1. Call to Order
Chair, Benjamin, called the meeting to order at: 6:03 pm Eastern
2. Roll:
Present: Jake Darrow, Afton Benson, Mike Sullivan, Jess, Ross Berenson, Aslynne Howes, Luther Bangert, Martin Frost, Donnell Griffith, Thayer Slichter, Benjamin Domask-Ruh
Absent: Noel Yee, Jonathan Perry, Niels Duinker, Sofia Noethe
Recorder: Aslynne Howes
3. Approval of Agenda
Motion: Aslynne
Second by: Benjamin
Discussion:
Vote: Passes unanimously
4. Approval of Minutes:
Business Board Meeting (Business Meeting Agenda – 01/20/2025 )
Motion: Aslynne
Second: Benjamin
Discussion:
Vote: Approved unanimously
5. Reports
Please keep verbal reports to 5 min or less except for festival discussion.
2025 Festival Report (Jess M)
Discussion:
Kaylin Meyers joins at 6:12pm
Afton got additional information from ONEP such as labor rates etc.
Work is being done to get a $10,000 tourism grant
Thayer: How many colors are in the shirt design?
Jess: Confirmed 6 colors right now and Crash can do the 6 colors.
Jess leaves at 6:30pm
Financial Report (Afton Benson)
Discussion:
Afton: spoke to Fidelity about setting up an investment account that can help with receiving stocks as well as funds.
990 is in progress, there’s an amount recorded as a pledge receivable, should the way this is being recorded be changed?
Future Festival Site Report (Mike and Jake)
Discussion: STILL working on the DoubleTree in South Bend, for 2028. We are onto our THIRD Events Manager, Kayley. She sent us a quote, worst of all now…$149 / night. Obviously Mike and I are frustrated at this point. We are trying to speak with the regional manager…hopefully Tuesday or Wednesday. We’ve spent the last 2 weeks waiting on Kayley, and then dealing with the quote sent.
In Summary
Our deal in 2023 was for $105/night, run of house, with 1:25 comp rate and $8/night parking.
July 17, 2024 Ellie Cachey…$115 / Night, 1:50 comp Rate, $10 parking Total 770 room/nights
We asked for more room nights, and waited
Dec. 16, 2024 Brande Gessinger…$125 / Night, 1:60 Comp Rate, $15 parking Total 1280 room/nights
We asked for better concessions, with the increase in business we were giving them, and waited
Feb. 6, 2025 Kayley Bouterse…$149 / Night, 1:50 Comp Rate, $10 parking Total 1260 room/nights
No other progress with other sites.
eJuggle Report (Eric Shibuya)
Discussion: There has been discussion about a more digestible format for eJuggle, and some members of the editorial team are interested in carrying that forward. There will be a discussion at a later date with the Board as to format, timelines, etc,. I think there may be a place for both a regularly published (newspaper) format, with an occasional (magazine) publication. I envision the magazine format to include some (though not all) eJuggle articles that have been posted in the last month/quarter/whatever, along with some special articles. The magazine format will allow for greater forward planning on articles and themes, while the newspaper publication will maintain day-to-day engagement with our audience. The magazine will not simply be a republication of the links to the last month’s eJuggle articles (the newsletter already does that) so each format will have its own niche.
We are coordinating with the marketing team on better communication between eJuggle and marketing.
Have come to an agreement with noted circus historian Steve Ward on a longer format piece (about 1200-1500 words).
Note** The “magazine” is digital format only
Kaylin: Published in Nov 2024, a sensitive topic is mentioned and should be better at discussing sensitive types of topics. I will send a message to Eric about the article.
ERIC (10:04 pm): email received from Kaylin. Content warning added. I like the idea of adding resources on the topic for readers, but hesitant to only add US resources.
Membership (Marilyn Sullivan)
Membership Data
Discussion:
Marketing Report (Lisa and Kenzey)IJA social media requests
Discussion:
- IJA Black History month posts are underway with 6 planned Ther for the month.
- 2 x Call-outs for Women’s day collab videos (1 x International Women’s day, 1 x Latin American Womens collab)
- Nick has contacted us asking to do a trans visibility collab video which they are planning on posting up about
- Within the marketing team we have agreed to increase reposts of other jugglers focusing on diversifying the instagram/fbook feed. We are aiming for 3 x reposts per week minimum between Cam, Kaylin and Lisa
- Spreadsheet has been created by Cam to keep track of permissions for reposts: IJA Repost Permissions
- eJuggle articles/podcasts are being highlighted well mixed in with calls to join as an IJA member
- Successful takeovers on the Instagram stories so far this year we have had conventions covered in Canada, the US, Poland, Ireland and England.
