Annual General Meeting July 18, 2018
1:00pm ET
1. Call to Order
Chair, Nathan Wakefield, called the meeting to order at ________PM.
1:01 PM
Motion: Scott Caine
Second: Keith Nelson
2. Roll:
Nathan Wakefield, Scott Caine, Eric Shibuya, Exuro Piechocki, Ian Michael, Afton Benson, Jim Shiell
3. Agenda Approval
Motion: Eric S
Second: Ian M
Vote: Approved
4. 2018 Reports
2018 IJA Festival (Noel Yee)
Discussion: the even happens with lots of peoples help, he’s one funnel, we sold many pre regs, sold some tickets at the theater. The city has been really welcoming. Overall it feels like it’s going really really well.
400 pre reg
60 yesterday reg, and we’re right on target (Afton)
Marketing (Erin Stephens)
Discussion: 5 years as marketing director, Instagram has taken off we have 40k followers and we have 1k for likes on posts, highs of 3k. Focusing on how to build our international community through fun events on instagram. Insta stories take over, where someone at a different juggling convention and they take over our feed to show what is happening there. She does this with IRC’s as well. To inspire everyone else along the way. Tricks of the month videos have been taking off we do 3 a month to showcase the cultures and talents around the world. Festival marketing was well received.
IRCs (Erin Stephens)
Discussion: Stands for Inter
Started in 2011 in Mexico and 8 years later we’ve done Taiwan, El Salvador, Mexico and Russia. The international excitement has grown a lot because the IRC will be there. Luke Barrage covered one of the IRC events and was floored with it. Building it to a world championship model. They’ll win to come to a world championship. Thanks to people who donated 16k towards the IRC festival
Afton-World Championship how is it different of the IJA
It doesn’t move enough, not fair, visas and what not.
Penny T: for the show last night we had a lot of empty seats, I really liked seeing the 20% for MA residents. It was at the bar where Renegade is. How are we generating more interest?
Erin: The Visitors bureau, got news coverage, social media, posters, we’re doing all the right things they just need to show up.
WJD (Josie Marks-McQuade)
Discussion: Over 300 posts this year using the WJD hashtag, the IRC Ecuador was on WJD, we produced our own T-Shirts, we use a print on demand store then we don’t have inventory. Gives more options for people. We sold 42 shirts. Planning to keep doing the WJD.
Membership (Nathan Wakefield)
Discussion: 1287 as of 6/1/18
This is down quite a bit from 6-7 years ago, but it’s up 20% over last year. What percentage is not people residing in the U.S.A. are we getting people from the IRC. (Penny T)
The struggle with membership there is lack of access to payment options. The membership model concept is on the way out. We’re starting a new fundraising model tomorrow as a way to support our projects. (Erin Stephens)
Last Year 15-20% is outside of the U.S.A. (Exuro)
88% are from USA for this year, 27% are from Canada (Mike S)
Youth Juggling Academy (Galen Harp)
Discussion: Alex
I have 3 points:
Button program is still successful for those who have heard of it. He made the rest of the buttons. He’s got a printer now so it’ll cost less. Wants to expand the volunteer base. He will be recruiting people to help out. Go talk to Galen at the YJA meeting.
YJA logistic of chocolate bar fundraiser for the YJA, to got more volunteers.
Scholarships, the IJA has given a scholarship to a young jugglers who can’t make it to the festival. Want to bring that back if it’s gone away, it’d help bring awareness to the YJA even if it only consists of a festival pass.
eJuggle (Scott Seltzer)
Discussion: There have been about 80 Ejuggle articles in 2018 10-15 per month, a lot are profiles on current jugglers, Dan Holtzman does video interviews with jugglers, David Caine does 4 a month on juggling history, Jona does a youth focused posting. Some more exclusive member content coming out. Always looking for new contributors, contact Scott Seltzer
This replaces our paper magazine.
5. Future Reports:
Board Member Nominees: Matan Presberg, Ian Loughlin, Sofia Noethe, Yuki Ueda, Mike Moore
Discussion: If they’re here they can talk about themselves
Matan Presberg: Has been working on Marketing this last year, feels a good way to step up was to run for the board. He’s excited about the direction and to give back to the group that’s given so much to me.
Ian Loughlin: Served 2 years, running for another 2 years, to expand YJA into poi and hoops.
Sofia Noethe: Juggling for 18 years, hasn’t been involved with IJA in any official capacity besides stage handing, she’s excited for the IRC and the YJA, she values this community and the experiences she’s ahd. Jugghead and volunteer coordinator.
