Board meeting – August 14th, 2017

1. Call to Order
Chair, Nathan Wakefield, called the meeting to order at: 7:06 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
Present: Nathan, Louie Skaradek, Ian Loughlin, Eric Shibuya, Exuro Piechocki, Josie Mark-McQuade, Scott Cain, Mike Sullivan, Afton Benson, Martin Frost
Absent: Erin Stephens, Noel Yee

3. Approval of Agenda
Motion: Louie
Second by: Josie
Discussion: none
Vote: approved

4. Approval of Minutes:
Business Board Meeting June 19th, 2017
Motion: Scott
Second: Louie
Discussion: none
Vote: approved

AGM minutes approval July 12th, 2017
Motion: Eric
Second: Ian
Discussion: Attendance was sparse, about 20 people. Parlimentarian was super cool.
Vote: approved

Festival Board Meeting July 13th, 2017
Motion: Exuro
Second: Scott
Discussion: none
Vote: Approved

5. Reports (Please keep verbal reports to 5 min or less except for festival and future festival discussion)

Financial Report (Afton Benson)
Discussion:
Before Dan was signed on for cedar rapids as director we had Cody signed up and paid 1k deposit. Dan agreed to get paid 6k instead of 7k, since we had paid Cody. We are honoring the contract as worded. Moving forward we are removing profit sharing from the Festival director contract. Afton reminds the board that after any festival, if it’s profitable, we can always give the director a bonus.

2018 Festival Report (Noel Yee)
Discussion:

Future Festival Planning (Mike Sullivan)
Next week, Monday-Thursday, I will be in New Orleans, LA at Connect Sports Marketplace, the “meeting for people who hold meetings.” My trip is all-expenses-paid and costs IJA nothing — my airfare, room, meals and conference registration are all paid by the suppliers. I donate my incidental expenses to IJA.
At Connect, I’ll have 72 6-minute long “speed dates” with potential future festival host cities and DMOs (destination marketing organizations). My focus will be on prospects for 2021, as we are all lined up for 2019, 2020 and my recommendation to return to Cedar Rapids in 2022 for our 75th Annual.
El Paso 2020: We have contracts in hand for El Paso 2020, and they all seem to be in order based on my first pass look at them. Once we have concluded work on Fort Wayne 2019, I’ll forward on the info and contracts for El Paso 2020.
City rotation proposal: To be discussed tonight.
For reference, here is the rundown of upcoming festivals:
2018: Springfield, MA
2019: Fort Wayne, IN (pending)
2020: El Paso, TX (pending)
2021: Open
2022: Cedar Rapids, IA (proposed)
2023: Return to one of our prior cities (Fort Wayne or Springfield)
2024: Open
2026: Return to one of our prior cities (Fort Wayne or Springfield, whichever was not visited in 2023)
2027: Open
2028: Cedar Rapids
…etc.
The pattern is: one of three repeat cities, then a new city, then another of three repeat cities, then a new city, etc.
This cuts our workload, training ramp and uncertainty in half vs. a new city every year; gives us great negotiating leverage with our repeat cities, and gives us a chance to improve each year vs. starting from zero with a new city every year.
Discussion: https://juggle.org/festival-details#past
IJA Future Festival Site Requirements document, updated 2017-08:
https://juggle.org/festival-details#past

City rotation idea well received. With the open city dates it would be nice to make it to west coast if possible.

eJuggle Report (Scott Seltzer)
Discussion: none

Membership (Marilyn Sullivan)
Discussion: Hasn’t been updated since april. In reference to attendance of the cedar rapids festival – 620 waivers signed, and 530 surveys sent out, so it’s probably somewhere in between

Marketing (Erin Stephens)
Discussion: Erin not present

IRC (Erin Stephens)
“The IRC in Afghanistan took place yesterday – and while completely and totally different than any IRC that has happened in the past, it was a huge success! The event was attended by a lot of international media, and news coverage has been popping up on several sources throughout today.

The deadline for the IRC Oceania in Australia is September 1st. We will be doing a big push in promotion of this deadline in the next couple weeks.”

Discussion: none

YJA (Galen Harp)
“Not much to mention that we did not talk about at the festival. Except, we received a 1,000 dollar donation to buy a printer and pay for paper and ink. This should last us for the next few years at the rate we give out buttons now and will bring the price per button down. Next month I plan to work on a marketing plan for the program that I can take on myself. I will have that for you at next month’s board meeting.”
Discussion: none

6. Motions for Consideration

A. Motion to approve Alan Plotkin as the 2017 IJA Festival Video Editor

Contract

Motion: Scott
Second: Louie
Discussion: Payment comes from General account. Price is great for services provided and he has a great history of editing videos for us.
Outcome: Approved

B. Motion to approve a payment of up to $2,800 to Alan Howard to cover his expenses with transporting the IJA archives with $2,529 to be paid up front.
Motion: Eric
Second: Exuro
Discussion: this was approved via a straw poll before.
Outcome: Scott Cain Abstained from voting, Approved

C. Motion to sign the contracts to make Fort Wayne, IN the official site of the 2019 IJA Festival.

Contracts
Motion: Scott
Second: Louie
Discussion: The hotel includes brunch so perhaps we will change brunch to a lunch or dinner
Outcome: approved

D. Motion to increase the eJuggle budget to $750/month.
Motion: Exuro
Second: Louie
Discussion: increasing from 650/month. We all love ejuggle. We don’t have metrics to accurately measure if people are actually reading ejuggle.
We need to implement a better tracking system to determine how many people are reading ejuggle so we can make a more educated decision on the budget.

Outcome: Eric for, Scott for, Louie oppose, Nathan oppose, Ian oppose, Exuro abstain, Josie abstain
Motion failed

E. Motion to pay Wes Peden $3,000 to make his upcoming video available on eJuggle for IJA members only.
Motion: Louie
Second: Josie
Discussion: perhaps we can get the video for less after the fact.
Outcome: Opposes – Exuro, Nathan, Scott, Eric, Ian, Josie, Louie
Motion fails.

F. Motion to approve the IRC South America 2017 Buenos Aires to be held October 31st.
Proposal
Motion: Josie
Second: Scott
Discussion: The budget comes from a previously established budget. This is not to add to it.
Outcome: passes!

7. Varia:
Website issues
Store Merchandise – action item for Nathan – begin process to digitize magazines.
Storage Bins
IJA Credentials – table for next meeting

8. Set September Meetings
Next Vision Planning Meeting – September 11th, 2017 at 7:30 ET
Next Business Board Meeting – September 25th 2017 at 7:30 ET.

9. Adjournment
Motion to adjourn: Eric
Discussion: none
Voting:
Meeting adjourned at 8:49 pm ET.