Business Board Meeting April 23rd, 2019

1. Call to Order

Chair, Exuro Piechocki, called the meeting to order at: 5:03 pm PST



2. Roll:

Present: Exuro Piechocki, Eric Shibuya, Mike Moore, Sofia Noethe, Matan Presberg, Afton Benson, Krystin Railing, Galen Harp, David Cain, Bill Barr, Yuki Ueda at 5:53

Absent: Ian Michael-Loughlin, Mike Sullivan, Josie Marks-McQuade

Recorder: Exuro / Mike

 

3. Approval of Agenda

Motion: Eric

Second by: Matan

Discussion:

Vote: Unanimous approval


4. Approval of Minutes:

Business Board Meeting (3/26/2019)

Motion: Sofia

Second: Mike

Discussion:

Vote: Unanimous Approval

 

5. Reports

Please keep verbal reports to 5 min or less except for festival discussion.

 

Financial Report (Afton Benson)

Discussion:

Dennis and Afton going through tax season struggles with quickbooks. Everything is looking good and the 990 is in progress.

 

2019 Festival Report (David Cain)

Discussion:

Not a ton to report.
All travel taken care of.
Only one performer not confirmed.
Lucas trophy is confirmed.
Taking care of smaller tasks like signs for brunch.
Waiting on awards nomination confirmation before ordering plaques

Today(4/23) is deadline for stage championships. 2 weeks ago few to no entrants. Current number is not known but assumed to be ok. Once finalists are chosen then that will be advertised.

Small details seem to be going smoothly across the board.

David has very little personal work in May and is available to dedicate time to any last minute/month tasks.

Sofia: What is our relationship with the Busking Festival?

David: Kind of odd relationship. David is helping them book slots (5-6 IJA members will be performing at the buskerfest), but our ability to piggyback on their fest is very limited. Their main event is during Cascade of Stars. Disappointing from IJA perspective

Exuro: What sort of push are we making to promote our shows at the theater?

David: Local websites are promoting the events. Marketing team is helping generate local publicity.

Eric will talk with David re: Planting the Juggling Seed show and advertisement later

[David exits the call at 5:19]

 

Future Festival Site Report (Mike Sullivan)

Report posted here.

 

Discussion:

Exuro : Lots of return cities forecasted.

Afton : Not very many cities seem to fit the requirements set forth by the IJA. Perhaps reviewing the requirements on a regular basis would be a good move. Trend of avoiding cities or regions that may not have been viable in some way in the past.

Sofia : Agrees that we should re-evaluate selection criteria.

Current criteria here: https://juggle.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/IJA-Festival-RFP-2019.pdf

 

Exuro: made a google form for last year for collecting post festival survey data, but was turned down in favor of YM for login purposes https://drive.google.com/open?id=1A69l1AN1D3l_VHzCMH_7pdBeIrI31l2T

Mike and Eric offer to make the next form.

 

eJuggle Report (Scott Seltzer)

Discussion:

 

Membership (Marilyn Sullivan)
Membership Data

Discussion:

 

Marketing Report (Erin Stephens/Matan Presberg)

Discussion:

 

IRC Report (Erin Stephens)

Discussion: First 2 IRCs of the year went really well! -Erin

Mike : Social media presence was better than previous. Juggling was “more interesting”

Matan : That was shot and edited by Taylor Glenn.

 

YJA Report (Galen Harp)

Discussion:  

Galen : Thom Wall is willing to make a YJA branded and annotated version of a book that he’s been writing. Ely has been in conversation with Craig Quatt.

 

WJD Report (Josie Marks-McQuade)

World Juggling Day
WJD is June 15th! We have a T-Shirt design and it will be available for purchase soon. Please consider hosting/joining local WJD events and adding them to the WJD calendar on the IJA site – and hyping WJD to your friends in other cities/states/countries. Also, feel free to invite people to the WJD 2019 Facebook event page! The PDX event is shaping up very nicely. It’s gonna be a great WJD!

 

Discussion:

Mike Sullivan: why is the IJA logo and/or our domain juggle.org not shown in the t-shirt design? Are we doing all this work out of the goodness of our hearts, or might we want to perhaps promote IJA a bit and actually sign up a few members? If it comes from IJA, it should have our branding and website address on it, at a minimum! Also, does it matter that the design shows stuff that cannot actually be juggled in the pattern shown? Who/what is the floating head with no body and dismembered arms/hands? Must say, I’m not a fan of this design and would not wear a t-shirt with it.

Sofia : Adding the IJA logo could be tacky, but is probably necessary. We could easily add the IJA logo and url. The designer should incorporate these things.

Afton : Shirt should definitely show the IJA logo

Eric : Suggests putting IJA logo and website onto the back of the shirt

Mike requests artist’s input on where to add the logo

 

6. Motions for Consideration

A. To approve the 2019 Honorary Award Committee Selections

Author : Exuro Piechocki
Motion : Mike
Second : Matan

Discussion :

Afton : How can we generate more nominations? Not very many nominations were made and there are many deserving jugglers out there.

