1. Call to Order
Chair, Aslynne Howes, called the meeting to order at 8:08 pm Eastern
2. Roll:
Present: Niels Duinker, Chris Garcia, Afton Benson, Martin Frost, Aslynne Howes
Absent: Scott Steiskal, Amy Wieliczka, Matan Presberg
Recorder: Chris
3. Approval of Agenda
Motion: Aslynne
Second by: Chris
Discussion: Discussion before if we had enough Board Members on the call to proceed. Martin verified that 1/3 attendance needs to be present (2 people for us) so we have enough.
Aslynne: Motion to amend May’s Vision Meeting Minutes to remove line stating Mike Moore is chair.
Vote: Passes Unanimously
4. Approval of Minutes:
Business Board Meeting (LINK)
Motion: Aslynne
Second: Niels
Discussion: Niels needs familiarity with motion and second. Aslynne describes what it means.Making the vote or second doesn’t affect you voting for the motion.
Vote: passes unanimously
[Scott Joins the call at 8:18 pm]
5. Reports
Please keep verbal reports to 5 min or less except for festival discussion.
2022 Festival Report (Afton Benson)
Discussion: Summary from Afton’s doc. Ross is show producer. Benjamin is show an hospitality director (welcoming, transportation). Emily workshops leader, Shivela registar. Hoping to open registration Nov 1 so people can buy for holidays. For early bird afton would like the option to buy a fest package and half of a package for sponsorship. Working on a way to distribute the sponsorship packages. Exclusive merch only if you pre-register. Reaching out to Una Med to see how they can support the fest, and iiWii for brunch. Contacted local Cedar Rapids group for live streaming. Also contacted local babysitting service. Lanyards with badges instead of wristbands. Custom flip-books if there’s a fun fund.
[Matan joins the call at 8:21 pm]
Fest budget was given to vote on in the next meeting. Eric offered to run the raffle online. iiWii and Unamed not secured donations.
Next steps: Get budget approved. Board needs to think about Covid precautions, get things up on the website, encourage vaccination, etc.
Put generic stuff for covid on the website before we launch.
Also talked to boys & girls club of Cedar Rapids. Trying to get grant to pay for all the kids to attend welcome show. Talking with Sam Malcom to work with native community to bring them to show/fest.
Aslynne: Niels do you know about the Fun Fund?
Afton: Unnamed is one of our donors, usually about 5k in donations for “The Fun Fund” to be used in a variety of ways. Massages, obstacle course, trading cards, pinball, boardgames, etc. Drinks at renegade. iiWii is also another donor usually at 25k for brunch for people to talk and hang out.
Niels: Can we use it for video streaming for non-attendees?
Afton: Probably not, it doesn’t enrich the in-person environment.
Martin: iiWii was extending donations? Are they still making their 50k annual donations?
Afton: iiWii has paused since 2020. Donated 5k to the “we cant touch it fund”. Year prior they only donated to the fest. Will make it up once markets recover.
Martin/Afton: Does a contract exist from iiWii donations? Firm commitment or legal?
Afton: They might not have a legal commitment to donations. No pattern to when they do the donations.
Aslynne: Are you concerned about transferability of the lanyards?
Afton: No, no one wears wristbands anyway. People who transfer already probably transfer anyway when we close registrations. Maybe we could also use removable wristbands. Photos would be difficult to produce on time.
Martin: 10 years ago we tried photos but it was a disaster. Bad idea all around and took too long.
Aslynne: Covid precautions. We’d need to vote close to the fest. Have you thought about vaccine passports or people who can’t get the vaccine?
Afton: Recommends IJA not do a vaccine mandate to attend the fest. Many reasons especially with the US history of discrimination to POC amongst other things. If covid numbers are the way they are now, then we should enforce face coverings inside buildings for the fest. Recommend people get tested for covid before/after, and check in with people every day attending.
Aslynne: Do we have anything in place for people who need a refund or cant attend, or feel sick during?
Afton: IJA can put something up on website saying a refund could be available for those who feel sick before.
Financial Report (Afton Benson)
Discussion:
Festival tickets $$$ from 2020 is a liability that we might have to give back. Needs to be restricted and only used for the festival.
Quarter 2 Financial report attached above.
IJA 990 looks good, all things considered. If you do look at our Schedule A we took a significant hit on income which was to be expected when our main source of revenue went away completely. Contributions were made to the IRC and the standard iiWii fund but that was about it overall. We are carrying a liability forward with persons who have decided to carry their festival package forward for the years. But that’s only a liability because they could ask for it back. Otherwise we’ve got about 12k in income already for 2022. Note we were able to file a 990ez this year because of our lack of income; this is also why we have to attach a Schedule B to list our large donors, note that no donor information is made available as our donors remain anonymous.
Martin: How much are we spending on the conference calls per year? Can we switch over to Zoom?
Afton: We’re looking over to moving to google workspace. The conference call system costs about $1500/year.
Future Festival Site Report (Mike Sullivan)
Discussion:
eJuggle Report (Scott Seltzer)
Discussion:
Niels: How do we determine who gets paid what?
Niels: Content that is exclusive to paying members. For example David’s articles only available for jugglers?
Afton: The current metrics might make that a bad idea?
Niels: It might have an opposite effect. If you’re paying for the box, you’re more likely to look at what’s in the box.
Afton: We already have the setup for exclusive content. We need the content for editors (Scott), or the Board needs to vote what should be exclusive.
Niels: 1/3 teaser stubs available to non-paying members. You can read a couple of articles, but all content exclusive like the newspapers?
Aslynne: The bigger concern is how to get people to produce the content.
Martin: How many hits do we have on the articles? Where can we get the info?
Matan: Why does putting everything behind a paywall support rendering assistance to fellow jugglers?
