Regular Board Meeting March 21, 2012
@ 8:30pm Eastern Time…
1. CALL TO ORDER: Chair Kim Laird called the meeting to order at 8:33 p.m. EST.
2. ROLL:
Present: Kim Laird (Chair), Kevin Axtell, Matt Hall, Dave Pawson, Thom Wall, Erin Stephens, Mike Sullivan (Future fest director, 2011 fest director), Martin Frost (communications director)
Absent: Richard Kennison, Sandy Brown (recording secretary)
3. APPROVAL OF AGENDA: Thom Wall moved to approve the agenda for March 21, 2012. Second by Erin Stephens. Vote: Unanimous approval
APPROVAL OF MINUTES: Kevin Axtell moved to approve the minutes from February 15, 2012. Second by Matt Hall. Vote: Approved… Thom Wall abstained
APPROVAL OF DECEMBER MINUTES: Kevin Axtell moved to approve the minutes from December 14, 2012. Second by Erin Stephens.
Motion to approve December 14
Motion: Dave Pawson
Second: Kevin Axtell
Vote: Unanimously approved to table
4. REPORTS:
2012 Fest (Matt Hall)… Matt questioned about youth group rates. Answered by Mike. Board was sent new budget which is in the black. Talked about guests and flights booked and arrangements made with the performers for their guests or extra time in theUS. The IJA will not pay for performer guests or extra time in US. IJA will cover ticket cost for time of fest and anything over that performer is responsible to cover. Winner of IRC visa being taken care of and flight covered by Anthony Shave’s frequent flyer miles. Out of $10,000 budgeted for flights $6,600 spent with two more tickets to purchase.
Discussed changing early bird deadline from April 30 to May 15. All agreed it was best to move. Gives 53 days of early bird pricing. Martin will work on changing all the vital information.
Warren Hammond = championships director and set up lounge for Fun Fund
Championships prelims done last year through youtube. Stay with that or back to mailing. Change all forms and information to reflect uploading to private youtube channel or send one DVD to championships director for upload to private youtube channel.
Richard Kennison = Awards Committee Chair
Kevin Axtell = Fun Fund Committee Chair
Future Festivals (Mike Sullivan)…
2013 — BGSU,Bowling Green,OH– July 15-21, 2013
Contract submitted to Board last week for review and approval.
2014 — TBA
We have many potential sites for 2014, but none right now that I would put on a “slam-dunk super-hot let’s-sign-up-now” short list of prospects. Here’s what we have and what’s in the works:
REPEAT SITES
============
Lexington,KYandRochester,MNboth would like us to return and could offer us very competitive 2014 dates and pricing if we act soon. There is a lot of value in the IJA returning to a past city, in time-savings for our volunteers, cost and efficiency for the host city venues, and familiarity for our returning jugglers.
Winston-Salemalso wants us back as soon as they can get us. All we need to do is say the word and they will have pricing and a contract ready for us to look at for 2015, 2016 or any future year.
The more cities I visit, the more I realize how perfect a fit both Winston-Salem and Rochester are for our needs, and I don’t think many jugglers appreciate how hard it is to find such excellent facilities at such reasonable prices in clean, safe cities that aren’t too hot in mid-July, are easy to fly or drive to, have nice clean, modern hotels, etc., etc., etc., and who actually WANT the IJA to come to town!
I ask the Board to remember what a great time everyone had inRochesterand inLexington, as well as both years inWinston-Salem, and then consider that bothLexingtonandRochesterhave sweetened their offers to have us back again soon, and our track record withWinston-Salemgives us a very good bargaining position if we choose to return.
REEDCOLLEGE,PORTLAND, OR
==========================
At the recommendation of some IJA members, I checked with ReedCollegein Portland, OR(reed.edu) about the possibility of bringing our festival to their campus. Although it would be an excellent site for an IJA festival, Reed has more summer conference business than they can handle, and they are not able to schedule a group as large as ours in July or August, their busiest months. They have annual bookings taking almost all of their capacity out many years into the future.
PORTLANDSTATEUNIVERSITY,PORTLAND, OR
=======================================
PortlandState(pdx.edu) has the space we need and is interested in seeing if there’s a good fit with our needs. I had a brief call with their conference programs manager, Emily Keith, and we’re going to do some mutual research and talk again soon. If things looks promising, I will reach out to a local IJA member and ask them to visit the campus, meet with Emily and see if there is a good potential for bringing a fest to PDX.
KNOXVILLE,TN
=============
I visited Knoxville(knoxville.org) in late January and the city has a lot to offer us with reasonable pricing and good facilities.
The downtown/convention center area is much likeWinston-Salem, except I’d say downtownKnoxvillealongGay streethas many more shops, restaurants and bars than4th Streetin W-S; the Bijou Theater is also there, where we could hold our evening shows and championships. A few blocks away is a big pedestrian mall and dining/shopping area –Market Square– has a perfect outdoor venue for Planting the Juggling Seed, as well as the Games of the IJA, with a nice mix of restaurants and bars. The downtown is safe, clean and has lots of businesses and amenities for our jugglers, all at moderate prices.
The hotel proposed is theCrownePlaza, adjacent to the Convention Center and alongside the 1984 World’s Fair Park riverside park and amphitheater. Lots of possibilities here, and excellent meeting space for us. Rates are good, but we could probably negotiate them down a bit more if we sound serious about coming in 2014. They are very eager to bring us to town. The Bijou Theater is about 3 blocks from the hotel and convention center, and is well-suited for our evening shows, with daily rental in the $2,000/day range.
Knoxvilleis easy to drive or fly to, with good airline service from all the major carriers, and would be warm but not hot in mid-July.
