Business Board Meeting February 19th, 2026

1. Call to Order

Chair, Benjamin Domask-Ruh, called the meeting to order at: 6:04pm ET

2. Roll:

Present: Benjamin Domask-Ruh, Afton Benson, Biz Olbrisch, Jonathan Perry, Ross Berenson, David Wilkins, Michael Karas, Kaylin Meyer, Thayer Slichter, Martin Frost

Absent: Noel, Sofia, 

Recorder: Kaylin

 

3. Approval of Agenda

Motion: Jonathan

Second by: Biz

Discussion: 

Vote: Passes Unanimously


4. Approval of Minutes: 

Business Board Meeting (Business Meeting Agenda – 01/22/2026)

Motion: Jonathan

Second: Biz

Discussion: 

Vote: Passes Unanimously 

 

5. Reports 

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

 

2026 Festival Report (Noel Yee)

Discussion: 

Jonathan: Asking about point of contact 

Afton: There is still time

Michael: Question on refunds for IJA festival

Afton: $15 processing fee, but we do offer refunds when asked. We get minimal requests for such.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1EuouD6oOTYdD_uYvCxtoyAAa231LJtWO/view?usp=drive_link

Financial Report (Afton Benson)

Discussion: 

Year End Numbers:

We’re working on finalizing the 2025 numbers, we are going to have a loss this year. You can see the draft Profit & Loss and Balance sheet. Since the festival basically broke even, we don’t earn enough to pay for our general expenses, this is not unusual. However, the interest from the CD helped and next year we’ll have the investment revenue in theory. Additionally, the reason it will look like we lost around 66k is because we’re taking another 50k out of the iiWii pledge that is in the books. We’re doing this slowly over the next few years. That’s not a “real cash” loss we’re just removing it from QB from the pledge aspect. Overall, without the iiWii reduction we are looking at a 16k loss, keeping in mind also that we paid for the website update this year as well. I did ask Dennis if we should record that another way so the cost is lower on the P&L, I’ll update you all when I know. 

Additionally, as Dennis has been moving the books onto Quickbooks Online on the balance sheet there is an asset for the Archives for $3,400…as far as I know everything in the archives haven’t been appraised (I’m not sure who would do that outside of our community). So I’m not sure why we put this value on the balance sheet. I reached out to our insurance to see if we have coverage for that amount, and we don’t per say. The question then is, do we want to keep the $3,400 on the Balance sheet as an asset?

Overall – Leave it for now

 

Sponsorship Opportunity:

Amy Wieliczka (2026 IJA Show Director) reached out with an opportunity for the IJA to sponsor the Flow Show in California. Personally, I think this would be a good opportunity to continue our work bridging the flow community and the juggling community. I’m going to add a motion below for up to the $250 so we can vote on any amount even if it’s $0. 

Discussion: Deadline is March 12th for advertisement

 

Investment Accounts:

DONE! The money is in Merrill Lynch and is invested. As of right now, they did combine both the savings money and the iiWii money. I’ve emailed our broker to have him adjust that immediately, and to follow up on linking our Bank of America account to our Merrill Lynch account to view them online.  

 

Future Festival Site Report (Nick Hanson)

Discussion: 

Rochester, MN – Afton

Emailed them questions regarding the contract, asking for the hotel contracts and if we got updated lower rates. Clarifying adding our Rider and Civil Rights Rider. 

Original Site Visit Writeup

Rochester MN Overview & Questions for Experience Rochester

Rochester Convention Center Draft Contract

Experience Rochester Incentives 

 

Ross: Asking if we have past budget sheet for past Rochester IJA

Afton: No

Ross: Posing question of if there were contributing factors for loss that year

Martin: Albany also still in consideration?

Afton: Yes

Michael: Discount on rebooking festivals if a certain timeframe

Afton: Depends but isn’t guaranteed. Can always pitch.

 

eJuggle Report (Eric Shibuya)

Discussion: Article series on Juggling and Fitness from Javier (without AI images) is now in production. We plan a biweekly publication schedule starting when the first article is published. I have also received a draft article on big club passing patterns and a short piece on thoughts on practicing and improvement from two separate (new) potential authors. The latter article was posted on Facebook, so I do not plan to offer monetary compensation, but I liked the thoughts and with an image of the author, it’s “different” enough to be in the eJuggle page in my assessment. 

I’ve asked Christian Kloc to look at the passing article, but if he doesn’t have time, I’ll pass it along to someone else on the team, and will probably forward over to Martin Frost to look at as well. Very happy to see new authors coming out to see us. 

Discussion:

 

Membership (Marilyn Sullivan)
Membership Data

Discussion: 

 

Marketing Report (Lisa Ellipse)IJA social media requests

Discussion: 

 

IRC Report (Erin Stephens)

