Regular Board Meeting June 20, 2012
1. CALL TO ORDER: Chair Kim Laird called the meeting to order at 8:32 p.m. EST.
2. ROLL:
Present: Kim Laird (Chair), Kevin Axtell, Matt Hall, Richard Kennison, Dave Pawson, Thom Wall, Mike Sullivan (Future fest director, 2011 fest director), Marilyn Sullivan, Martin Frost (communications director), Sandy Brown (recording secretary); plus guests Lloyd Timberlake, Nathan Wakefield, Scott Krause, and Cameron McEwen.
Absent: Erin Stephens
3. APPROVAL OF AGENDA: Thom moved to approve the agenda for June 20, 2012. Second by Kevin. Vote: Motion passes unanimously.
APPROVAL OF MINUTES: Kevin moved to approve the minutes from May 16, 2012. Second by Thom. Vote: Motion passes unanimously.
4. REPORTS:
2012 Fest (Matt Hall & Mike Sullivan as registrar)
2012 Festival Registration Report
June 19, 2012
Fer Sumano will not be attending festival due to back injury.
We are 10 days from the end of pre-registration and 27 days until the start of the festival.
As of tonight, 2012 festival registrations are as follows:
176 Adult packages
84 Youth/Senior packages
19 Pavel workshops
29 Adult gym passes
6 Youth/Senior gym passes
79 spectator passes
32 joggling entries
10 vendor orders
Only 70% of the hotel rooms are filled. Warren Hammond is working on finding MCs for the shows. Jugheads may MC Jr. Championships. So far there is no Cascade of Stars Director. Matt and Jim Maxwell may direct. Crash is working on the t-shirts. ‘Volunteer’ may be printed on some of the t-shirts. Keith Nelson, Slammin’, and Mark Hayworth are confirmed for Renegade. There are no funds for volunteer gifts. The festival program and workshop schedule to be non-glossy paper, black and white, probably done at Kinkos. Pavel’s workshop is filling up. Numbers for competitors are up.
Festival Workshops: (Dave Pawson)
There are currently 52 workshops in the tentative schedule. There are a few more trickling in, and notably there are not yet workshops from our paid guests. While this is a lower number than the past few years, I’m actually really pleased with how the schedule is playing out:
– There are no workshops scheduled at noon. I wanted to leave people a break in the day when attendees could eat without fear of missing anything. I’ve since been told that dining options in Winston-Salem can be a bit distant from the fest, so this choice may be particularly prudent.
– There are only a few workshops that conflict with any of the Games, Planting the Juggling Seed, Joggling, Numbers Championships, the Business Meeting, or Xtreme Juggling. Anything that is now running in parallel with those events are doing so being they explicitly asked to run at a particular time.
– Monday is quite vacant, with only two introductory workshops late in the day.
– For most of the rest of the week, there are either 2 or 3 workshops in every hour slot. Enough to give a choice, not so many that people will constantly have conflicts
– We have a nice mix of difficulties, and a healthy sprinkle of discussion or non-juggling workshops. I have a few minor holes that I’m actively chasing to fill.
This came together really quickly, and for the most part I’m feeling pretty good about the state of this project.
Future Festivals (Mike Sullivan)
We have contracts for:
2013: Bowling Green
2014: Winston-Salem: Board wants to cancel this site for 2014. WS wants us to come back in 2015. We are falling below the threshold where we are attractive to a city because our numbers are so low. Thom: we need to collaborate with other US juggling festivals. We need to look at other models and we need to do it soon, otherwise we close the door on festival site opportunities.
Financial (Holly Greeley)
Nothing received from Holly for this meeting. Board members do not need Board approval to review the complete books.
Website Team (David Landowne, Martin Frost, Mike Sullivan, Erin Stevens)…
AMS Project update and updated pricing pdf attached to board email.
All reviewed packages would reduce workload for volunteers. They are all web-based administration systems which would streamline all operations. Iiwii will fund the project. He wants additional information. All software is provided. Several Board members question if such a system is overkill for the IJA and if we can truly afford it.
