1. Call to Order
Chair, Ross Berenson, called the meeting to order at: 6:04 pm Eastern
2. Roll:
Present: Ross Berenson, Sofia Noethe, Aslynne Howes, Noel Yee, Afton Benson, Jake Darrow
Absent: Benjamin, Luther, Niels
Recorder: Sofia
3. Approval of Agenda
Motion: Aslynne
Second by: Sofia
Discussion: Aslynne: Made a few small adjustments to Afton’s motions – verbiage
Vote: Passes unanimously
4. Approval of Minutes:
Business Board Meeting (LINK)
Motion: Aslynne
Second: Ross
Discussion:
Vote: Passes unanimously
[Mike S joins the call at 6:07pm ET]
5. Reports
Please keep verbal reports to 5 min or less except for festival discussion.
2023 Festival Report (Afton Benson & Noel Yee)
Discussion: Noel: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1y8m_Q9n6pl_0ydnrxcBi8gWEE3dilFtIg9w8DNfQhyk/edit?usp=drive_link
Working through the details, had a great site visit. A lot of food, the main juggling space is very large. Afton, Ross, Noel sorting through the use of these rooms. Afton figuring out AV needs of the space. Main hotel is connected to the convention center and the overflow hotel. There’s a pub in the hotel! Went to the theater, it’s very nice but slightly smaller than some other theaters – which is not a bad thing. Andreanne is in touch with theater managers. Not a union theater so we will need to take a solid lead with volunteers alongside their technical staff. Visited library for planting the juggling seed show, but may change to the museum – research is in the works. Renegade venue is set. Met with woman from the Broadway district. Main festival volunteers are mostly set.
Afton: Fest registration is opening friday at noon for a two week Black Friday type sale. Hotel room block will open later. Some rooms are reserved at the Hampton but want to focus on filling the Hyatt since we are on the hook for rooms there. The rooms at the hyatt are set up well – two beds, pullout couch, microwave, fridge…good for our members. Roadblocks: No shuttle from airport the hotel. Hotel did offer to potentially work with our special guests. Hotel is about 8 miles from airport. Asking to see if tourism board can help with this. Afton pushing for a tourism grant – Joel and her are going to apply for that. It would cover 5-10k. DJ Craig signing on for AV needs. Volunteer roles are mostly full. Prices are going up.
[ Benjamin joined at 6:20 ET ]
Mike: if you go to Hyatt website and look at our dates, they’re showing booked! There’s another historic hotel downtown but Hyatt and Hampton are the best deals.
Noel: Downtown was pretty active when the festival team was there – seems that hotel is very highly in demand. Calling that out would be apt in our messaging.
Afton: Parking could be complicated – Hyatt has a couple hundred spots, there’s another ramp that is 85 cents an hour -Jake called out that ramp might be free on the weekends- Afton potentially going to reach out to the tourism board to check in.
Ross: Spoke with Exuro about a week ago, he has a good list of performers interested in performing in the flow show. In limbo with a lot of performers and Ross will check back in in January.
Afton: Calling out – Champs is on Wednesday!
Ross: Do we know number of vehicles that are at the fest?
Afton: more than half the people who filled out the survey drove.
Noel: Probably worth checking in with the city about the city ramp.
Financial Report (Afton Benson)
Discussion: Afton: plugging away with Dennis sorting out the chaos. Reached out to our insurance brokerage to figure out the almost insurance lapse issue, they did not have an answer for us but the expectation was set for better communications moving forward.
Ross: Exuro received his final fest director payment.
Future Festival Site Report (Mike Sullivan)
Discussion: Mike: Jake and Mike had a conference call with a rep from “American Dream” but they don’t have a few things we need. They have two hotels attached to the mall but very high end, likely out of our price range. Contact said they are building mid-range hotels by 2025 with shuttles. They don’t have the type of theater we would like. They have a lot of visitors and would allow busking. 5 million square feet. Pricing is unknown for a few years.
Jake: Felt like they were trying to sell unnecessary attractions for our audience.
Ross: It’s pretty accessible! But there is nothing there besides the mall and Giants stadium.
Mike: Would need to wait until they are more settled and have a better offering.
Afton: Heard back from U of M. They have on campus housing that runs online like a hotel. Can offer meal packages (but don’t have any further details). Main hangup – they can’t accommodate a 24 hour gym space – but Afton has asked some clarifying questions to see if there are any solutions. Afton wants to check actual dorms/gyms/theater to check walkability. There are hotels on campus too as potential lodging.
Ross: Trying to schedule a call with RFP team. Will get that scheduled as soon as possible after Thanksgiving
eJuggle Report (Scott Seltzer)
Discussion:
Membership (Marilyn Sullivan)
Membership Data
Discussion:
Marketing Report (Matan Presberg)
Discussion:
IRC Report (Erin Stephens)
Discussion:
Ross: Erin talked to Ross a bit about the last IRC and said it went well. She will send a more formal report. They streamed on IG but had issues streaming on Youtube.
YJA Report (Benjamin Domask-Ruh)
Discussion:
Benjamin: Making progress on badge book! They had considered putting out a lightweight version of it but decided to wait for a full product. Talking about youth programming at IJA festival – asking if Kayla (from Reach) would be interested in helping with IJA youth programming at the fest and she is. More definitive Planting the Juggling Seed programming to help make it more solid and give a framework for the future.
OpsO Report (Ross Berenson)
Discussion:
Not much to report – ran a “job listing” for a web designer but only a single bite. Not surprising – it is a significant effort. Question for Aslynne – survey was sent out a while ago, do we have results? Aslynne – not yet, can do for next month.
Other outstanding item: Code of conduct – form a committee for that – finalize it and how we will enforce it.
6. Motions for Consideration
- To cease acting as a fiscal sponsor or as a pass-through donation point for other organizations.
- Author: Afton Benson
- Motion: Aslynne
- Second: Sofia
- Discussion:
- Vote: Passes unanimously
- To open a 7 month CD with Bank of America with $225,000 of the restricted fund from iiWii
- Author: Afton Benson
- Motion: Benjamin
- Second: Noel
- Discussion: Afton: Calling out this isn’t everything in the fund – we have about 258k. Benjamin – why not all in? Good to keep cash on hand. Will bring in about $6400 in 7 months. Ross: are you sure we don’t pay taxes on it? Afton: Yes, very sure.
- Vote: Passes Unanimously
7. Varia:
Festival Recap Video: Any further comments or should Bailey wrap that project up and move onto the next items?
Ross: I think it’s going in a good direction. When it has a tighter edit, I think it’ll be pretty good. I know the end length will be 30 min, and I think that’ll solve the issue of it feeling slow and long.
Benjamin and Neils gave feedback via email. Noel skimmed it, not much to comment on. Might be worth having adjustable/smaller clips. Afton: Bailey is working on a short teaser. This is fully replacing all previous longer video footage available to membership. Noel is wondering if shorter, more structured videos would encourage more engagement.
Ross: filmed from one PoV, working with what we have. Agree with Noel, future consideration for giving editor more feedback or sectioning for more engagement.
Afton: Bailey is on for next summer – if we have feedback for how to make this more engaging to viewers we can pass it along!
Noel: We could consolidate feedback and envision how we want it to look in the future at a future vision meeting.
8. Confirm Next Meeting
Next meetings will take place on…
Dec 4, 2023 @ 6:00 pm ET for the next vision meeting
Dec 18, 2023 @ 6:00 pm ET for the next business meeting
9. Adjournment
Meeting adjourned at 6:54 pm Eastern.