Bill : suggests Bobby May award could go to Albert Lucas

[Afton exits the call at 5:48]

Vote :
Oppose :
Abstain :
Result : Unanimously Approved

 

B. That the IJA institute this year a new Award – The Youth Glad Award – Global Love Makes All the Difference IJA Sammie Vance Award for Youth Civic Achievement

Full text of proposal from Bill Barr – https://docs.google.com/document/d/135s_V9O0l6Op34Pt73-lj0HlYbpkPj5AgzqzOG1qHMA/edit

 

Author : Bill Barr
Motion : Mike
Second : Eric

Discussion :
Bill : Honored to be on the call and very happy about the current board.
Proposes we begin presenting this award this year with Sammie Vance. Award goes to a local youth that has created an influential program. Bill was motivated to author this proposal after being inspired by Sammie’s work. Bill is willing to chair a committee to make this selection.

[Yuki enters the call at 5:53]

Eric : Does Sammie juggle?
Bill : No, not yet.

Eric : In favor of the award concept but concerned about naming it after a non-juggler.
Bill : Thinks that having a person’s name tied in with the name of the award helps to personalize it.

Galen : Thinks that the award is a cool idea, but thinks that juggling should be tied in to the award somehow as a requirement.
Bill : Many cities don’t have a youth juggler that has accomplishments on this scale, and the winner could be taught how to juggle. The award serves the community.

Mike : Award with a non-inclusion of juggling would introduce a new category of award compared to the other awards the IJA offers. Sees how the award might indoctrinate youth into the juggling community.

Sofia : This could help us to bridge the gap of connecting with the communities that we’re going into each year.

Exuro : How does this award fit into fulfilling the IJA’s mission?
Bill : We can’t know who might become a great juggler. There are 7 billion potential jugglers. This pushes us to reach out to people who don’t juggle yet and would bring in new people. There could be a workshop for youth that is led by the award winner which could empower the youth of the IJA.

Matan : How do you plan on finding recipients for future awards? How did you find Sammie?
Bill : Already been looking in El Paso. Would put together a committee with 2 or 3 young people on that committee. Reach out to local leaders. Finding someone who has already done something of national or international importance should not be terribly challenging.

Eric : Suggests changing the name to “Sammie Vance award for Civic Impact”
Bill : Agrees that is sensible

Matan : Can you expand on the idea of how Sammie can teach a workshop?
Bill : Put her on the workshop schedule. She has a brief speech already prepared and her goal is to inspire others. Leading a workshop could be required of the winner. Award presented Weds during Youth Showcase, and then workshop on Thursday.

Exuro : Could this open the door to other awards that might not be directly tied to juggling? Are we deviating from the purpose of the awards?
Bill : That doesn’t concern me much.  There may be similar awards proposed, but there would have to be very many in for for this to be a concern.  More, similar awards like this would likely only benefit the IJA.

IJA Sammie Vance Award for Youth Civic Achievement

B.1 Motion to amend current proposal so that the award be called the ‘IJA
 Sammie Vance Award for Youth Civic Achievement’

Motion : Eric
 Second : Sofia

Discussion : That the award be called “IJA Sammie Vance Award for Youth Civic
 Achievement” instead of the “The Youth Glad Award – Global Love makes All the
Difference”

Vote :
Oppose : none
 Abstain : none
 Result : Unanimously approved.

Vote :
Oppose : none
Abstain : none
Result : Unanimously approved.

 

C. To appoint the 2020 IJA Festival Director

Author : Exuro Piechocki
Motion : Sofia
Second : Mike

Discussion :

Mike : Do we have any further info since the vision meeting regarding the 3 candidates.
Exuro : We do not.
Mike : Is there any reason not to move forward with the frontrunner?
Exuro : No one has indicated withdrawing their candidacy

Matan : Sees value in Noel but would be interested to hear from other candidates.

Sofia : Noel looks like the stronger candidate

Eric : Notes Noel was concerned about whether or not the festival would receive the grant from the city of El Paso again. In a worst case situation where the grant doesn’t happen, Noel’s knowhow would be useful.

Vote :
Oppose :
Abstain :
Result : Unanimously approved.

 

D. To appoint Noel Yee 2020 IJA Festival Director

Author : n/a
Motion : Mike Moore
Second : Matan Presberg

Discussion :

Vote :
Oppose :
Abstain :
Result : Unanimously approved.

 

7. Varia:

 

8. Confirm Next Meetings

Vision Meeting Tuesday May 14th, 2019 at 5pm PST.

Board Meeting Tuesday May 21st, 2019 at 5pm PST.

 

9. Adjournment

Motion to adjourn : Sofia

Discussion :

Voting : Unanimously approved

 

Meeting adjourned at 6:40 pm PST.

 

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