Business Board Meeting March 17th, 2025

1. Call to Order

Chair, Benjamin Domask-Ruh, called the meeting to order at:  6:05pm Eastern



2. Roll: 

Present: Afton Benson, Mike Sullivan, Dan Holzman, Ross Berenson, Jess Mardini, Jonathan Perry, Martin Frost, Kaylin Meyers, Jake Darrow, Noel Yee

Absent: Asylnee Howes, Luther Bangert, Niels Duinker

Recorder: 

 

3. Approval of Agenda

Motion: Jonathan Perry

Second by: Luther Bangert

Discussion: 

Vote: Passes Unanimously 


4. Approval of Minutes: 

Business Board Meeting (Business Meeting Agenda – 02/17/2025)

Motion: Jonathan

Second: Luther

Discussion: 

Vote: Passes Unanimously 

 

5. Reports 

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

 

2025 Festival Report (Jess Mardini)

Discussion: 

March 2025 Report

Getting some pre-event stuff worked out with the tourism folks, they have money to pay performers potentially. They’re making some guides, and a digital map so we can put that up too. They can do local news promo; Noel/Afton to help with this. 

ONEP is going to put up signage to make it easier to find things. Nursing rooms and signs for restroom signs. Maybe TV screens with our schedule rotating and photos etc. 

Busking potential on Monday Night. Maybe a juggling parade during the market. 

Luther Joined at 6:21 PM EST

 

Financial Report (Afton Benson)

Discussion: 

Luther Depart: 7:10 PM 

 

Future Festival Site Report (Mike Sullivan and Jake Darrow)

Discussion: 

Mike spoke again with Jonathan Mazer, IJA member and attorney, Monday, 3/17, to further discuss.

  • He pointed out that though the new Iowa law does remove civil liberties protections that had been in place, it does not require that transgender individuals be discriminated against. A weak distinction, but it’s there.
  • He pointed out that most – not all – of our existing and proposed SB 2028 contracts already require IJA not to discriminate against a whole list of people, so they should not balk at us asking the same of them as our supplier. The two Marriott-brand hotel contracts and the Morris PAC contract for SB 2028 have this language. The Century Center should not fuss if we ask them to include the same language.
  • He’s in favor of a small addition to our current rider, which he thinks all venues will be happy to sign, adding gender identity to the list of others we expect not to be discriminated against. 
    • The current rider reads, “With respect to its activities conducted in the facility during the term of the rental, MANAGER agrees to comply with all applicable laws prohibiting discrimination by reason of race, color, age, sex, marital status, sexual orientation, political ideology, creed, religion, ancestry, national origin or the presence of any sensory, mental or physical handicap or the use of a trained guide dog by a blind, deaf or physically disabled person.”
  • He said he can have this to us tomorrow, March 18.
  • If so, we will slip it into our South Bend 2028 contracts and send them off ASAP.
  • I’ll also open the discussion about asking our other future sites to sign the same waiver as a proactive effort.

Mike had an initial conversation with Charlottesville, Virginia for the 2029/2030 festival location. They do not have any convention space suitable for us (tops out at 6,000-sq.ft.). Closed the file.

Jonathan – Will this put any grants in jeopardy or are we concerned? Not that we’d compromise our values. Afton – Nope not worried. 

 

eJuggle Report (Eric Shibuya)

Discussion:  Editorial Team met with some of the Board members to discuss an occasional publication and its potential format. The rest of the editorial team is taking the lead on that. 

Missed last two Wednesdays of Tricks of the Month (first one for a music copyright strike and the second for other external issues). Jorge is on it, we expect to get back going again. 

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Vr5W4pvfkhXeCeZesUNK3Z0azret6g4aghHCsu-m2pI/edit#gid=0

Membership (Marilyn Sullivan)
Membership Data

Discussion: 

 

Marketing Report (Lisa Ellipse)IJA social media requests

Discussion: 

Kaylin – Women’s day videos did really well. Lisa is working with Jess on the festival promotion. 

 

IRC Report (Erin Stephens)

Discussion:

The IRC are off and running for 2025! I am especially excited about the team that is being built.

Here is a list of all IRC team members / representatives as of now:

Chile : Wladimir Velasquez and Javier Martinez
Colombia : Golo Volador
Guatemala : Miguel Hernandez

IRC Director Assistants:
Esteban Velez – In training to be the coordinator of the IRC Latin America in partnership with the IRC Director
Alex Larson – In training to assist the IRC director, with the potential to transition into the program director in the future.

This past month I have had video calls with Esteban, Alex, Miguel, and Golo to discuss their positions, their goals, and timelines for training / upcoming IRC. We are creating a WhatsApp group with all organizers, with the plan to have a group video call in the near future, specifically to discuss the future of the IRC in Latin America.

