1. Call to Order
Chair, Nathan Wakefield, called the meeting to order at: 7:33 pm EDT
2. Roll: Nathan Wakefield, Louie Skaradek, Ian Michael Loughlin, Noel Yee, Marvin Ong, Shivella Schwab, Scott Cain, Mike Sullivan, Afton Benson, Erin Stephens, Martin Frost, Dan Holzman
Present: Nathan, Louie, Ian, Noel, Scott, Mike, Afton, Martin, Dan
Absent: Marvin, Shivella, Erin
3. Approval of Agenda
Motion: Ian
Second by: Scott
Discussion: Nil
Vote: Unanimously Approved
4. Approval of Minutes:
Business Board Meeting December 19th, 2016
Motion: Ian
Second: Scott
Discussion: Nil
Vote: Unanimously Approved
5. Reports (Please keep verbal reports to 5 min or less except for festival and future festival discussion)
Financial Report (Afton Benson)
Discussion: Not to much to report. Waiting on Jim Maxwell to hear about the final reports. Dennis broke out the convention center items into buckets, looks good. We still have not paid them, they took 4 or 5 months to get us the bill. Ended up spending money to get the grant (we did get that grant and it did work out). Emailed board about festival budget. Just sent out operating budget for the year 2017 – need some tweaks on it. (may pertain to motion F – increase of budget by possible $1100, $1200 for the year – so needs to be taken into consideration.) Get a final report from Jim Maxwell (Previous years festival director) tradition – should be done next month when the final P&L is up for approval.
2017 Festival Report (Dan Holzman)
Discussion: Submitted the budget – looking over numbers… (will be looked over at the motion session)
Also 4 items to bring up to the board:
ITEM01) Brunch budget — $25,000 from donor.
optionA) Wednesday through Saturday. – full buffet (According to Dan best option.)
optionB) Tuesday – Saturday – would be a light tuesday option.
optionC) Tuesday – Saturday – would be full over 5 days – lighter all days.
ITEM02)
UnaMed donation – confirmed a set amount for prize donation. $2300.
UnaMed – awesomeness fund (establishing a committee and finding a figure, possible suggestions from Dan H.) (a DJ would be good)
ITEM03) T Shirts and a Possible Vendor
A company wants to provide them for us. No left over product, upgrades to shirts, on demand. Design may be simpler – but the lack of risks and benefits outweigh the limit of the design.
The vendor will want to be only company selling apparel – vendor conflict possible- offer a free vendor table to vendors who may may also sell tshirts. (None of the vendors never sell IJA shirts or logo shirts really – so there may be no conflict – but it is actually – ALL SHIRTS – of any type?)
Confusion…
VENDOR – exclusive – festival logo / ija logo shirts – of all varieties
(optional and without restriction, non exclusive to sell other ‘juggling’ logo apparel and shirts, ie: three finger juggling shirts would be okay?? – no, no shirts., they want the full franchise on shirts)
Ross B could not sell shirts then – bad for this vendor.
??? IJA 5 choices for official package.
On site printing on demand – you can upgrade on site. (no thirts left over.)
Any body coming in could buy a tshirt? – what is the time? 5-10 minutes.?
Not planning on having an official festival design? We can do that – official design as default? (have not fully explored)
Have some iconic juggling heroes – use any one as the official festival package shirt.
We can have one official one to satisfy that need. And you get the ‘one’ to go with your collection through the years. (A good idea, use an iconic image)
There will be others that sell Tshirts on their table.
Need to be really clear to every vendor if this is the way to go.
Should have a ‘basic’ IJA logo shirt in the mix of designs.
ITEM04) Early bird options
First tier- $199 early bird price. (also have to renew membership or buy it)
$199 (plus price of membership? ($30))
$249 free membership plus shows
If they buy the extra $50 package during 1st EB period, throw in a free IJA membership (first week) (could we take off the membership price if they are a life member?)
Second tier- $199 plus $50 no free membership. $249 does not include membership.
Third tier- $249 – no $199 option left. Can only buy the $249 and no free membership, but full package.
Fourth tier- $249 plus optional premium package @ $50 – $299 (purchase at the festival price)
Free membership for non us new members may be a good deal. Dan – “having to be a member to attend the festival may be off putting, don’t like that concept. Some sort of compromise or way to grow new membership. Is this too complicated or does not fit into the agenda? “
This may not work, this may not achieve that goal? What could the idea be with the early bird package or deals we are giving our lifetime members?