I thinkKnoxvilleis a good contender for 2014 or 2015 and we should keep it on our list.
SPRINGFIELD,MO
===============
I am in Springfield, MO(springfieldmo.org) right now, finishing up a site visit that has been two years in the making. They really want to bring IJA toSpringfield, and they are putting together a pretty strong proposal for us.
The hotel rates they are offering us for 2014 are the lowest of any I’ve received for any 2014 site: $95/night single or double; $99/night triple or quad; with free hot breakfast, free parking, free airport shuttle and free Wi-Fi for all registered guests. The hotel is theUniversityPlaza, an atrium-style 10-story hotel designed much like many Embassy Suites properties, with both an indoor heated pool and hot tub, a fitness/workout room, and an outdoor pool. The on-site restaurant serves three meals a day, and there is a lobby bar.
100 steps out the door of the UPlaza is theSpringfieldConvention Center, which has space for our jugglers and workshops that looks nearly identical to the South Main Hall of the MC Benton Convention Center inWinston-Salem. They are re-quoting me a price for that space for our fest, which I will get Wednesday morning in a second meeting with the sales team.
The theater proposed is the Gilloz Theater, about 5 blocks walk from the hotel (not bad at all), and perfect for our needs. It’s a nicely restored Vaudevillian-era house seating 780 on the main level and 280 in the balcony; stage is very large with 60′ grid height and would handle any of our shows or acts. Two dressing rooms below stage, no backstage crossover on stage level. A very nice theater, and it rents for about $1,800/day.
The joggling track would either be theMissouriStateUniversitymain track (about a mile away), orParkviewHigh School, also about a mile away. The MSU track is what you’d expect at an NCAA Division I school, and is probably available to us free of charge to use in the summer. Either track would be more than good enough for our needs.
Getting toSpringfieldis pretty easy. A nice, new airport (Springfield-BransonNationalAirport, SGF) has 60 non-stop flights a day connecting it to five majorUShubs (Dallas,Memphis,Chicago, Atlanta,Denver). Driving is easy as well: I-44 connects the city with I-35 to the west and I-55 to the east.
Springfieldlooks like a good option. I will write a more complete report and send it along next week.
ELIMINATED CITIES
=================
Here are some cities I have visited in the past year, which I have eliminated from consideration for the reasons listed:
DESMOINES,IA– Facilites are immense, but much, much too far apart for our jugglers to negotiate on-foot all week.
RICHMOND,VA– A gigantic convention center and beautiful adjacent hotels, but rates are out of our reach and frankly, we’d get lost in this state capital city amid the half-dozen other large groups they have in convention at any one time, year-round.
DAYTON, OH — A poor convention facility, one hotel choice within walking distance, and little choice for restaurants & shops nearby.
Financial (John Nikkel & Holly Greeley)…
Final numbers not yet posted. Holly is still working on 2011 year ends. John Nikkel needs copy of the fest budget. Matt will email it to him. AllDelawarepaperwork is signed and filed.
Website Team (David Landowne, Martin Frost, Mike Sullivan, Erin Stevens)…
Watched Wild Apricot online walkthrough. Did not have a chance to do any of the others but should have time to do that and report for April meeting. Could eJuggle be part of the website upgrade? May have to be separate because the ezine uses wordpress templates. We need figures for Kim to ask iiWii about financial support.
Membership (Marilyn Sullivan)…
March Numbers…
# mems 1207
# total mems 1438
# youths 63
# families 170
# life time 280
February Numbers…
1222 member records
1453 members
171 families
63 youths
280 life members
Need something to increase membership. It was part of the strategic plan that was started. Dave Pawson stated he was going to bring this up during varia.
Education (Kevin Axtell/Erin Stephens)…
Great article by Dave Pawson about his YEP program. Problem with YEP balls in that the logo will print too small so we need to look at other options.
Marketing/Promotions (Thom Wall)…
Final prize list and such is up on a bunch of websites for video tutorial contest. Not an overwhelming number of entries. Only 6 so far but about on par from last year. Three from US, 1 Bulgeria, 1 fromMexicoand, 1 from theNetherlands. More global and multi-lingual this year.
Stickers are in and Thom is covering first round of envelopes and postage.
5. MOTIONS FOR CONSIDERATION:
A. Motion to approve proposed 2012 Festival Budget.
Motion: Thom Wall
Second: Erin Stephens
Discussion: Dave Pawson commented it looks pretty healthy. Questioned where theater costs fall in the budget. Matt responded it is all lumped into facility line.
Vote: motion passes with Kim Laird abstaining
B. Motion to approve release of bank information to Scott Slesnik for the purpose of ezine to use Adsense for advertising revenue.
Motion: Thom Wall
Second: Kevin Axtell
Discussion: Kim emailed Scott Slesnik and Scott Seltzer earlier in the week asking for more information and sample groups to see Adsense in operation. Recommended this be tabled until we get more information.
Motion to table.
Motion: Erin Stephens
Second: Thom Wall
Vote on motion to table: tabled by unanimous vote
C. Motion to move the election deadline to May 15 with only one candidacy statement of 300 word maximum. Candidates would not be allowed to change their statement after the first 48 hours after submission.
Motion: Erin Stephens
Second: Dave Pawson
Discussion:
Vote: Unanimous approval
6. VARIA:
A. Discussion of memberships.
B. Discussion of vendor coordinator responsibilities and collecting sales tax, etc.
7. NEXT MEETING: Next regular BOD meeting will be held April 18 (?), 2012 at 8:30 pm eastern time.
8. ADJOURNMENT: Erin Stephens moved to adjourn the meeting. Second by Thom Wall. Meeting adjourned at 9:53 pm eastern time.