1. Call to Order
Chair, Aslynne Howes, called the meeting to order at 6:36 pm Eastern
2. Roll:
Present: Aslynne Howes, Sofia Noethe, Niels Duinker, Noel Yee, Exuro Piechocki, Martin Frost, Afton Benson
Absent: Amy Wieliczka, Ross Berenson, Benjamin Domask-Ruh
Recorder: Sofia
3. Approval of Agenda
Motion: Niels
Second by: Sofia
Discussion: Are we going to discuss Google workspace? We can start tonight, but will depend on Amy’s technical difficulties. Aslynne – we can discuss under Varia
Vote: Approved
4. Approval of Minutes:
Business Board Meeting (LINK)
Motion: Noel
Second: Sofia
Discussion:
Vote: Approved
5. Reports
Please keep verbal reports to 5 min or less except for festival discussion.
2023 Festival Report (Exuro Piechocki)
Discussion:
Exuro – getting ready to make website live, most of the copy is done. Planning to finish over the next couple of days and push to site with Ross’s help. Exuro has access to edit the wordpress site and can make small changes himself. Welcome show mostly booked thanks to Noel, feeling positive about shows overall. Talking to Matan about social media but may need someone to be paid to produce content.
[Amy joins the call at 6:44pm ET]
First week of March event page on FB and website going live. Early bird sales start March 15. Hotel links live March 15 as well.
Afton – does Shivella have these dates for festival packages? Exuro – will follow up on making sure Shivella has correct info.
Martin – Feb 28 is when the e-newsletter goes out, would be great for site to be live by then. Exuro will push for that.
Fire night details set, Flow night/flow jam set for in a ballroom, separate from The Gym in the convention center. That separate space will be used for other events through the week, volley club, fight night prelims, for a local business night out event, etc
Afton: just FYI for Exuro, Afton has awards set and will be shipped to David Cain
Financial Report (Afton Benson)
Discussion:
Future Festival Site Report (Mike Sullivan)
Craig and I attended the Small Market Meetings Conference in Wichita last October. Since then, we have been following-up with the handful of prospects we identified there. None of them have panned out, and we are left with our two prior destinations that we hope to re-sign for 2026 and 2027: Fort Wayne and Cedar Rapids.
A summary grid of the destinations we tried to qualify from the SMMC show is at this link.
We have received a bid from Cedar Rapids for 2027 – our 80th annual. The bid is good but the housing rates at the Doubletree are not acceptable to us, so we are still in a negotiation with them.
Fort Wayne is preparing a 2026 bid for us and we expect to see it shortly.
– Mike Sullivan
Discussion:
Afton: Would like to know where are the options are from East and West coasts as discussed December 19, 2022
Noel: Agrees with Afton and thinks the 80th is a good reason to think about investing in a national city. Do we need them to provide all the documentation specifically? We need the cheapest options from the coasts and bring back financial figures.
Afton: wants to see the actual bids and dive into why we are not entertaining other offers.
Aslynne: thinks it is reasonable to get the bids.
Afton: Write ups are fine but want the actual documentation.
Sofia: Agree with Afton, we should get more information about the bids
Exuro: It’s very hard to get west coast jugglers to come to small cities in the midwest. Little to no engagement with jugglers even just across the country outside of the midwest. If we truly want to grow, we need to add value to what we’re delivering. Providing events outside of the midwest would be a step in that direction. Breaking outside of that dedicated core group that go every year would be valuable.
Afton: more people would show up if we held events in states that were more friendly to certain demographics.
Aslynne: We’re not rendering assistance to fellow jugglers by going to places that aren’t safe for our members.
Afton: reviewing the rider and comparing up against bids from “unusual” cities would be a good start
eJuggle Report (Scott Seltzer)
Discussion:
Afton: When is the next eJuggle report coming?
Membership (Marilyn Sullivan)
Membership Data
Discussion:
Afton: Now sending thank you emails to people who join/renew!
Aslynne: Would like a list of lifetime members and their contact info – Martin to send
Marketing Report (Matan Presberg)
Discussion:
Afton: Where’s the report? Also pinged the marketing group about Black History Month and got some motion
IRC Report (Erin Stephens)
Discussion:
Afton: Would like to see a timeline for Erin’s plan to get the training guides done
YJA Report (Benjamin Domask-Ruh)
Discussion:
OpsO Report (Scott Steiskal)
Discussion:
Afton: where is the report?
