1. Call to Order
Chair, Exuro Piechocki, called the meeting to order at: 5:05 pm PST
2. Roll:
Present : Ian Michael-Loughlin, Mike Moore, Matan Presberg, Eric Shibuya, Erin Stephens, Galen Harp, Krystin Railing, David Cain, Exuro Piechocki, Yuki Ueda at 5:13,
Absent : Sofia, Afton, Yuki, Mike S.
Recorder : Matan
3. Approval of Agenda
Motion: Mike Moore
Second by: Eric Shibuya
Discussion:
Vote: motion passes unanimously
4. Approval of Minutes:
Business Board Meeting (2/19/19)
Motion: Mike
Second: Matan
Discussion:
Vote: motion passes unanimously
5. Reports
Please try to keep verbal reports to 5 min or less except for festival discussion.
Financial Report (Afton Benson)
Discussion: no report
2019 Festival Report (David Cain)
Discussion:
Flights are almost completely booked for all performers.
Almost all marketing materials are prepared and in Google Drive
Show tickets for non Embassy shows have arrived.
Volunteer gifts have arrived.
David and Krystin have been working together on festival director training manual https://docs.google.com/document/d/1A0c0ie09kNLBQ79lYWMC28xQ85Uzg51qmVS4vKuG2hE/edit?usp=drivesdk
Early bird registration is ahead of the estimated mark.
Lots of talk about people coming for the first time or coming back after a long hiatus.
Need a new flow show director, but should have someone finalized within a day or two.
Erin : Planting juggling seed show director replacement?
David : Eric Shibuya
[Yuki joins the call]
Having trouble contacting Albert Lucas regarding the Trophy for Individuals Competition.
Sofia and David planning on coordinating on volunteers for the festival
Overall David is feeling confident about festival planning.
Erin: need to promote deadline for individual championships (April 23) as soon as possible
David wants to know if we are marketing or advertising to Japanese jugglers?
Erin: We haven’t had to in the past, but we are doing some casual engagement via twitter.
Not very many competition applications have come in yet.
Games and Game show night are moving ahead comfortably.
Progress towards People’s Choice award
Erin: other festivals do cool large posters or backdrops right at the door of festivals, creates a great spot for people to take pictures, which then helps with promotion of the festival (as people post to social media)
Erin: potential for Taylor Glenn to do some video promo at fest
Erin: need to finalize stills photographer for the festival
Future Festival Site Report (Mike Sullivan)
Now working with newly-developed expressions of serious interest for 2023 with Jacksonville, FL; Albany, NY; and Rochester, NY.
Eliminated after initial discussions Rapid City, SD; Appleton, WI; Allen, TX; Des Moines, IA; Hershey/Harrisburg, PA; and Quad Cities, IL.
As was the case last month, we have a proposal in hand from South Bend, Indiana that more than meets all our needs at very good prices for 2023, which we could move ahead with at any time.
I am in a holding status now as we see if any of the new leads listed above pan out in the next month at most. If not, we should firm up the final bid from South Bend and move to contract by June of this year.
As a reminder, the South Bend proposal with my site visit report and recommendation are in the February, 2019 Board Agenda folder. Here’s the link to the report.
Discussion:
-support for Rochester because of the strong juggling community in the area
-support for Florida to have festivals in different geographic locations, and as an appealing spot for travelers
[David exits the call at 5:30]
eJuggle Report (Scott Seltzer)
Discussion:
Josie has been doing great marketing for eJuggle, but on hold for now since she is in Mexico. Will resume in a few weeks.
Membership (Marilyn Sullivan)
Membership Data
Discussion:
Membership drive and fest registration have us almost at a 5 year high for memberships.
Hard to convert people into members in Latin America because:
-logistics of actual payment
-cultural understanding of what membership is and why they should join
-generally young demographic
Marketing Report (Erin Stephens/Matan Presberg)
Discussion:
-shout out to Sofia for taking up the reins on email marketing and making great progress, emails are now more visually appealing and much shorter, to help them be more easily digestible
Last minute promo for the fest gave a 75 registration jump on the last day of early bird.
Nathan Wakefield is assisting with posting to the festival event
IRC Report (Erin Stephens)
Discussion:
-first two prelims complete, lots of submissions for Centroamerica (13, highest ever) and Mexico (21, highest for single competition in Mexico)
-promotion launched for Taiwan, Russia and Europe
-planning on a trial period collaboration with Pure Circus for Centroamerica and Mexico, will reassess after that for future collaboration
YJA Report (Galen Harp)
Discussion:
Starting designing what a YJA curriculum would look like.
First hour curriculum https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=1Gbbl76-NWgTyRyN1C8BZfGZ64wJ9hO51
Several people contributed how they would teach an hour long juggling class for beginners. Anyone else is welcome to contribute that, all the results will then be combined to create a lesson plan that can be given to gym teachers.
Buttons still be sent out, sent a 3rd batch to a group in Wisconsin.
[Galen exits the call at 5:53]
6. Motions for Consideration
A. To approve the 2018 Festival P&L Statement
Author : Afton Benson
Motion : Eric Shibuya
Second : Matan Presberg
Discussion :
Exuro: This new P&L Statement clarifies the source of money that was received at the festival (money received at the door from membership and packages) was previously grouped
Mike: Given the timeline of taxes, this issue is pressing. I don’t love that neither Afton nor Mike Sullivan are on the call.
Vote :
Oppose :
Abstain :
Result : motion passes unanimously
B. To restrict access to Google Drive documents within the IJA Folder to such that only active volunteers, officers, staff members, employees, contractors, and the respective owners of any such document may have access to any of the contents.
Author : Exuro Piechocki
Motion : Yuki
Second : Eric
Discussion :
Exuro: many of the documents have the permissions of ‘anyone with the link can edit’, this seems concerning.
Erin: wants to make sure she can continue to use the folder to share IRC documents as she has been.
Matan: How do we decide who is in this list? Is there a master list? How would this be enacted.
Exuro: comparing documents against contact list
Mike: what is the process of adding someone to the list of approved people?
Exuro: Suggests tabling or amending the motion since there is ambiguity as to who falls under “active volunteers”.
Matan: Suggests removing some people who are not currently active volunteers and doing a general clean-up without creating policy
Eric: suggests voting this down and reintroducing a rewritten version
Vote :
Oppose : Matan, Eric, Mike, Yuki, Ian
Abstain : Exuro
Result : motion fails
C. To hold the IRC South Asia 2019 at the Afghanistan National Circus Festival on the 2nd of August, 2019. Proposal
Author : Erin Stephens
Motion : Matan
Second : Mike
Discussion : Moving to video applications, reaching out to India based jugglers as well.
Vote :
Oppose :
Abstain :
Result : motion passes unanimously
7. Varia:
- Potential idea of split in fest director position
- Director
- Asst Director
Mike : asks if the fest director can appoint an assistant
Exuro : Yes
General consensus is we have not reached a point that necessitates an Asst Director being appointed. Might be good for if we have a more permanent or recurring fest director.
- Possible Fest Directors for 2020 to be interviewed
- Casandra Tanenbaum
- Marvin Ong
- Ross Berenson
- Krystin Railing
- iiWii
- Contact made. Clarification on brunch wishes and intention.
- Questions for iiWii from anyone?
- Donation/investments? Can be invested, can use the earnings.
8. Confirm Next Meetings
Vision Meeting Tuesday April 9th, 2019 at 5pm PST.
Board Meeting Tuesday April 23rd, 2019 at 5pm PST.
9. Adjournment
Motion to adjourn : Matan
Discussion :
Voting : motion passes unanimously
Meeting adjourned at 6:28 pm PST.