSGW Board Meeting Minutes Tuesday, March 6, 2012 Page PAGE 2 of NUMPAGES 3