Martin: We hardly have any readers, making it exclusive might make less readers?
Niels: Why become an IJA member? What are the benefits? What’s the point of becoming a member? Somehow we need to communicate the benefits better, or make the membership more worthwhile.
Aslynne: Maybe ejuggle isnt marketed as well as it could be? Currently we don’t have a way to see when people click on specific article.
Matan: Agrees this is about marketing and questions that need to be talked about. eJuggle exclusive may not improve memberships.
Membership (Marilyn Sullivan)
Membership Data
Discussion:
Niels: IJA has a good reputation in other countries. How can we get more members?
Scott: Generally people buy a membership because its for the festival. Usually people complain about it. We either need to convince them on the value or improve the value of the memberships.
Niels: Access to master classes from people like Viktor Kee.
Aslynne: Let’s discuss more in a vision meeting.
(Added by Niels Duinker) Program – Option to gift an IJA membership, when purchasing one
Afton: Please see the Email Conversation surrounding gifting a membership
Marketing Report (Erin Stephens/Matan Presberg)
Discussion:
Matan: Not much to report, all going normally. Lucas and Sara and Matan all post regularly. Tricks of the Month ongoing.
Aslynne: Possible for us to get numbers/views/followers/etc?
Matan: Manual numbers are very tedious, like views from a specific insta post. The project could get automated?
Aslynne: Hoping to get some statistics for our programs.
IRC Report (Erin Stephens)
Discussion:
(Afton: IRC Hosting Guidelines this was provided at last month’s vision meeting, for future reference you can search the IJA Google Drive for most IJA related requirements and guidelines.)
Niels: IJA presence in Netherlands?
Afton: There’s instructions in the guidelines book to host. They need to write an IRC proposal to the Board to approve. If they already have a competition, they need to host our competition separately. It would need to be our competition for us to keep it consistent to do the world cup.
Niels: They need more info. Has been in contact with Erin already. The event is already set up and happening. Happens every year in January.
Afton: Can you forward additional questions to Erin and the Board?
YJA Report (Galen Harp)
Discussion:
(Added by Niels Duinker) – https://juggle.org/programs/youth-juggling-academy/
To add to the impact – Would there be a digital button possible through an IJA app https://www.pelobuddy.com/list-peloton-badges/ that kids can show off permanently digitally over wearing a physical badge that just worn sometimes?
Also can we increase this program by making the badges available to PE teachers in the USA, and worldwide?
OpsO Report (Scott Steiskal)
Discussion: no updates this month
6. Motions for Consideration
A: Motion to approve the 2020 IJA 990 and Schedule B
Author : Afton Benson
Motion : Matan
Second : Scott
Discussion :
Vote : Passes Unanimously
In favour:
Oppose :
Abstain :
B: Motion to approve the 2021 e-Festival Report submitted by Ross Berenson on 07/25/21 to process the final festival director payment
Author : Afton Benson
Motion : Scott
Second : Niels
Discussion :
Vote : Passes unanimously
In favour:
Oppose :
Abstain :
C: Motion to amend May 2021 vision meeting mins to remove Chair from where it applies to Mike Moore.
Author : Aslynne Howes
Motion : Niels
Second : Chris
Discussion :
Matan: Was this after he stepped down as chair but it was still mentioned in the notes?
Aslynne: He had started the meeting, and the first line said “Chair, Mike Moore called meeting to order”
Vote : Passes unanimously
In favour:
Oppose :
Abstain :
7. Varia:
IJA Virtual Hangouts
Very low attendance last month, next month’s meeting is Sept 4.
Aslynne: Hasn’t been seeing much about the hangouts for a while.
Chris: Would we be able to use the new Google Apps for IJA Hangout?
Martin: Bylaws for rule. No one person can serve as chair and treasurer or festival chair and treasurer.
The bylaw will probably need to be rewritten.
Article 4, Section 3, Paragraph C.
This was put in to protect the IJA financially so chair/treasurer wouldn’t do shady things.
Afton: Brought this up to Aslynne and she had also pointed it out. Before applying, she had ran it across a few people. There’s a fest chair and a fest treasurer? Changing the bylaws would be great. Also we’re talking to the parliamentarian to review the bylaws for outdated things.
Certain things that create conflicts of interests
- Paying myself. No reimbursements/payments to myself.
- Won’t pay anyone I financially benefit from. I.e. Bindlestiff since I do the bookkeeping.
Aslynne: Straw poll or motion next month. Looking into changing the bylaws and making sure we have the checks and balances.
Martin: We’d change one sentence, make a motion to rewrite the sentence. Also update the website to add what’s new.
New Board Member
Aslynne: We need 7 board members. Need one more to replace the vacant spot by Mike. Kevin, Kent and Benjamin. Do we want the candidates to fill out the questionnaire that Aslynne had filled out?
Nominations are voted on by Board Members. This would be a one year term for them (remainder of Mike’s term).
Aslynne: Moving this to email, reread the candidacy statement and will send them the questions we’d like them to answer. Hoping to get responses and votes by the next board meeting.
IJA Website Server and YM
Afton: Brought it up at the vision meeting. Want to find additional platforms outside of YM because it’s user unfriendly and expensive. Reached out to Mike Sullivan but haven’t responded yet.
We will need to renew this in January. Renewal is always 3 years.
Martin: Are there options for 1 year renewal?
Afton: WIll discuss with them rates.
Martin: Donor agreed to pay for the first 3 years so maybe that’s why?
Afton: The server switch has to get done.
Martin: Matthew? Complained about our site how it uses up a lot of CPU/Disk space. He made a config change that solved a lot of issues. Website is about 5x faster after the fix. Not using up as much CPU time. They set the site up to begin with. Not as urgent right now but we want to get off the GetSmart server.