Business Board Meeting June 18th, 2019

Business Board Meeting June 18th, 2019

1. Call to Order

Chair, Exuro Piechocki, called the meeting to order at: 5:07 pm PST



2. Roll

Present: Erin, Afton, Eric, David, Mike Sullivan, Galen Harp, Sofia, Mike Moore, Matan, Ian Michael, Exuro at 5:25

Absent: Yuki Ueda

Recorder: Eric Shibuya

 

3. Approval of Agenda

Motion: Sofia

Second by: Ian

Discussion: 

Vote: Motion passes unanimously


4. Approval of Minutes: 

Business Board Meeting (5/21/19)

Motion: Ian

Second: Sofia

Discussion: 

Vote: Motion passes unanimously

 

5. Reports 

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

 

2019 Festival Report (David Cain)

Discussion: Things pretty much ready to go. Finalizing some coordination with the theatre for stage championships. $800 over in housing expense, $1200 over in mic fees, but under in various areas. Waiting to hear from Fire Marshall for one act in Cascade of Stars. (Afton: this is not covered by our insurance) David: will cancel fire part of that show. Local newspaper has published an article about the festival.

 

[Exuro enters the call]

Financial Report (Afton Benson)

Discussion: See 2018 P&L report (Motion E below)

 

Future Festival Site Report (Mike Sullivan)

As you recall, I submitted my site visit report for South Bend, Indiana in February and it was discussed on the February board meeting.

Since then, I held a “webinar” through the National Association of Sports Commissions which resulted in a good number of additional potential destinations expressing interest in our event. I have spent the last three months running all those to ground, culminating last week with a site visit to Jacksonville, FL, the only city passing my initial qualifications and further discussions before the visit.

The visit to Jacksonville confirmed my initial fears about the destination: it would just be too, too, too insufferably, inhumanly, miserably hot in mid-July for our people to deal with, and I speak as someone who has lived in Texas and Florida for 29 years and is used to the heat and humidity.

The problem is our host hotel (and meeting space), the Hyatt Regency, is a minimum of 3-4 blocks from the food and drink areas in downtown, making for a 6-8 block walk two to three times a day in broiling heat without an inch of shade and no breeze to speak of on the streets. Couple that with almost daily mid-afternoon cloudbursts, and it would be like sending our jugglers into a jungle rainforest — without shade — for a week, and no one would enjoy it.

Added to all that, the beautiful Florida Theatre, the proposed site of our formal shows and competitions, came in at 2x our budget, even after I played the “we’re just poor itinerant jugglers trying to make our way in a mean world” card and begging for their lowest rates.

So, JAX is out, and South Bend is still our best option for 2023. They have presented us with an offer good enough to sign today, but if the Board approves moving ahead with South Bend for 2023, I will of course press them for even better rates and more concessions that they have already promised.

I’d like to ask the Board to approve South Bend for our 76th Annual festival, to be held July 17-23, 2023.

The site visit report is posted here for your review. 

Discussion: 

A couple questions from Mike (Moore):

1 – Is there a ballpark price difference between renting the Discovery Ballroom vs the Convention Hall?  How much does carpeting tend to cost? – Mike, this is something we will need to hammer out with the Center if we proceed. Show carpeting is not cheap — it could be as much as $10k to cover the whole Hall. I think we might want a mix of the two rooms, as the Discovery is not large enough for all our gym needs. Mr. King, the Center manager, is very willing to work with us and we can count on them doing whatever works best for us to secure the deal. Also, Visit South Bend has said they want to be VERY supportive of any special needs we may have to bring us in. MS

2 – Are we able to occupy the atrium for long periods of time?  This might mitigate the problem with the smaller Ballroom? Mike – Mr. King advised that they are not likely to have any other clients in-house during our week. If so, they would likely be small meetings or a wedding or two, and would not inhibit our uses. We can of course write into the contract the use of the atrium. MS

3 – Are we likely able to decide between the Discovery Ballroom and Convention Hall after seeing our pre-reg numbers? Mike – We came in above average for pre-reg this year, but many of them were comps (78!). Actual paid pre-reg is closer to our long-run norms. I do think we will need to carefully work out the gym space needs, but between the two rooms, I think we have more than we will need in space and flexibility. MS

 

eJuggle Report (Scott Seltzer)

Discussion: 

 

Membership (Marilyn Sullivan)
Membership Data

Discussion: 

 

Marketing Report (Erin Stephens/Matan Presberg)

Discussion: 

 

IRC Report (Erin Stephens)

Discussion: 

 

YJA Report (Galen Harp)

Discussion:  Building packet to send to schools looking to start their own juggling club. 

