1. Call to Order
Chair, Nathan Wakefield, called the meeting to order at: 7:05 pm EDT
2. Roll: Nathan Wakefield, Louie Skaradek, Ian Michael Loughlin, Eric Shibuya, Exuro Piechocki, Josie Marks-McQuade, Scott Cain, Mike Sullivan, Afton Benson, Erin Stephens, Martin Frost, Noel Yee, Matan Presberg
Present: Nathan, Louie, Eric, Scott, Afton, Erin
Absent: Ian, Exuro, Josie, Mike, Martin, Noel, Matan
3. Approval of Agenda
Motion: Scott
Second by: Eric
Discussion: Nil
Vote: Approved
4. Approval of Minutes:
Business Board Meeting February 19th, 2018.
Motion: Scott
Second: Eric
Discussion: Nil
Vote: Approved
5. Reports (Please keep verbal reports to 5 min or less except for festival and future festival discussion)
Financial Report (Afton Benson)
December 2017 Balance Sheet
December 2017 P& L
Discussion: Broke even for 2017. Working on 990 presently. Solid / even year – or a loss of $2000 (which by comparison to other years is low) Lots of shipping and storing adding to money spent this year. Looks good by comparison to other years. Once Dennis is done on the 990 then Afton will compare to last year. Paid out max bonus and we had paid the other director too, so our profit was low for the festival.
[Enter Ian]
[Enter Martin]
2018 Festival Report (Noel Yee)
Discussion: Yee in Ecuador.
On marketing side: Wes Peden announcement was hugely received. All the performers are being announced and it is going well. The Wes Peden factor will hopefully be a great draw to the festival.
Honorary Awards – Michael will hopefully come out. And Mario may, touch base in april. Alex – education award – probably going to make it.
Jay Green – 80 years old – will be there and selling new props at a vending table, and teaching a workshop.
Medals order should be in in the next couple weeks.
[Enter Exuro]
Where are the extra medals? A: David Lamers in Cedar Rapids. – Make sure we use what we have.
Registrations down 14% since last year this time.? Yup. Had a few since then, but not very many. Communications loss may have led to some smaller promotion and sales. Something to improve on.
Post Cards – have been shipped out. Start having a database of festivals and clubs to send promotions to.
Future Festival Planning Report (Mike Sullivan)
I can’t be on the call tonight as I am traveling to visit a potential 2021 IJA festival destination, Wichita, KS.
Wichita looks like they have what we want at our kind of prices, and they have a big airport with flights from all major US airlines. Right now, it is my best option for 2021 as other cities have dropped out or been eliminated through my qualification process.
The only other active prospect I have right now is Provo, UT, where I will be conducting a site visit the first week in April. I have a lot of concerns about Provo, most notably the seeming lack of any kind of restaurant/bar scene near our venues.
If Wichita washes out, I’d like to see if the Board would like to re-approach Lexington, KY.
Long-timers will recall that we had a very good experience in Lexington in 2008, and they re-bid for our 2013 festival in 2011 just as we were moving to the college campus format for two years, and re-bid again for our 2017 festival.
They still have excellent facilities, some of which have received major upgrades since 2008, and if they can get us a bid with our kind of prices for us, I think it would be a great option for 2021.
Discussion: Wichita, is this ‘the middle’ again? Too far from juggler population areas?
The coasts may be expensive. Mike is looking for the best deal and best situations. Lexington had one of the lowest attendances of our festivals at the time, but subsequents fests have had even fewer attendees. We are restricted some by finances and requirements.
eJuggle Report (Scott Seltzer)
Discussion: Nil
Membership (Marilyn Sullivan)
Discussion: Nil
Marketing Report (Erin Stephens)
Discussion: Figuring out the way to have click through form social media to the ejuggle articles. Analyzing data to figure out where and why our clicks happen.
Great data. Let’s turn 20% of those unique viewers into members.
IRC Report (Erin Stephens)
Discussion: Donations are helping with the funding. Good line up of Judges in Taiwan.