Membership (Marilyn Sullivan)…
# members 1181
# total with family 1403
# families 165
# youths 65
# life members 281
# mailings sent on 6/7 – 1009 to US members and 121 to International members.
Education (Kevin Axtell/Erin Stephens)
Marketing/Promotions (Thom Wall)
VTC Spreadsheet attached to board email. Budget shows money made and money spend and actual sticker cost of program. $356 was made. Such a budget is valuable and used by grant writers. Over 3,000 people now visit the IJA Facebook page. Fewer than half of these people live in the US. One quarter to one fifth of viewers are Spanish speaking.
5. MOTIONS FOR CONSIDERATION:
A. Motion to approve the policy that prior to each board meeting, the bookkeeper and/or treasurer will provide the board with an accounting of all payments made in the previous month, and all payments to be made in the upcoming month, to be presented for board approval. Unforeseen or ad hoc expenses can be managed during the month via majority vote on the mailing list. On a one time basis, the board will receive an accounting of all payments made year-to-date.
Motion: Dave
Second: Richard
Discussion: This should probably be the bookkeeper’s duty, someone who is on the bankroll, rather than the volunteer treasurer position. During the fest, payouts become more complicated. Holly can generate payout notes on Quickbooks.
Amendment: Motion to approve the policy that prior to each board meeting, the bookkeeper and/or treasurer will provide the board with an accounting of all payments made in the previous month, and all payments to be made in the upcoming month, to be presented for board approval. Unforeseen or ad hoc expenses can be managed during the month via majority vote on the mailing list. If a Board majority has not been obtained within 24 hours, the Chair can, at their discretion, approve payment. The Chair can not override Board majority.
Vote: Motion passes unanimously
B. Motion to approve either on demand or fulfillment contracts for 2011 fest DVDs through Acutrak. (pdfs attached to board email)
Motion: Kevin
Second: Dave
Discussion: ‘on demand’ means that when a person orders a dvd it is replicated and then it’s shipped out. ‘Fulfillment’ means we tell the company to replicate, for example, 300 dvds sets, they store it, and then they ship it out. On demand seems to be what is best for the IJA.
Amend the motion to read:
Motion to approve an ‘on demand’ contract for 2011 fest DVDs through Acutrak. (pdfs attached to board email)
Motion: Thom
Second: Matt
Vote: Motion passes unanimously
C. Motion to approve resignation of John Nikkel as IJA Treasurer with the board’s thanks for his time and energy. and to approve________ as treasurer for festival purposes.
Motion: Dave
Second: Kevin
Discussion: Someone needs to be appointed to handle financial tasks for fest purposes. Duties of this person at the fest: oversee cash register, make sure money counted correctly at end of day and it matches the receipts, and then deposited. This is usually done by someone at the registration table.
Amended motion: Motion to approve resignation of John Nikkel as IJA Treasurer with the board’s thanks for his time and energy.
Motion to amend the motion: Kevin
Second: Dave
Vote: Motion passes unanimously
D. Motion to approve award recipients for 2012 as follows:
Jay Ko: Extraordinary Service Award
Freddy Kenton: Historical Achievement
Richard Kenneson: Education Award
Martin Frost: Honorary Life Member
Motion: Matt
Second: Kevin
Discussion:
Vote: Motion passes unanimously
E. Motion to approve the allocation of a dedicated LREC ad unit on the eJuggle front page, to be used for compensatory advertising in the vendor discount program.
Explanation: In return for the vendors providing discounts to our members, we’d be providing them advertising on the eJuggle front page. We’d be allocating an LREC; this is a standard ad unit, 300×250 pixels. Scott Seltzer and I settled on placing such an ad unit in the right rail, below the IJA News and Projects module and the Log In module, but above the tabbed multifunction module. This ad unit would choose an ad at random from the participating vendors upon each page view.
Motion: Dave
Second: Thom
Discussion: No down side to this.
Vote: Motion passes unanimously
F. Motion to approve the following changes to membership costs. Lower Adult Membership from $40 to $29.99. Lower Youth Membership from $31 to $24.99. Lower Life Membership from $1500 to $1250.
