1. Call to Order
Chair, Aslynne Howes, called the meeting to order at 8:08 pm EDT
2. Roll:
Present: Amy Wieliczka Scott Steiskal Matan Presberg Afton Benson Ross Berenson Martin Frost Aslynne Howes
Absent: Niels Duinker Chris Garcia
Recorder: Afton Benson
3. Approval of Agenda
Motion: Matan P.
Second by: Scott S.
Discussion:
Vote: Passes Unanimously
4. Approval of Minutes:
Business Board Meeting (May Vision meeting LINK, June Business meeting LINK)
Motion: Amy W.
Second: Matan P.
Discussion:
Vote: Passes Unanimously
5. Reports
Please keep verbal reports to 5 min or less except for festival discussion.
2021 e-Festival Report (Ross Berenson)
Discussion: Challenges: Getting people to volunteer to moderate but to do workshops as well, everyone was still working vs taking the time off, timezone challenges etc. Not surprising. Glad we took Amy’s advice to move the shows to 8pm EDT she informed about the viewership last year and this was a good move. We had less viewers in the day activities. Getting people to get online, people are burned out, the EJC seemed to have the same issue, we did have more workshops vs EJC.
Successes: Master Classes were a success, we did get outside the juggling community for participants, nearly a 50/50 split between members and nonmembers. Was hoping for more attendees. Most of the people who purchased them seemed to be already professional, or were seemingly willing to invest in their work. Shows went smoothly and well liked from the chat comments. All the folks who put shows together did great! Got good feedback about the workshops, just had a couple of tech issues. Raffle was a huge success, way to go Eric! Merch thanks to Scott, seemed to be successful. Overall out of all the revenue we seemed to do well.
The IJA is not involved in the circus community as much as Ross thought we were so perhaps we can work on that avenue. Francisco Cruz got feedback from his sharing and people were asking what the IJA was, other people praised him for helping the IJA. Ross would be willing to help get the word out to those communities.
Amy: Master Classes is this part of the contract for stopping sales at the end of the fest.
Ross: The instructors had various requests so we just made the decision to make it exclusive for sales, people can still view until 7/31/21 other instructors didn’t want it available forever. Some people were interested in longer terms of sales, but we’d need an infrastructure someone would need to manage that, check in on the sales to pay instructors etc. Some of these instructors would be interested in potentially selling this again.
Martin: How were the Master Classes watched?
Ross: Wanted it secure as possible, people share passwords, so it is on YouTube unlisted they will become private at the end of the month. They were not high on views so it seems people aren’t’ sharing the link. Does YM handle digital downloads? Seems like they don’t. In the future there are 3rd party services if it’s really an ongoing thing or private site on the website. (Scott: Creative Spring can host too). Jay didn’t want people downloading his class. When it’s streamed it’s harder to download.
Scott: Do you think there is opportunity to have a virtual presence for in-person festivals?
Ross: Depending on the event. Most folks would likely be at the in-person. Good to stream the shows if artists are okay with that. Theaters wifi tends to be slow, there’s expenses to this.
Martin: Potentially could keep people from coming.
Scott: Maybe just the special events streaming.
Matan: Live streaming is important to do during the festival and the long term reach is good.
Ross: Future festival marketing hiring a videographer (maybe Taylor Glenn) to capture the moment, and most photographers capture snapshots, but someone to tell a story. The IJA really needs something like the IRC video Taylor did.
Martin: Welcome show at least one of the videos was hard to watch shot from far away, gave up watching it.
Financial Report (Afton Benson)
Discussion: Note; the attached report is a festival specific financial report.
*Note, numbers are not finalized
Only loss on venues was the 50% from the Orpheum
One donor was $1,000 in income
The Passing Zone donated their fees back to the IJA
Joggling and Championships income was registration fees
Merch account states higher than amount on financial report since there are WJD and misc. IJA things
2 Panels w. ASL
Tech staff was 2 people
T-shirts had about $100 to each designer
Martin: A few shows showed donation information at the end for only a short period of time.
Afton: Cascade of Stars had an increase in merch and raffles that weren’t present during other shows
Martin: Some people might not want to donate during the show, and the end is more important
Afton: The times at the end of the shows seemed fairly consistent, agrees that at the end is most impactful
Future Festival Site Report (Mike Sullivan)
The future festival site team of Craig Lewis and Mike Sullivan has two good prospects for our 2026 festival in hand, which we will be qualifying further this fall, and we have received a lead from an IJA member during the festival to investigate another potential 2026 site. We’ve initiated contact with that 3rd potential destination and will be further qualifying them over the summer.
As always, we are eager to talk to any destination, anywhere, who has the mix of venues we need, at prices we can afford, in a city IJA members can get to from all over the world. If anyone has any ideas for potential future festival sites, please contact Mike and Craig at festivalsite@juggle.org.
Discussion:
Membership (Marilyn Sullivan)
Membership Data
Discussion: (Last updated June 13, 2021)
Marketing Report (Erin Stephens/Matan Presberg)
Discussion: (outdated report)
IRC Report (Erin Stephens)
Discussion: (outdated report)
YJA Report (Galen Harp)
Discussion:
OpsO Report (Scott Steiskal)
Discussion: Got a lead on a broker from Thom Wall and we’ll see if they can help us out. Broker is the intermediary who takes care of managing the fund. Individual funds are lower but they tend not to have brokers and we need the assistance. Difficult to find someone because of the size of our funds. Not looking for an actively managed fund. Looking to get 2-3 recommendations to get to the board and hopefully proposals in Sept/Oct.