Taking the discussion offline. More details to be worked out.
Cedar Rapids library will hire two jugglers and have them there for promotion.
End of Discussion
Future Festival Planning (Mike Sullivan)
I visited Baton Rouge, LA January 19-21, a prospective 2019 host city, after doing a good deal of pre-qualification and discussions with them. They submitted a letter of intent with the outlines of the offers we could expect, along with summaries of the facilities and other info.
After visiting the city, it will not be a good fit for our needs. Several factors contributed to my decision not to pursue their offer any further:
One of their proposed host hotels is the Belle of Baton Rouge Hotel & Casino; and although the casino is physically separated from the hotel (by about 1,000 feet — with the casino floating in the Mississippi River in the form of a casino ‘riverboat,’), the hotel is not comfortable, particularly clean or otherwise up to the standards we’d expect paying room rates of $99++/night. It is basically a high-rise 2-star motel.
The convention center is more than 250,000-sq.ft. and therefore the distances are large between spaces and venues. None of the proposed juggling space is carpeted. The only suitable workshop rooms are on a separate level from the main juggling space.
The theater is twice as large as we need, quite sterile and unattractive, and would be very hard for us to create a good atmosphere for our shows.
Airlift into BTR is rather expensive. I flew into New Orleans (MSY), rented a car and then drove an hour to BR to get a flight for less than $300 from as close as Orlando, just an hour away by air.
So I will be looking next at Ft. Wayne, Indiana for our 2019 fest site. I visit Ft. Wayne February 1-3, following up on a very promising proposal and what look to be outstanding facilities in Indiana’s 2nd-largest city.
I also have a good prospect with Peoria, Illinois, and may be visiting there late in February if our discussions continue to show promise.
UPDATE (1/23/17 – 5pm): Further talks with Peoria today have resulted in our planning a site visit there for March 1-3. Everything sounds good except concerns about getting the hotel rate down to our $109-level, and size of the theater. On the BIG plus side, they have offered IN WRITING to CAP our out-of-pocket expenses at the Civic Center (juggling space, workshops, theater, staging, Wi-Fi, etc., and IATSE labor for our shows!) at $20k. If this holds, it will be a smoking-hot deal for us.
I certainly hope either FTW or PIA work out for our 2019 needs and that we can move to a contract very soon, staying at least two years ahead with our contracting. Then I want to keep closing in on our 2020 site prospects, expecting a proposal from El Paso and potentially two other cities.
Discussion: Noel – huge fan of Peoria – has a great 500 people flow jam. Close to Chicago. Possible contact info reach out. Jugglers or Flow people. Check.
Website Report (Scott Reynolds)
Discussion: Update: Talked to Scott Reynolds. On a better track, still a few communication issues. Working on troubleshooting options – hopefully things will be resolved soon. Not in a happy place right now.
eJuggle Report (Scott Seltzer)
Discussion:
Membership (Marilyn Sullivan)
Discussion: The numbers have gone down the last years. What is the pull to become a member? Can we give everyone that comes to the festival a free membership this year? Can this be a benefit? (without that crazy good magazine, there is not as much reason to join)
(Enter Erin S)
Peoria in a couple years – can we get hundreds of flow people in membership. Membership used to be one dollar – worried about getting 350 people to the festival. How can we get more to the festival and into the membership program. Is this sustainable? Can we get more in with this festival? And help get these numbers up with this festival? Don’t know how it effects the bottom line overall. Get to Board Plus and discuss this more.
Video Tutorial Contest Report (Thom Wall)
Discussion: 2016 report – healthy numbers. Social media has jumped ahead with the video tutorial contest.
Marketing (Erin Stephens)
Discussion: IRC web pages building out. Numbers are looking good. People are awesome – facebook group. Expanding content – looking at communities of talent. Possible large amount of people to be reached there. Scott – when we do invites on facebook – can we reach out and invite non-members or people that have not liked the page? Extensive marketing stuff – all of us go out and invite all of our friends. Things need to be a pushed along and grown from here as far as festival.
Encourage to promote and invite friends – the board is where the network starts. Start promoting from there. Support this – we all need to like more and put out more positive information about the festival. Can we do mass mailings. We all need to invite all our friends personally. ‘Share’ -> ‘Invite Friends’ also ‘Share’ the event to our timeline.
Question – juggling legend graphic tshirts – Digital Graphics – two special guests – pushing off some
Promote Now…
Louie to get in the loop with festival graphics. Have an overall concept with different layers in there.