Promotion for IRC Centroamérica has launched, with the first entry already being submitted.

 

I am currently building out the IRC SA Ecuador website and coordinating with the director for when we will launch promotion, and the Chile team for planning their travel to go organize the IRC in Quito in June.

There is a motion for the IRC Mexico below.  The convention Circo P’al Barrio contacted me with interest in hosting the IRC, and had the proposal to me within 2 days.  They are quite excited to be IRC hosts.

I am also working on a proposal for the IRC in Colombia this year.  The potential hosting festival has asked for information about the requirements and the specific processes of choosing finalists, choosing judges, and what is expected of them.

 

CIMAC in Chile currently has not received funding for their festival this year – so we are holding off on moving forward with plans for an IRC until their funding has been secured.

Noel Yee Departs: 7:20 PM EST

 

YJA Report (Benjamin Domask-Ruh)

Discussion:  

  • Talking about building a modular tool-kit for other festival to implement their own versions of Club YJA
  • Seed Fund the Flow Arts – Granted for the Educator Guide. 

OpsO Report (Ross Berenson, ClickUp)

Discussion:  

General Website updates / redesign progress

  • There are a fair amount of 404 errors, been tracking them.

 

6. Motions for Consideration

  1. Motion to approve holding the IRC México 2025 at the Circo P’al Barrio convention in  Colima, Mexico during the dates of October 30th – November 2nd.

     

Author: Erin Stephens

Motion:  Luther
Second: Jonathan
Discussion:

 

Proposal
Budget:



Erin’s Notes:
Circo P’al Barrio  was scheduled to host an IRC in 2020, but it was unfortunately canceled due to the COVID pandemic.  I am pleased that the convention has once again reached out with interest to host the IRC.  As outlined in the proposal, they have agreed to all the terms for the hosting event, and have been extremely fast and efficient in all communications.  I am confident that the organizing of the event will be well managed and produce positive results.

Miguel Hernandez of Guatemala will be the IRC Representative traveling to organize the event, with the hope to simultaneously train 1, and possibly 2, people in Mexico to help organize future Mexican IRC.

The director of a festival that wants to host the IRC Mexico in 2026, will also be part of the Circo P’al Barrio organizing team – so this will be a good opportunity for him to see the IRC in action and be trained as a local organizer at the same time.

Approval: Passes Unanimously 

 

  1. Motion to approve Matthew Milazzo’s juggle.org website redesign proposal.
    1. Author: Ross Berenson
    2. Motion: Noel
    3. Second: Jonathan
    4. Discussion: Martin – what’s the background for this? Ross: Development Matty would design it fully and Ross would handle the backend which would be WordPress. Ross has worked with them before and will really speed up the process to change the website over. Afton: This would allow us to replace YM, Ross: WooCommerce/Membership would be the best replacement. 

Noel: this will really enable us to make things easier for everyone. Martin: If it’s approved when would they start? Ross: They’d start asap.

  1. Approval: Passes Unanimously 

 

  1. Motion to Appoint Noel Yee as Festival Director for 2026
    1. Author: Benjamin Domask-Ruh
    2. Motion: Jonathan
    3. Second: Benjamin 
    4. Discussion: Noel: Been an honor to be working with the IJA and we’re working on advancing our items and there was a gap in the role and he’d be helping fill in information for the 2027 team. 
    5. Approval: Noel – Abstaine; Approvals – Jonathan, Luther, Benjamin 

 

  1. Motion to Appoint Ross Berenson and Andy Peterson (Slammin’) as Co-Festival Directors for 2027
    1. Author: Benjamin Domask-Ruh
    2. Motion: Noel
    3. Second: Luther
    4. Discussion: Afton: STUNNING heck yes! Noel – lets do two sided postcards for marketing Ross – Andy and I are excited to be considered. 
    5. Festival Director Applications
    6. Approval: Passes Unanimously 

 

7. Varia:

  • Call for Board nominations, with May 15 deadline, to go out in March eNewsletter
  • IJA Awards 
    • Confusion around Awards Committee Members
    • Afton’s Email response
    • Benjamin’s Thoughts
  • IJA Microfiche
    • Seems like Thom Wall has some IJA Newsletter Microfiche from Mid-20th Century
      • Wants to know if this is something that has been digitized already? (Martin?)

 

8. Confirm Next Meeting

Next meetings will take place on…

for the next vision meeting: April 7, 2025 at 6 PM EST

for the next business meeting: April 21, 2025 at 6 PM EST

 

9. Adjournment

Meeting adjourned at 8:02 pm Eastern. 

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