Teespring, so far hasn’t gotten a complaint but does sound like there are some quality issues. Worth considering it supports virtual products too.
Martin: You can get an Iphone case for lots of models
Scott: Shirt sell the best vs accessories.
6. Motions for Consideration
A: Motion to approve Aslynne Howes as Chair for 2021-2022
Author : Aslynne Howes
Motion : Scott S.
Second : Amy W.
Discussion : Martin: Any IJA board member who’s been on for a year can run.
Aslynne: Anyone else interested in running as chair? Scott: No, Matan: No.
Vote :
In favour:
Oppose :
Abstain : Aslynne Howes
Result : Passes
B: Motion for a pro tem extension on the IJA Officer positions.
Author : Aslynne Howes
Motion : Matan P.
Second : Scott S.
Discussion :
Matan: confirm earlier that people want to extend or ask if they want to opt out. Asking around May perhaps. If they don’t reply we extend their term?
Martin: Do you want to continue or not vs opt out. Asking about this in May sounds good so we know before the festival.
Aslynne: For the time being that will be a future discussion.
Martin: Do you want me to write them and ask them or assume they’ll continue?
Matan: Should extend everyone’s term. Would be good to email and let people know we did extend them and if they want to step down we can do that.
Martin: This vote means temporarily until we find out. We should try to find out.
Afton: Do you want Aslynne to reach out? Or do you want to reach out?
Scott: Check in with people for sure.
Afton: Who needs to reach out to check with people?
Aslynne: Perhaps Martin?
Martin: Sounds like Scott would be interested in doing it.
Scott: If you have the contact list, Martin: Get the list from the website. Scott will email Martin to sort this out.
Vote :
In favour:
Oppose :
Abstain :
Result : Passes Unanimously
C: Motion to Approve the Sky King Award
Author : Afton Benson
Motion : Scott S.
Second : Amy W.
Discussion : The funding for the 2021 Award will come from the Festival Budget; for future awards will be budgeted with the IJA General Budget. That is a change that would be for all awards, to ensure they are accomplished.
Afton: apologies for the miscommunication about this award being discussed prior to the presentation of the award during the 2021 festival. The awardee would receive a plaque, prize money ($250 USD) and a festival package for the festival where the award is being presented.
Martin: This makes Sky the committee chair for a while, and this is the only prize receiving money. Flamingo club historically gives props, not cash.
Afton: The funds were more important here because they historically don’t have as great access to disposable income. Flamingo club collected donations for a cash prize this year instead of props. Are the fest packages standard with awards?
Martin: no. Can we change the name to Sky King Diversity and Equity award or something?
Afton: The name seems fine, like the Sammy Vance award is only the name, as is the Bobby May and Founders award.
Aslynne: Is there a reason to object to elongating the award name?
Afton: It was made by people from the POC community and this was their choice of name, don’t want it to be too long
Martin: Additional three words are not that much to add
Amy: In favor of the name, honors her contributions to the community
Scott: In favor of the name, there’s a blurb right after with the description, I see no reason to elongate the name
Vote :
In favour:
Oppose :
Abstain :
Result : Motion passes unanimously
D: Motion to Approve Contracting Vlad Messing Attorney at Law
Author : Afton Benson
Motion : Scott S.
Second : Matan P.
Discussion :
Afton: We have not been using contracts and if we did, we just used ad hoc contracts without a baseline. IRC and fest director can probably be one base contract, one for eJuggle, Fiscal sponsorship, performers/emcees, video/photo release/waiver (TotM, video collab, etc.)
Amy: generalize to have a “content creation” ie. eJuggle, graphic designs, stickers, t-shirts, master classes, etc.
Matan: How does marketing fit in? We have posts taken from IG without permission, but also asking people for clips and then posting those, which is like an informal version of TotM
Afton: There’s a link online that outlines the name and email agreeing to our terms. It would be nice to include
Vote :
In favour:
Oppose :
Abstain :
Result : Motion passes unanimously
Afton: will have Vlad draft something more formal
7. Varia:
Google GSuite, now called Google Workspace
Martin: Amy is lead on the project, which email accounts need to be transferred and which need to be forwarded? Urgency due to juggle.org issues. Hopefully Google will have a better filter.
Amy: NeilFred also messaged offering clarity and assistance with the transfer to Workspace. There’s a mapping issue, what is treasurer@juggle.org? User/alias/group? Amy is working through this.
Matan: should we be discussing who to appoint to the position left by Mike? I suggest Benjamin Domask-ruh since he received the most votes without being appointed to the board.
Martin: I suggested that we put out a call in the eNewsletter, to open it to others, not just who ran for the board.
Matan: open to either appointing the next person with or without an eNewsletter add
Scott: open to appointing the next person by votes
Aslynne: agrees to enewsletter method
Amy: agrees with eNewsletter method, point in Benjamin’s favor the way the votes went.
Aslynne: I let all candidates know that if they were not successful, they could be considered for the appointed position, if they email. Benjamin responded he would like to be considered. It is understood that he has no further actions required to be considered a candidate.
Scott: No issue with putting out the call, it’s understood that Benjamin is running
Martin: will write up the nominations request due August 14th
8. Confirm Next Meeting
Next meetings will take place on…
TBD for the next vision meeting
TBD for the next business meeting
9. Adjournment
Meeting adjourned at 9:57pm EST.