- Work in progress: a clearer schedule is being created for the social media
- Work in progress: sorting through & organising footage from previous IJA’s
- BONUS NEWS: 9 x IJA related performances, collab videos and tricks of the month are nominated for awards on @thejugglingawards
For Hawaii, can contact Chris Jost and Chris Garcia and ask about takeovers for the Hawaii Fest.
IRC Report (Erin Stephens)
- The IRC Centroamérica 2025 promotion will be launching today or tomorrow.
- There is an IRC Sudamérica 2025 – Ecuador motion on the agenda. The IRC representatives from Chile will be the onsite organizers for this event.
- The IRC rules video is making progress, with Lisa expecting to send a next version of the video soon.
- Alex and I have a meeting next week to start moving forward with training Alex as an IRC organizer.
- Esteban Velez from Colombia has expressed interest in being an IRC organizer for South America and we will be discussing this idea more thoroughly soon.
Discussion:
Note: Need to vote on any new IRC officers
YJA Report (Benjamin Domask-Ruh)
Discussion:
- Getting ready for a Club YJA at MONDO – running a specific workshop at MONDO for YJA
- Working on a new YJA Logo
- Meeting with an interested partnership (DoCurious)
- It was… interesting
OpsO Report (Ross Berenson)
Discussion:
– Inviting people to apply to be festival director. Fest director call was extended to 2/28
Nothing else is urgent/pressing.
6. Motions for Consideration
A: To increase the IRC Director Stipend from $1000 to $1500
Author: Benjamin Domask-Ruh
Motion: Luther
Second: Aslynne
Discussion:
Notes from Benjamin: I proposed and encouraged the IRC Director position stipend to be increased to reflect the amount of work required.
Martin: Is this per IRC?
Afton: Correct. SOP should be sent to board, as has been requested in the past. Before the pandemic, the IRCs were gearing up towards the world cup, and the program isn’t self-sustaining and won’t be able to survive as long with the current funding based on the current state.
Aslynne: Makes motion to table
Luther: seconds
Vote: tabled unanimously
B Motion to approve holding the IRC Sudamerica 2025 – Ecuador at the 14th annual World Juggling Day Encounter in Quito during the dates of June 12th – 15th.
Author: Erin Stephens
Motion: Aslynne
Second: Luther
Discussion:
Proposal
Budget:
Notes from Erin:
This event hosted an IRC in 2017 and is excited to once again have the event return to Ecuador. They are also excited about the idea of being trained to organize future local IRCs. The event will be held on World Juggling Day, which also gives it another connection to a different IJA initiative.
The plan is for the IRC Representatives from Chile, Wladimir and Javier, to fly to Ecuador to both organize the IRC and train the Ecuador team to be future IRC organizers. They are the two representatives who did this same model in Colombia last year, which was a great success!
The budget reflects the cost of the flights for the 2 representatives. It also reflects an increase in the payment for the IRC Director, myself, which is being proposed at the recommendation of the IJA board president based on the amount of work involved in organizing an IRC and training regional teams.
Afton: pretty standard budget, but we can consider changing it to remove the extra $500
Benjamin: Encouraged to increase the stipend based on the amount of co-ordination and work that has been happening. Since it’s coming out of the IRC budget, that’s okay.
Afton: there’s a difference between a flight cost increase versus increase in a Director paying themselves. The World Cup model was the reason for the stipend, and previously no stipend existed.
Aslynne: Motion to amend the motion to approve holding the IRC Sudamerica 2025 – Ecuador at the 14th annual World Juggling Day Encounter in Quito during the dates of June 12th – 15th by reducing the Director Stipend to $1,000.
Second: Luther
Discussion:
Vote to amend: passed unanimously
Vote: Benjamin abstains. Motion passes.
Benjamin will contact Erin.
7. Varia:
Afton – Juggler GoFundMe/Donation Pages:
I forwarded a fundraising email I received which, many of you have probably seen posted on various social media platforms. Regarding Kit Summers, this was an idea from Dave Finnigan which is very nice but also the entire post makes it sound like the IJA has agreed to help, or make Kit an ambassador, or agreed to allow them use of the IJA branding to decorate a van. Two things:
- The IJA currently does not reshare juggler fundraisers; yes it serves our mission, however, we have no system to ensure equity and our page would likely have dozens of requests a month to various degrees.
- We really should reach out to Dave Finnigan and ask him to remove the IJA information. It’s lovely of him to suggest it, but the IJA does not have an ambassador program and there was no discussion with the organization before this.
Aslynne: agreed, with proposed method of addressing this.
Afton to reach out and have the GoFundMe page remove portions suggesting affiliation with the IJA.
8. Confirm Next Meeting
Next meetings will take place on…
March 3rd, 2025 at 6:00pm ET for the next vision meeting
March 17, 2025 6:00pm ET for the next business meeting
9. Adjournment
Meeting adjourned at 7:51 pm Eastern.