YJA Report (Galen Harp)
Discussion: Holding off on the fundraiser until the fall, doing it ‘right’ instead of now.
WJD Report (Josie Marks-McQuade)
Discussion: Erin had a meeting with her. Plenty of time to make it all happen. All moving along swell.
[Amend: Lexington Festival – before Lex 700 people, Lex was 545, the next year 150 drop in Winston Salem, since then about the 400 range. One of the worst is probably not the correct description.]
6. Motions for Consideration
A. Motion to approve Scott Seltzer to give himself an IJA membership from his eJuggle cache with the intent to attend this year’s IJA festival.
Motion: Scott
Second: Louie
Discussion: No brainer – all good – asking for technicality.
Outcome: Approved (Passes)
B. Motion to approve Scott Seltzer to use a portion of his $600 annual festival travel stipend to cover registration at this year’s Berlin Juggling Convention.
Motion: Louie
Second: Scott
Discussion: Used to visit festivals. Adding registration to the travel. Berlin costs $50 or $60.
Outcome: Approved (Passes)
C. Motion to approve holding the IJA Regional Competition South America 2018 at the Paraguay National Juggling and Circus Festival in October of 2018.
Motion: Ian
Second: Eric
Discussion:Organized group.
Outcome: Approved (Passes)
D. Motion to approve holding the IJA Regional Competition South Asia 2018 at the Afghanistan Circus Festival in August of 2018.
Motion: Louie
Second: Exuro
Discussion: Good good, looks good.
Outcome: Approved (Passes)
E. Motion to approve holding the IJA Regional Competition Oceania 2018 at the Melbourne Juggling Convention in October of 2018.
Motion: Eric
Second: Scott
Discussion: How far apart (date) from the Paraguay? At different times. Will not overlap and different organizers. Jorge special guest and liaison for the area.
Outcome: Approved (Passes)
F. Motion to approve the proposal to launch an IJA Patreon account.
Motion: Exuro
Second: Ian
Discussion: Recap of proposal. Membership model is going out of style – ‘what do I get as a member?’ – Change to more of a promotion and supporter ideal instead. Tiers and awards for monthly tiers. What are these tiers? What are they made of – donations of money and tax deductibles and other things they get – anything that exceeds the amount the cost is tax deductible. Taxes need to be thought about.
Maybe not pass this yet. More things to be worked out.
Membership, what do I get? Same thing on Patreon? All benefits need to be priced.
This is a first time proposal and needs to be researched and worked out a little more before it gets passed.
Outcome: Motion Declined – Nathan and all decline. No one in favor. Motion does not pass.
7. Varia:
Medals for last year’s team
Pain point for awhile – Team that won (5/6 of them) only enough medals for two of them. Three needed more, others could buy them. We could give them to them, do we want to make them pay. Not have them pay?
Sounds like we will give them to them. – Jugheads – given to them? Yes. Gonna add some extras to this next order. And going to add some extra to this time too, keeping the overall stock to 20 per tier. Gonna have all 20 at the festival. Hopefully going to have them all there.
Memberships and prizes at festival raffles
Don Lewis was able to get store inventory. Shipped to Heather. Secret Boxes! Cards and Books and MIsc. Bringing back the festival raffle donation package.
What about giving out IJA memberships as a raffle Item? Ship a promo code to somebody in an email. Have the festival director contact the membership director to give a promo code to the winner.
Threshold for the number of memberships given away? Cap at one per festival. Festivals per year? 10 or so.
Coordinate the message with Marilyn.
Board nominations open
Nominations are open. 4 seats open. Need to nominate yourself if you are at the end of the term. No nominations yet. If you are not going to run, let us know.
Next IJA Chair?
We have openly discussed this at the vision planning meetings. One person is looking to run and some discussion has been had off record.
8. Set April Meetings
Next Vision Planning Meeting – April 9th, 2018 at 7:00 ET
Next Business Board Meeting – April 23rd, 2018 at 7:00 ET.
9. Adjournment
Motion to adjourn: Eric
Discussion: Nil
Voting: Motion Passes
Meeting adjourned at 8:22 pm ET.