Board Meeting – August 26, 2014

Business Board Meeting August 26, 2014

6:30pm Eastern Time

Call In Information:

Toll-Free Dial-In Number: 1.800.977.8002

Participant Conference Code: 189209#

 

Start the Recording

  1. Call to Order

Chair, Nathan Wakefield, called the meeting to order at: 6:35pm EDT

  1. Roll

Present: Nathan Wakefield (chair), Mike Sullivan (future fest coordinator), Martin Frost, Jared Davis, Louie Skaradek, Lucho Fernandez, Warren Hammond, Erin Stephens

Absent: Noel Yee, Kyle Johnson

  1. Approval of Agenda

Motion: Warren

Second by: Lucho

Discussion: Deleted

Vote: Motion Passes

  1. Approval of Minutes:

August 1st

Motion: Warren

Second: Jared

Discussion:Membership meeting notes from June and Membership meeting need to be voted on next month.

Vote: Motion Passes

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

Post 2014 IJA Festival Report (Cody Fiereck)

Discussion: Finances are looking good for the festival. We need to establish where the $5,000 will come out of – general budget or festival budget.  Because it was written in the Festival Budget and not included in the General Budget – moving forward with that plan for this year makes sense.  Nathan will check with Dennis about which seems best for the future.

 

2015 IJA Festival (Veronique Provencer)

Discussion: Things are going well.  Pre-promotion of the festival was a huge success.  Contracts and payments are being finalized.

 

Future Festival Planning (Mike Sullivan)

Discussion: El Paso is extremely excited about having our festival.  Contracts are ready to be signed.  They have seen the Quebec video, and have committed to creating one of these as well for their venue.

10 good prospects for 2017 festival – 5 of which Mike thinks he’ll be excited about.
Interest and decision to enroll as a member of the IJA in the National Association of Sports Commissions – sportscommissions.org. Connection with a lot of potential venues.  Great information for how to proceed with bookings and making connections.

 

YJA Report (Ellen Winters)

Discussion: Merit badges have been a success.  Handed out a bunch at the festival.

 

Marketing (Erin Stephens)

Discussion: The FB page is rocking! Better promotion of eJuggle content is happening than prior to the fest.  Good international coverage.  Reached 16,000 likes this month. Would like to shift to someone else doing primary FB/marketing.

 

IRC (Erin Stephens)

Discussion: Unna Med is going to fund the travel expenses of the IJA Rep to organize the South American, Central American, and Mexican IRCs.  We have organizers in Peru, Costa Rica, and Mexico planning to organize events that will be hosting the IRCs.

 

Membership (Marilyn Sullivan)

Discussion:

Financial Report (Scott Krause)

Discussion: Festival P&L – Nathan will check in with Dennis

 

AMS Report (Mike Sullivan)

Discussion: We need a small team of AMS developers who will be willing to work on the AMS over the next year to get it well established. The team will be responsible for shifting data, getting all information transferred, figuring out what to focus on first, etc.
Mike thinks the public facing website will be ready to go live by the end of the year.
There will also need to be a branding team. [Mike taking notes now, Erin leaving the call.] Mike suggests hiring someone – doing a call for designers to submit applications for a commission from the IJA to create a new visual identity for IJA: logo, color schemes, typography, etc. Mike will write a blurb for the August eNews making a call for designers.

 

  1. Motions for Consideration
  2. Motion to approve the 2016 El Paso Convention and Performing Arts Center Contract

Motion: Louie made the motion,

Second: Warren 2nd.

Discussion: Mike urges board to sign; clean contract, very professionally done, gives us all we need, everything is specific and detailed. Video/photo rights assigned to IJA via addendum we negotiated.

Vote: Passed unanimously. Nathan will sign and direct bookkeeper to send deposit check.

 

  1. Varia:
  2. Executive Director Discussion

Discussed various ideas around finding and compensating a person for this. Ideas ranged from flat hourly rate with a cap, to a flat fee per year for a specified set of required services. Warren interested in working on this effort, is passionate about it, willing to head up this effort. Louie asked what this person’s brief would be; Nathan replies that this person would execute Board decisions, provide continuity, off-loading a lot of routine and administrative work from the Board. Possibly a multi-year term. This person may also be able to generate grants and other income for the Association. First step in moving from a “working board” to an “executive board,” where now the board both decides on issues and does all the work; to where the Board takes decisions and then directs the ED to execute them. IJA has many programs running now, getting unmanageable for a “working board.” Warren suggests we look for someone outside the org, a non-juggler. Risk is having an IJA person, a juggler, if something goes wrong, we risk losing them and all their juggling friends, lots of bad blood. Person should NOT be on the Board for many reasons. Warran will work on a project statement, goals, etc.

  1. Website/Rebranding Discussion

Already discussed in AMS section. Perfect time to overhaul IJA’s image. Get a new logo; bylaws stipulate what the logo is, would need to be changed by vote of the Board. Various ideas discussed about how to reinvent the IJA logo; all-new, stylized acronym or the word “juggle” – or pay homage to the old logo and our history – or build off our old shape. Actions: Louie will run with this in the next week.

  1. 2015 Fun Fund Donation

Warren is passionate about this. New anonymous donor, “UNNAMED,” wants to support this. Vero at Turbo is interested in setting up a Fun Fund for 2015, possibly with a donor match program. We want to do this, promote and implement a fun fund. Looks like we will have donor support for Fun Fund for 2015. Warren also has spoken to a donor willing to support this, is very involved in the IJA, but not sure of his/her name. Donor wants to support Lounge and Gauntlet. Would step aside if another donor wanted to do this. So potentially we have at least one and possibly two donors willing to support FF for 2015. Vero said that no FF $ should be spent on food, agreed by all at IJA. WH will touch base with this donor person, feel them out, find out their interest in what they want to fund.

  1. IJA Officer Positions Letters of Interest

Positions serve 1-year terms at the pleasure of the Board; people respond to call for positions, expressing interest. If interest, person sends Board letter of their interest. Board approves staff/volunteers for each positions. Scott Krause will not be returning as Treasurer. What to do if no one steps forward for Treasurer.

  1. Music Policy Revision

Nathan has spoken with many Board members already; we have an ASCAP license which covers use of copyright music at our live events, but not licensed for recordings, YouTube videos, DVDs, etc. Makes editing of fest videos much more difficult. Board approved a motion to create a new music policy; new policy would require all performers to use music that IJA has the rights to use for the medium (video); this would be either royalty-free music, or original music the artist already owns the copyright for. Nathan will run his draft policy by Lloyd T. and Thom W., experts on this topic, for review and ideas. Goal is to have new policy ready to approve next month, and to implement for 2015 festival purposes.

 

  1. Set September Meetings

Next planning meeting 9/9 and next Board meeting 9/23 – both at 6:30pm ET.

  1. Adjournment

Motion to adjourn: Warren

Discuss: None

Voting: Approved without dissent.

Meeting adjourned at 8:34pm ET.