Explanation: Our membership has dropped precipitously. Earlier analysis showed our annual costs at approximately $28,000 a year. With 1000 members, that would have been $28 a year, but Martin pointed out we’ve now slid below 1000 members. When I initially pondered lowering our adult membership pricing to $30, it still would have covered our $28,000 a year costs. At this point it would not unless we attract new members. But realistically the point of this motion is to attract new members; our value proposition is currently out of line, and it is reflected in diminishing membership numbers. The vendor discount program helps that value proposition. Hopefully other items under discussion will also eventually help. But I think a cost lowering is definitely going to have to be part of this equation. $29.99 strikes me as a balance where we’re cutting the cost enough to make a significant statement to potential members, but not so much that we drastically jeopardize our budget. I started with the adult membership cost as a starting point. If we lowered youth memberships proportionally, they would go to around $23.25. Rather than do that strictly, I chose a more round number that still represents a significant discount from the previous price. Similarly, I assumed we’d want to reflect some corresponding change in lifetime membership. A proportional discount would lower that price to $1125, and again I stuck with a more round number. I’d also want to be sensitive to our existing lifetime members; a large price drop might be pretty frustrating for them (though I gather many of them already paid quite a bit less at the original offering). I’d also be curious how the existing lifetime costs were determined.
Motion: Dave
Second: Thom
Discussion: Kevin doesn’t think we are losing IJA because of the price of membership. Discussion continued regarding: why use $29.99 instead of $30? Martin: eliminating Juggle magazine reduces cost, so we can reduce membership prices. Public relations is part of this. Dave: we are losing people because of cost; Thom: we should stick to a round number. Discussion continued around whether or not a lower Life Member cost will attract more Life Members. Lowering the cost of membership makes several on the Board somewhat nervous. Bottom line: what are members getting for $29.00? Martin: lowering the cost of membership may stem the tide. When should the change happen? Agreement that August 1 is the best time.
Amended motion: Motion to approve the following changes to membership costs. Lower Adult Membership from $40 to $29. Lower Youth Membership from $31 to $24.00. Lower Life Membership from $1500 to $1250. Current non-Life Members who have more than one year remaining on their current paid membership will have that membership extended by effectively lowering the pre-paid membership rate to the new rate. The new rates will be effective August 1, 2012.
Motion to amend the motion:
Motion: Dave
Second: Thom
Kevin: abstained
Kim: opposed
Motion passes
6. VARIA:
A. Len Ferman contacted Kim by email to say he is going to be a speaker at The World Future Trends Summit scheduled for October 15-17, 2012 at the Conrad Miami hotel in Miami, FL. He noticed they billed him as being from both Bank of America (his job) and The International Juggglers’ Association. He went on to ask “if there are any issues with me being billed as representing IJA. If this is an issue I will ask the conference to remove IJA from my title. My presentation will use juggling as a creative means to demonstrate how to identify new trends in business.” I responded that this would be fine. It costs the IJA nothing and gets us some free publicity.
B. Vendor Discount Program:
We have 8 vendors on board, and a few others in the pipeline who may be interested. The vendors cover a healthy range of props and services. I have figured out how to present a dedicated ad unit on the eJuggle home page to advertise for participating vendors. Most vendors have deliverables to me at this time that I’m about to follow up on: I need them to provide me with the specific discount they wish to offer, the ad they would want us to use, the URL they would like it to link to, and their feelings about how strictly they want to try to validate membership. I’ll be proposing a motion below related to this program. There are a few other vendors I’d still like to get on board to make this a home run, but it is looking good.
C. Fest director for 2013 in BGSU.
Jared Davis is interested, as is David Cain. Kim and Mike are also interested.
D. Matt: there will be no Historical Lounge this year. Paul Bachman not able to do it.
7. NEXT MEETING: AGM meeting will be held at the fest on Wed. July 18, 2012 at 12pm eastern time. Jimmy Nichol will be present as parliamentarian. She will show up with enough time to review agenda and answer questions.
8. ADJOURNMENT: Dave moved to adjourn the meeting. Second by Richard. Meeting adjourned at 10:40pm eastern time.