  • We have just completed a month of weekly meetings with the IRC team.  A lot of great feedback, ideas, changes and plans came out of the discussions and the team is super motivated. Some of the changes that we are planning to implement immediately include:
    • Collecting all important data from competitors on the entry form including phone number, WhatsApp and Instagram accounts and email.
    • Announcing the scores of the finals publicly – both printed and posted at the event the day after an IRC, and on social media.
    • Creating a Google Doc to get feedback from competitors after each IRC (What were you expecting, what was good about your experience, what was not good about your experience, and what could be improved?)
    • Working on expanding prize options that are not money based – including invitations to perform at other festivals, photo shoots, articles in eJuggle, opportunities for contracts in circuses, etc.
    • A team has been formed to create a sexual assault policy for the IRC – this includes Kelly Cal from Mexico, Iskandara Chat from Chile and Ana Paula Laverde from Colombia/Ecuador.  All three have experience in writing and/or implementing such policies for other events and are motivated to add this to the functioning of the IRC – as it has been an issue on various occasions.  They will be making a proposal to submit to the IRC Team to review, and I will then submit it to the board to review and approve.
  • Two important roles have been filled to help with the IRC work load:
    • An administrative assistant – Matan Presberg – who will be helping with things like data collection from competitors, automating systems when possible, sending emails, etc.
    • A marketing assistant – Kelly Cal – who will be helping with posts, stories, interviews, video editing and creating an open, communicative and transparent energy for the IRC. 
  • The promotions are going well for the IRC in Peru and in England.  There are no entries as of yet – but that is normal as 90% or more generally come in within the last week.  Both organizing teams are professional and committed to making the events a success.
  • We will be launching a marketing project in March to celebrate 50 IRC (which will happen on April 7 in the UK) and 15 years of the program.  This will include various videos outlining the history of the IRC as well as story projects highlighting various competitors’ experiences and funny/crazy/interesting things that have happened as part of the program.
  • Two more IRC are in the works for 2026 – in Mexico and Argentina.  We hope to have both proposals in the motions at the March board meeting.
  • I have slowly but surely been uploading video and photo content from the IRC to the IJA Drive.  This is one of the big goals for 2026.

Discussion: 

Afton: Would like more specification on offering expanding prize options besides money

 

YJA Report (Benjamin Domask-Ruh)

Discussion:  

  • Met with Library in Fort Wayne digitally. Confirmed details for Planting the Juggling Seed 2026! 
  • One of our Authors, Rosie Kelly (Sticker and juggler extraordinaire) writes this offer!
  • Just as a side note, since doing the work that I wrote about in the schools, using a trauma sensitive approach with juggling, I did a project for the UK Arts Council, designing and writing juggling as more specific movements and routines to suit trauma affected hospital children. And I’m presenting this project at an International Healthcare Conference this March in Switzerland. Very exciting stuff

If the IJA ever wanted me to come along to the event and deliver not only this new talk+workshop that (personally I think is super useful to jugglers not just people working hospitals) but also promote the book, in any way, at this year’s event or any future events. I’d really love to. I think the talk element has relevance to a lot of work with young people and juggling, and the actual moves and routines me and Wes came up with are super fun to do and all sorts of jugglers would find them fun!

Additional: Maybe its worth mentioning that I can be a pretty cool gala/cabaret host. Ive done stages at a lot of UK and Europe conventions as well as the BJC gala. I dunno if doing that would make it more worth having me…

  • I’d be super interested in figuring this out to keep our educational programming growing as well as having the juggling community expand the benefits of juggling to society at large. 🙂 
  • YJA Coloring Pages

Discussion:

Thayer: show producer for planting the seeds show?

Benjamin: Still being figured out

 

 

OpsO Report (Ross Berenson)

Discussion:  

Ross: 2028 Festival Director, still in search for candidate.

Ross: Suggestion to switch to google meets once our zoom lapses 

 

6. Motions for Consideration

  1. Motion for consideration: Motion to Appoint Thayer Slicther to the position of IJA Graphic Designer

Author: Benjamin Domask-Ruh

Motion:Biz
Second:Kaylin
Discussion:

Discussed during the vision meeting. General Approval! Any other topics/needs?

Thayer: Going to make a request form to share around the organization. 

Vote: Passes Unanimously 

 

  1. Motion for consideration: Motion to approve the IJA 2026 Budget

Author: Afton Benson

Motion:Biz
Second: Michael
Discussion: 

Vote: Passes Unanimously

 

  • Motion to approve up to $250 in Sponsorship for the Flow Show SF

Author: Afton Benson

Motion: Jonathan

Second: Kaylin 

Discussion:

Jonathan: $1000 budget, we should begin to reach out to events to use for marketing sponsorships 

Vote: y Passes Unanimously

 

7. Varia:

  • Craig Quat Offer for workshops
    • Offering 4 registration slots per course to use as IJA sees fit (raffle/contest/give away) in help to promote courses via IJA social channels
    • Details:
      Online Creation Lab 2026 is an international online program for contemporary circus and movement practitioners, consisting of two structured online courses, each led by four international instructors. Courses may be taken independently or together and are delivered through live online sessions, with recordings available to support participation across time zones. The program is intentionally non–object-specific and welcomes participants working across juggling, movement, dance, object manipulation, and interdisciplinary practices. Emphasis is placed on creative process, artistic research, authorship, and inclusive pedagogical approaches rather than technical specialization. 

 Course 01 — Creation & Artistic Process

 Starts March 24, 2026

Instructors:

Liza van Brakel (Belgium) · Marianna De Sanctis (Italy) · Mateo Lasso (Colombia) · Otavio Fantinato (Brazil) 

 

Course 02 — Pedagogy, Access & Facilitation

Starts March 24, 2026

Instructors:

Ariane Öchsner (Germany) · Dani Corradi (Argentina) · Liam Wilson (Ireland) · Marcelo Rodini “Mamute” (Brazil) 

 

Full course details and registration are available at: https://www.quatprops.net/event-list

  • Main Questions:
    • Does IJA accept ‘payment’ to promote other orgs programming?
      • Afton: If we do this too often this type of income can be classified as Unrelated Business Income and could be subject to taxes. More so with things like this, less so with sponsorships.  
    • How does this support our mission?

 

Discussion:

  • Jonathan: More transparency with endorsement from IJA 
  • Michael: Idea to put new events on website
  • Biz: Idea to send someone into course to write a review?
  • Discussion among putting a protocol in place at the next vision meeting about the topic. As of right now because of lack of protocol, the answer is no for now.

 

8. Confirm Next Meeting

Next meetings will take place on…

March 5, 2026 at 6pm ET for the next vision meeting

March 19, 2026 at 6pm ET next business meeting

 

9. Adjournment

Meeting adjourned at 7:53pm ET

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