6. Motions for Consideration
- Motion: Motion to approve hosting the IRC Mexico 2023 at the Psy Circus festival in Guadalajara, Mexico, May 10-14, 2023.
- Budget:
Author: Erin Stephens
Motion: Niels
Second: Sofia
Discussion:
Note from Erin – This is a new festival to host the IRC Mexico. They are super motivated and inspired with their festival, and will be having Jay Gilligan and Albino Phant as special guests. They have a strong organizing team and good budget. They are also committed to making it possible to do the live stream online. This will also be a good opportunity to retrain the IRC Mexico coordinator, Jorge Vilchis.
Sofia: Also would like to have more people trained with the IRCs. Is all the money coming from the IRC budget?
Afton: Yes, ALL funds are coming from the IRC budget since it has donations earmarked specifically for the IRCs and it doesn’t affect the general budget.
Martin: How does this compare to prior IRCs?
Sofia: What was the director stipend? Wasn’t it $500 before?
Afton: Yes,
Afton: Even though this money is earmarked, it’s still IJA money. It won’t hurt other programs if spent on IRCs but it is organizational money.
Vote: Approved
- Motion: Motion to approve the 2023 IJA Festival Budget
Author: Exuro Piechocki
Motion: Niels
Second: Sofia
Discussion:
Exuro – this was done using historical festival context, Cascade of Stars as shown here is hopefully lower than will be, Wes Peden will be doing Rollercoaster, Unna Med items estimated, Morris theater, Convention center, joggling track are set amounts (caveat of any add ons like AV, damages, etc), marketing budget a bit higher for social media marketing purposes.
Vote: Approved
- Motion: Motion to approve the 2023 IJA Budget
Author: Afton Benson
Motion: Aslynne
Second: Niels
Discussion:
Vote: Approved
- Motion: Motion to approve sponsoring the BJC
Author: Benjamin Domask-Ruh
Motion: Sofia
Second: Aslynne
Discussion: Aslynne: This motion is potentially too vague as it stands.
Exuro: recommends tabling this motion and getting a clear one written, if it’s time sensitive, vote via straw poll
Martin: Sponsoring a specific person seems like it could be problematic. Agrees idea of tabling it.
Aslynne: Motion to lay this motion on the table
Amy: Second
Vote: Approved (to table the motion)
Aslynne will email Benjamin re: motion changes
7. Varia:
Aslynne: Martin has questions about Google Workspace
Martin: Curious about allocation for user accounts, who are the super-admins, organizing movement of the documents
Amy: Google doc migration effort is complex, could lose all history of the documents. Could download the documents and reupload, or have owners of the documents move it themselves. Recommends hybrid approach where anyone who is responsive move the documents themselves, then manual movement would fill in gaps.
Google accounts – log in and admin accounts:
Afton: Super admins – board chair, technical officer, main communications people
Martin: believes super admins should be more technically focused, perhaps the board chair is not that person
Afton: If someone isn’t technically inclined, they wouldn’t go mess with it. Any malicious intent would be a different issue entirely.
Aslynne: what would an admin not be able to do that a super admin could?
Martin: would likely have to check permissions. Different admin roles are available.
Amy: Super admin is able to manage user accounts and reset passwords
Afton: There might be info that the board chair gets that not everyone is privy to that super admin capabilities would help with
Exuro: This is more IT than admin/board chair role and some separation might be good to have.
Aslynne: if the chair has those capabilities, it’s a redundancy to protect in the case of someone stepping down
Martin: Amy was planning on 5 or 6 people in the super admin role
Aslynne: current super-admins?
Amy: Martin, Amy, David, Exuro (and Ian, as it turns out)
Afton: eJuggle related. Juggling news said EJC Ireland was canceled, even though they just lost their space and haven’t canceled. Maybe a reminder to fact check.
8. Confirm Next Meeting
Next meetings will take place on…
TBD for the next vision meeting
TBD for the next business meeting
9. Adjournment
Meeting adjourned at 8:10pm Eastern.