Yuki Ueda: Professional juggler and educator from Vancouver, founded object manipulation festival in Vancouver, has a limited understanding but wants to learn and grow with the organization. Trying to change the stigma of juggling to help create new jugglers.
Mike Moore: Juggler at Guelph Canada, there are boxes he fills well interest in administration border lines on crazy, done a lot with his local community and a bit with IJA has started two juggling clubs and runs a festival at Guelph. Wants to bring Ezine to looking at the moment, and the teach in, so we teach people how to do a pattern. Works in education and wants to spearhead a tutorial program, cause that’s how he got to his first IJA.
Voting is open for one more hour.
2019 IJA Festival (Nathan Wakefield)
Discussions: David Caine is the festival director, and we’ll be in Fort Wayne IN, David is the juggling historian. June 24th to the 30th 2019. Everything is very accessible, looking to keep the original things and bring in new things. Game show ideas that’ll be really fun and a film festival.
Has about 99% of positions set up already
Future Festivals 2020 and Beyond (Mike Sullivan)
Discussions: 2nd decade, he’s got us booked till 2022, and gives us flexibility to move to our core groups of festivals. One east, central, and west. Cedar Rapids for 75th in 2022, El Paso in 2020. They’re doing a huge upgrade, new trolly cars, 2 hotels, new hotel. Even nicer and newer. Springfield seems to be working well. We’ll talk to them after this years festival.
6 year rotation, we return to 3 cities and in between we visit a new city every other year. Remember El Paso, next year it’s even closer, lovely buildings and hotels, attached to a bunch of hotels, and they’re attached to the theater. They have a international busker festival that week, that’s why we’re in June.
2021 Witchita
Is the Fort Wayne union or not? It is likely a union shop.
Did you say there was going to be a western city? I mean South, TX. The problem the West coast doesn’t have anything we can afford. If you have a potential venue if they have what we need. It’s hard for people from the coasts to go places.
6. Open Discussion (15 Minutes Total)
Keith Nelson: how can the IJA start diversifying the festival into the Social Circus areas?
Nathan W: We’ve been trying to branch into the flow community and into the circus community for the welcome shows, and working through the YJA.
Don: We put in a newsletter 11 times a year, we don’t have a lot of content and should we morph that newsletter?
Erin: The board has spoken about is moving to an email marketing strategy. Focusing in on how to make the marketing more accessible to nonmembers.
Penny T: Many of us run MONDO in MPLS Dan and I own the email list, she has 1200 people on that list, not everyone by a long shot is at the IJA. If you send it to the affiliates we can forward it out to our folks. Madfest does the same thing.
Scott Caine: Reads it every month it’s nice to have a consolidated place.
Don: We’ve always said that the newsletter is free to forward to anyone. Please do. Send us your email address every month but it’s a member only one.
Erin Stephens: We need more targeted lists.
Will: Bring a motion from the floor: About 10 years ago a person named Dave Davis, voted to revoke his membership in the iJA without going into the history. He made good contributions to the IJA when they needed a lot of help financially. There were some personality issues, which are understated but it resulted in the board revoking his membership.
He would like to Move that we invite him to rejoin the IJA:**Board Power to reinstate (Moderator) **
Richard K: Dave sued the IJA, there is more than a clash of personalities. As a board we’re not allowed to say why he’s banned.
Dave Pawson: He was chair when someone made this motion, membership can’t vote because they don’t know what happened. The board knows things that membership doesn’t know. It cannot be handled by open forum.
Mike Moore: Does the board have the information now?
Don: Important to understand who were in that discussion, that’s all we can say. We’re not allowed to explain it.
Nathan: We’re all passionate about what we do as jugglers. Things happen with high passions, they get disagreeable and go bad. It’s unfortunate when we cannot discuss or come to a common ground. He’s eligible to reapply for reinstatement.
Love the volley club, the obstacle course, combat: That is donated by the Awesomeness fund from UnnaMed. Ian: first time on the committee brought back stuff people liked and worked. We have dominos, pingpong, massages, and wanted food but there were so many restrictions.
NielFred: this facility has been great, but the lack of food to bring in is a downer.
Noel: The place is in transition. It’s run by like 4 different companies it’s been challenging.
Good way to negotiate next time if we’re here.
Baretta: they need good food and water
7. Adjourn the Meeting
Motion: Exuro
Meeting adjourned at: at ____1:59__ PM