Business Board Meeting May 28, 2023

1. Call to Order

Chair, Aslynne Howes, called the meeting to order at 4:06pm Eastern



2. Roll: 

Present: Sofia Noethe,  Ross Berenson, Benjamin D-R, Aslynne Howes, Afton Benson, Martin Frost, Exuro Piechocki

Absent: Niels Duinker, Amy W, Noel Yee

Recorder: Afton

 

3. Approval of Agenda

Motion: Benjamin

Second by: Ross

Discussion: Adjusted motions

Vote: Passes Unanimously 


4. Approval of Minutes: 

Business Board Meeting (LINK)

Motion: Benjamin

Second: Ross

Discussion: 

Vote: Passes Unanimously 

 

5. Reports 

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

 

2023 Festival Report (Exuro Piechocki)

Discussion: DoubleTree is booked, Marriott has about 30 rooms left no attrition clause there though. Registration at 260 est packages would like to be further along. Marketing is going alright

Martin: 274 registrations at the moment 

Exuro: All the other events have volunteers now, minimal items are waiting for action items. Shows, champs are all set. Show start at 7 Battle night will be live streamed with Richard Hartnell and Jay Ko. Really trying to dial in one major headliner for Cascade of Stars, talking to Noel to see where he’s at. Marketing is at the front of mind at the moment. Can’t use videos with copyrighted music so adjusting those for marketing purposes. Everyone who comes to the benefit and planting the juggling seed show will get a free ticket to the welcome show to hopefully sell more show tickets the rest of the week. 

Ross: Visa issue; Afton it was a challenge to get a clear layout of what they needed. 

Ross: Why do you feel it’ll be increased attendance Fri/Sat; Exuro it’s between Chicago and Detroit since it’s only about 2 hours away. Like everything about South Bend except the people at the venues. 

Ross: Do we have any data of who is near by who has registered? Martin: yes but it’d have to be sorted in YM. 

Exuro: Visa letter out to an Ukrainian juggler waiting for the dept of defense to approve or deny it. Mexico has a 600+ day visa waiting period. Someone in 2025 could start working on visas too. 

Martin: Do we expect to have performers listed on the website at some point? Exuro, working on it. Ross; can put them on the site just need name, bio, what show, and socials. 

 

Financial Report (Afton Benson)

Discussion: 

 

Future Festival Site Report (Craig Lewis)

Discussion: Aslynne: Did speak to Craig and Mike and the update was sent to the board, looking to talk with Lucy to lay out how it could look and make sure she understands the work involved. Did not talk about future festival locations. Did discuss problems with past locations with them; they didn’t see or hear of any problems and they don’t think there were many issues coming from other people. It’s unreasonable for us to refuse to book in states with problematic laws. 

Sofia: Does not agree with the Festival Site Coordinators opinions, definitely a vision meeting discussion, appreciate all the work from Mike 

Ross: Talk of said bills have any passed; Afton: yes. 

Ross: Next step for Lucy? Aslynne will email Ross 

Martin: Who’s Lucy Eden? Aslynne: They offered to volunteer in multiple capacities 

 

eJuggle Report (Scott Seltzer)

Discussion: Afton: Would like an eJuggle report by June Meeting.

 

Membership (Marilyn Sullivan)
Membership Data

Discussion: Aslynne: Sent a list in Feb to make sure the numbers are correct. Wanted to send some communications to life members. Just want to verify the number of life members. Mike Sullivan had mentioned there were issues with Jacob in the longer term. He was busy with running a circus school.

 

Benjamin Domask-Ruh Departed 4:58 PM

Afton Jake Darrow was interested in helping with this. 

Martin: Got a message from Marilyn some family members of life members may be missing. Role of the director for this, not a lot of work except at a few times a year but various details to deal with from time to time. 

 

Marketing Report (Matan Presberg)

Discussion: Afton: Marketing report please. Ross: Need an additional person to help with marketing who has a marketing background. 

 

IRC Report (Erin Stephens)

Discussion: 

Martin: Do we know what regions where we will train people? Aslynne; No

Ross: How are we looking to fund the IRCs longer term? 

Sofia: How do we promote IJA Memberships with the IRC?

 

YJA Report (Benjamin Domask-Ruh)

Discussion:  

 

OpsO Report (Scott Steiskal)

Discussion:  Aslynne: Scott has stepped down from the role. 

 

6. Motions for Consideration

  1. Motion to require all IJA award recommendations made by the Award Committees to contain a short description about the person and why they are being selected. 
    1. Author: Afton Benson
    2. Motion: Sofia
    3. Second: Ross
    4. Discussion: 
    5. Vote: Passes Unanimously 

 

  1. Motion to approve the 2022 IJA 990
    1. Author: Afton Benson
    2. Motion: Sofia
    3. Second: Aslynne
    4. Discussion: 
    5. Vote: Passes Unanimously

 

  1. Motion to approve an IJA Festival Code of Conduct 
    1. Author: Afton Benson
    2. Motion: Ross
    3. Second: Sofia
    4. Discussion: 
    5. Vote: Passes Unanimously

 

  1. Motion to approve Afton Benson and Noel Yee as Co-Festival Directors for the 2024 IJA Festival.
    1. Author: Aslynne Howes
    2. Motion: Aslynne
    3. Second: Ross
    4. Discussion: Ross: No one else applied? It’s a little scary we don’t have more applications. Martin: We advertised it for 1.5 months. Ross: Jared Davis was looking to 2026 we’ll talk at vision. Martin: The bylaws don’t allow the treasurer to be the festival director. Sofia: The way it’s worded doesn’t make sense for our organization, so we need to adjust the bylaws in order to make it make sense for our current organization. 
    5. Vote: Passes Unanimously

 

  1. Motion to appoint Ross Berenson Operations Officer for the remainder of the former Operations Officer’s term.
    1. Author: Aslynne Howes
    2. Motion: Aslynne
    3. Second: Sofia
    4. Discussion: 
    5. Vote: Abstention Ross; Passes: For: Sofia and Aslynne 
  2. Motion to hold the IRC South America 2023 at the CIMAC festival in Valparaíso, Chile on October 27.
    IRC South America 2023 Proposal
    IRC South America 2023 Budget
    Erin’s Comments

    1. Author: Erin Stephens
    2. Motion: Aslynne
    3. Second: Sofia
    4. Discussion: Afton: Looks pretty standard for an IRC 
    5. Vote: Passes Unanimously 

 

7. Varia: N/A

Ross Departed call at 5:26 pm 

8. Confirm Next Meeting

Next meetings will take place on…

June 11 for the next vision meeting at 4 PM Eastern

June 25 for the next business meeting at 4 PM Eastern

 

9. Adjournment

Meeting adjourned at 5:28pm Eastern. 

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