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, Ian Michael Loughlin, Exuro Piechocki, Josie Marks-McQuade, Scott Cain, Mike Sullivan, Erin Stephens* late
Absent: Eric Shibuya, Afton Benson, Martin Frost
3. Approval of Agenda
Motion: Josie
Second by: Louie
Discussion:
Vote: Approved (unanimous)
4. Approval of Minutes:
Business Board Meeting September 25th, 2017.
Motion: Scott
Second: Louie
Discussion:
Vote: Approved (unanimous)
5. Reports (Please keep verbal reports to 5 min or less except for festival and future festival discussion)
Financial Report (Afton Benson)
Discussion: none
2018 Festival Report (Noel Yee)
Discussion: Noel will meet with Mike in the coming weeks to work on the budget and then ask for feedback before the next board meeting.
Una is interested in bringing back the awesome fund, and possibly funding any other festival proposals.
Noel suggesting a Yoyo competition (Mat Hall hosts)
Future Festival Planning (Mike Sullivan)
IJA 2019 – Fort Wayne — Visit Fort Wayne did a publicity event to announce our 2019 festival and invited several past and current IJA members from the area down to juggle for the cameras. The event got nice coverage in the local media. Here’s a link to the stories that ran covering the announcement.
IJA 2020 – El Paso — Fully executed contracts for the Marriott Autograph Hotel (formerly, the Camino Real Hotel during our 2016 festival) and the Center and Plaza Theatre are in the Google Drive. Awaiting Nathan’s signature for the Doubletree Hotel contract so we can send to them back for countersignature.
Funny story: I had verbal agreement from the people at the Marriott on our room block size, terms, concessions and dates during our negotiations to return in 2020. When I received the written contract draft from them (in Word format!), it bore no relation to the terms we discussed. I believe their staff is in transition, and someone not fully up to speed on such things was responsible for the many errors and omissions in our draft contract.
In any case, since I had emails and verbal discussions on file for all the terms we had agreed to, and a Word document that I could easily edit, I simply edited the Word document to conform to our prior discussions, and sent it back with our signatures in place. To my great surprise, they signed it and sent it back without comment.
Whether they actually read what they have now agreed to, I know not — but we have a signed, legally valid written contract under the exact terms we hoped for at this property in 2020.
IJA 2022 – Cedar Rapids — Contracts and term sheets for our return to Cedar Rapids for our historic 75th annual festival are in the Google Drive in the new 2022 Festival – Cedar Rapids, IA folder.
We have secured terms as follows:
$6/night increase in nightly rate at the Doubletree — from $109 to $115, single through quad — still an exceptional rate for this super-nice, ultra-convenient hotel attached to our juggling space. This is a little bit below the rate of inflation expected over the intervening 5 years, meaning that our 2022 rates should actually be a little bit better deal in terms of real spending power by then.
An additional 30 rooms per night on peak over our 2017 block size — meaning more of our jugglers can stay on-site, and we will earn more comps.
The event space order specifies that we will have use of all space in the Convention Center. We used everything they could give us in 2017, so I am sure we will find uses for all of it at our 75th.
Comp rate, gym and ballroom rental rates all the same.
A commitment from GO Cedar Rapids confirming a $6,500 grant for bringing our festival to the city — a $500 increase from 2017.
A term sheet from the spectacular Paramount Theatre with terms identical to our actual fees in 2017.
All of these are ready to sign except I’d like the DoubleTree Hotel to change one item in the hotel reservation deposit section. I’d like to stipulate 1-night cancellation fee when booking rooms on the IJA rate. In past years, we left IJA-rate rooms unsold when a juggler had to cancel a few days before the fest having previously booked their room(s) months before when registration opened. That left us with rooms we could have used/sold, and jugglers in our group not being able to get into those rooms because they were cancelled AFTER our booking window closed. A 1-night cancellation fee for all IJA room rezzies will incentivize people to keep their rooms and swap/sell them to other jugglers looking for rooms after the block window closes.
I think everyone who attended our 2017 festival knows what a gem we have found in Cedar Rapids, and no doubt it will be even better by the time we return for our 75th Annual.
I urge the Board to approve the agreements with Cedar Rapids for 2022 under these exceptionally favorable terms.
Discussion: Mike feels we should decide quickly, so we don’t lose the terms offered. Also, this would put us in a pattern to return to these 3 cities every other year. These 3 cities are spread out (NE, center, SW), leaving us a year in-between to visit a different city. We will most likely vote on cedar rapids 2022 tonight, and also later discuss the idea of repeating the 3 cities again in the future.
eJuggle Report (Scott Seltzer)
Discussion: Plotkin has begun to upload videos to our vimeo for ejuggle, should be ready soon.
Membership Report (Marilyn Sullivan)
Discussion: none
Marketing Report (Erin Stephens)
Discussion: Our social media is doing great!
IRC report (Erin Stephens)
Discussion:
YJA (Galen Harp)
Discussion: Ian updated the facebook page and has spoken with Galen about gaining the program more visibility
Project Management Report(Louie Skaradek)
Discussion:
6. Motions for Consideration
A. Motion to appoint Alan Howard (Chair), Bob Neuman, and Jay Gillian as the 2018 Honorary Awards Committee.
Motion: Ian
Second: Louie
Discussion:
Outcome: Approved (unanimous)
B. Motion to have Oct. 29th, 2017 be Stu Raynolds Appreciation Day and have the above document printed and presented to Stu from the IJA Board of Directors.
Document
Motion: Scott
Second: Ian
Discussion: Scott was able to present Stu with the document at the juggling history museum.
Outcome: Approved (unanimous)
C. Motion to approve Lybrary.com’s contract to sell the digitized Juggler’s World set.
Contract
Motion: Louie
Second: Exuro
Discussion: Same as last contract but with different prices
Outcome: Approved (unanimous)
D. Motion to approve the revised 2020 El Paso Doubletree Contract.
Contract
Motion: Ian
Second: Scott
Discussion: last one had errors, this one is correct
Outcome: Approved (unanimous)
E. Motion to approve contracts for Cedar Rapids 2022 IJA Festival
Motion: Louie
Second: Scott
Discussion: Remember we still have find a city for 2021
Outcome: Approved (unanimous)
7. Varia:
Guinness World Records –
8. Set November Meetings
Next Vision Planning Meeting – November 13th, 2017 at 7:000 ET
Next Business Board Meeting – November 27th, 2017 at 7:000 ET.
9. Adjournment
Motion to adjourn: Exuro
Discussion: none
Voting: Approved (unanimous)
Meeting adjourned at 8:30 pm ET.