Jump in to help with Marketing. Moving the ball, timeframe was off a little.
Discuss what is needed and the timeframe.
IRC (Erin Stephens)
Discussion: South America (Ecuador) and Mexico groups want to host these events. Promotion stage for Israel and Central America. Possible trial run of Male and Female competitions. Ladies that Erin have talked to would be much more open and excited about M and F competitions. Use this to encourage more female competitors. Poll membership about bringing this to the IJA festival at large. Females to inspire females of the future.
Accident in Colombia. Injured juggler – hosting festival has helped with $10,000 in medical bills. Can the IJA help with $800 in flying him home. Can the IJA help with this? Do they have a PayPal account ? No, we can do
250 Erin
100 Louie
100 Nathan
100 Scott
250 Dan
$800 total – send an email to the group to help this. Render Assistance.
6. Motions for Consideration
A. Motion to approve the revised 2017 IJA Festival Budget.
2017 IJA Festival Budget
Motion: Louie
Second: Second
Discussion: Revised budget is looking good. How do we get some attendence numbers up? Flow artists? Can we start to update the budget in real time. Can we get a monthly record of this so we can see how it changes month to month. Adding something in goes under contingency with a note on it.
Oppose: No
Abstain: No
Outcome: Unanimously Approved
B. Motion to authorize up to $350 for reimbursement to Scott Cain and/or David Cain for professional digitization of juggling films to be used either in eJuggle articles or at the IJA Festival.
Motion: Ian
Second: Louie
Discussion: From purchase of Paul Bachman collection. 8mm and other film – got a projector and watched some. 75 min of first IJA festival. And other videos Brunn. Gil. Etc. Have these professionally digitized. Possibly more than $350 to do it all. But this is a good start. How much is in the archives budget? Low five figures?? $350 is not much out of that we have $20 – $25 in the archives fund.
Send to Nathan and Afton and Dennis – about what fund and when to take out of budget and reimburse Scott.
Outcome: Approved (Passes)
Abstain: Scott Cain
C. Motion to approve IRC South America 2017 to be held at the Quito World Juggling Day Celebration – June 16-18, including a $300 budget contribution from the IJA General Fund.
Motion: Scott
Second: Ian
Discussion: They have had a huge and successful WJD event.
Outcome: Unanimously Approved
D. Motion to approve IRC Mexico 2017 to be organized by Jorge Vilchis in Toluca, Mexico – June 29 – July 2, including a $300 budget contribution from the IJA General Fund.
Motion: Louie
Second: Ian
Discussion:Jorge’s Birthday. Vote will make his day. 🙂 Organized and well attended events. Already got the funding from the city to cover many aspects of this IRC.
Outcome: Unanimously Approved
E. Motion to approve the following Championships Rule Changes for 2017.
Champs Rules Changes
Motion: Ian
Second: Scott
Discussion:Cleaning up verbiage. Having more family friendly music.
Sticking point to be amended – on page 7: what if we bring someone in who won a prize or from an IRC comes in with a free festival package? – this verbiage needs to be changed so these people can be can compete.
Get in touch with Viveca.
Anybody not opposed to this motion?
Outcome: Motion fails.
F. Motion to raise the eJuggle budget from $650/month to $750/month.
Motion: Ian
Second: Louie
Discussion: $1200 or $1100 a year in value? Who are we competing against for this content. Who do we have to outbid? Scott is unable to match that price. Where else are these people going to be paid to write about juggling. “Look, we would all like a pay raise – but how do we generate more revenue” do we have more people to write these articles? We are paying people to make these videos. Who else will pay them? Are we being shaken down by contributors? Where is the supply and demand? Will it go up by $100 a year?
The ezine is valued. But this is not reflected in the numbers. Have to show value if more of a budget.
Outcome:
Oppose: Louie (want to work on this, not a flat out ‘this is a bad idea’)
Abstain: Scott, Nathan, Ian
Failed Motion.
Motion Fails.
7. Varia:
2017 Awesomeness Committee
Got some people who may be onboard. Getting people together for this and we can vote in a month or two. Sounds good. Gonna be a great festival ya’ll.
8. Set February Meetings
Next Vision Planning Meeting – February 13th, 2016 at 7:30 ET
Next Business Board Meeting – February 27th, 2016 at 7:30 ET.
9. Adjournment
Motion to adjourn: Scott
Discussion: Little longer than normal. Got alot done.
Voting: Unanimously Approved
Meeting adjourned at 9:46 pm ET.