 

WJD Report (Josie Marks-McQuade)

WJD was such a success!! We had so many videos pouring in from all over the world across IG and FB! SO.MUCH.ARTWORK from around the world (check the highlights on @ijajugglers IG),  The Portland event was great! THANK YOU SOCIAL MEDIA TEAM for hyping the event worldwide! 

 

WJD recap video is accepting submissions via we.transfer until 6/26 wjd2019@juggle.org 

 

T-shirts were pretty rough this year – big BIG thank you to everyone who supported me in that process. Design wasn’t the best, and we only sold 16 shirts but due to my fault and lack of support with our third-party apps we’re at a slight deficit We will likely not do t-shirts next year and replace them with something simpler that still reps the IJA and WJD community pride. 

 

Discussion : 

 

6. Motions for Consideration

A. Authorize Future Festival Site Coordinator Mike Sullivan to move ahead with negotiations that will allow us to sign contracts favorable to IJA for our 76th annual festival in South Bend, Indiana, in July, 2023.

Author : Mike Sullivan
Motion : Matan
Second : Eric

Discussion :

Vote :
Oppose :
Abstain :
Result : Passes unanimously

 

  1. Motion to approve holding the IRC North Africa 2019 at the African Juggling Convention in Cotonou, Benin, Africa on October 30th. See Proposal

    Author : Erin Stephens
    Motion : Sofia
    Second : Eric 

Discussion :

Vote :
Oppose :
Abstain :
Result : Passes unanimously

 

  1. Motion to approve holding the IRC South America 2019 at CircoSofa in Bogotá, Colombia on October 13th. See Proposal

    Author : Erin Stephens
    Motion : Matan
    Second : Sofia

Discussion :

Vote :
Oppose :
Abstain :
Result : Passes unanimously

 

  1. Motion to approve holding the IRC South Africa 2019 in partnership with Zip Zap Circus School in Cape Town, South Africa on either October 16th or November 9th. See Proposal

    Author : Erin Stephens
    Motion : Matan
    Second : Sofia

Discussion : 

Vote :
Oppose :
Abstain :
Result : Passes unanimously

 

  1. To approve the 2018 P&L Statement

Author : Exuro Piechocki
Motion : Sofia
Second : Ian

Discussion :

Vote :
Oppose :
Abstain :
Result : Passes unanimously

 

7. Varia:

  1. Review initial proposal to change the IJA Regional Competition model into a biennial qualifying competition and world championship model, starting in 2020 and 2021. See Proposal 
  2. Awesomeness Fund – I have priced out LMT’s for Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. David has mentioned “We have an unexpected $300 cost for the bartenders for Renegade” so we can either have LMTs all 3 days and kick him the remainder, or possibly only have LMTs on 2 days and increase the hours for them in order to get the full amount he needs. Please use this for reference: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1fn9J2jDxIpqU1hqbqqFajXMQpk98qUXRzKzlDqIvf0w/edit?ouid=115367796741876607461&usp=sheets_home&ths=true
    Afton needs invoice and W9 from LMTs for them to be paid. 
  3. Resignation of Yuki Ueda. Seat will come open and a member in good standing can be appointed after the new Board convenes at the IJA festival. 

Potential candidates for the empty seat : Scott Steiskal, Ely Doan (both will be at the IJA festival). Both should consider submitting statements of candidacy for the new Board to consider at the Festival. 

 

8. Confirm Next Meeting

Festival AGM Wednesday June 26th, 2019 at 3pm EDT.

 

9. Adjournment

Motion to adjourn : Eric

Discussion : 

Voting : Passes unanimously

 

Meeting adjourned at 6:16 pm PST. 

Leave a Reply