October 2007

MOTIONS THIS MONTH

George Otto move that we convene our usual Nominations Committee to propose a slate of Directors for 2008. This motion passed.

OPENING CEREMONIES

The meeting was called to order at 8 pm on October 2, 2007 at the home of Bobbie Rosengarten.

Roll Call

Present were Lois DeRitter, Andy Koenig, Evelyn Maurer, Barbara Moo, Bobbie Rosengarten and Mark Schaffer (Trustees), Lori Falco, Ken Galipeau, George Otto, Brad Pryor, Sandie Reilly, Chris Riemer, Pam Robinson, Bob Safranek, Jean Scully and Rivka Willick (Other Board Members).

Absent were Bob Isaacs, Jim King, Jim West, Mike Agranoff, Paul Axel-Lute, Larry Flanigan, Elizabeth Lachowicz, Tom Pylant and Pat Rolston.

Secretary’s Report

The September minutes were accepted with no corrections. HOWEVER, Lois contacted Lori after the meeting to report an error in the description of the changes to the round robins at the festival. Under the Festival report it said the round robins are moving to the Nature lodge and being run by Amy and Dave. Actually, the traditional round robins are moving to the Nature Lodge and being run by George on Friday, and Lois on Saturday. Amy and Dave are running “participatory jams" (minus the ability to make a request) in the Program Lodge on Friday, and the dining hall on Saturday.

Treasurer’s Report

Our insurance company was using a Sept-Oct fiscal year; Chris worked it out with them so that our new policy will be in sync with the Folk Project fiscal year, which ends in December.

Key Dates

Annual Meeting – J.W. Ginty’s is now under new ownership and is once again called the Meyersville Inn. George will approach them and if there is any problem he will find an alternative.

Nominations Committee – Evelyn, Jean and Brad volunteered to be on the committee. Evelyn will chair. George moved the nominating committee into existence with the above population. The motion passed without objection.

January Board Meeting – The first Tuesday in January 2008 is New Year’s Day. The Board meeting will be moved to the second Tuesday, January 8.

BUSINESS ITEMS

Follow-up on Festival Action plans

Registration for fall festival is at an all-time low. At this point, there are only 141 toward the minimum guarantee registered; 153 total, plus one Saturday only. This is the case despite a very active effort at promotion, new pricing promotions and a better than usual main act.

Barbara asked us what we should do about this. It was our responsibility to monitor the festival. For spring, we have invested in more expensive performers – Cheryl Wheeler, Bob Franke, Straight Drive. We may have some hard decisions to make after spring festival. We also need more people to join the festival committee. What are we doing differently for spring to make us expect that the outcome will be any different? We have an organizational energy deficit and need people to take ownership.

We took a straw poll to get a sense of the Board: Should we cancel the spring festival? No one said that we should. We talked about the ramifications of sharing the camp, and in a straw poll decided that it would be OK if necessary; 7 yes, 4 no.

REPORTS OF THE STANDING COMMITTEES

Minstrel Booking

Mike was absent, but submitted a report via email

Minstrel Staffing

Sandie really needs some help on staffing.

Swingin’ Tern

Our September 1st and September 15th dances had total attendance of 76 and 81 respectively, which are close to the averages for those dates. The September 30th dance had only 66. All three dances had positive but quite low net income.

HSNOI

It's looking like LVTV (laVerne, CA) is not going to request more tapes, at least for the Fall season, since we haven't heard back from them yet. We taped two very entertaining shows in September, and have lots of good stuff on the schedule.

Special Concerts

The Committee has been working hard to produce our upcoming Halloween event, Dark Spirits and Savage Truths, Haunting Tales for Adults - featuring internationally acclaimed storyteller and balladeer, Dan Keding in his first ever NJ appearance. This event will take place on Saturday October 27th at the home of Mark & Robin Schaffer. Tickets are $15 in advance $18 at the door. They can be purchased at Festival, Minstrel or on line. A music and story jam will follow the concert. Please join us for this event.

In mid September the Committee had the opportunity to produce Scotland's own Boy of the Lough for a Christmas concert. (This is a band of the caliber of The Cheiftans.) In working with the band's agent Sandie had gotten them to consider a very low guarantee, with a high back end. They also wanted a hall that seated between 500 and 750. We think that if we had another month or so we could have pulled this off with no problem. However, with the short lead time and no venue that size that we have worked with in the past, it was decided after much discussion not to produce this event.

The good tidbit, is that we may have found not one but two larger halls in the area that we can rent in the future. One seats 600 with an additional 240 on the balcony. The other seats 500 with an additional 100 in tiers or some type. The committee will be checking them out later this month.

Other things on our burner: We are still trying to set up a blues guitar workshop this fall or winter. And we are also working on a concert for the spring.

Festival

Barbara suggested we talk to people we know about why they like to come to festival and if they haven’t come in some time, why not? We discussed whether the Saturday only tickets are worth it – the camp charges us $50 for them and we charge $80, so they don’t make us that much money unless a lot of people take advantage of it.

Straw Poll: Should we keep the Saturday only tickets for the spring 2008 festival? 9-1 in favor.

Storytelling

The storytelling festival was a huge success. Last year the attendance was about 350 people; this year it was easily over 1000! Since the committee negotiated a cut from the Grounds for Sculpture admission for everyone who walked in they will make several thousand in profit. They plan to start paying their tellers next year. They had great press.

Membership

No report.

Newsletter

No report.

Publicity/Webmaster

We’re getting an average of 66 hits per day on our web site. Festival and Storytelling are getting the most hits and Minstrel is third. The Performer’s Resource List has 45 names listed and is doing well. RSS is getting 130 hits a day.

Merchandising

Black long-sleeve and most short sleeve t-shirts are in.

Community Affairs

No report.

Sound Reinforcement

We have an agreement to have a sound workshop before a Swingin’ Tern dance sometime next year.

Internal Affairs

October evening of music is at Diane Semmling’s, who is a new host. Last month’s event at Dave Kleiner and Liz Pagan’s house was well attended.

THE IN BOX

ACMA needed a performer on short notice and contacted us, which was nice. Elizabeth was able to find someone for them.

GOOD OF THE ORDER

Carol Rice attended her first Evening of Music at the home of Liz Pagan and Dave Kleiner and enjoyed it so much she wrote them a note stating in part, “Saturday night was so wonderful. Everyone was great and really supportive. I’ve been wanting something like this for a long time.” Sandie rode 125 miles in the Multiple Sclerosis bike tour “and it was awesome”. She has written about the experience on her blog at http://sandiereilly.blogspot.com. On the downside, Sandie’s children both need to go for surgery soon for benign bone tumors. Jean’s daughter, Siobhan, is doing “fabulously well” in marching band. Siobhan plays the trumpet. On 10/21 NJN will air the first of a series, Tomorrow’s Medicine Today, which was produced by George’s company. George does the voiceover narration. The program will run for 13 weeks. Mark has been directing three 14 year-olds for the Fall Festival skit – his step-daughter, Skylar Seidenberg, Siobhan Scully and Caitlin Wagner. He says “they’re wonderful”. He also put together a band and played at a friends’ wedding recently and it was a “dream gig”, a fun project for him. For the same wedding, Ken turned a song into a waltz and Jean Rohe sang it. Bob S. served as co-chair at the International Conference on Image Processing in San Antonio recently and people picked his brains about the technical aspect of imaging. Mike Agranoff had a car accident on 10/2 and broke his pinky and bruised his toe. He did make it to Festival but, unfortunately, his car is probably totaled. On the upside, he will be doing a showcase at NERFA this year. Brad, who had knee replacement surgery last year, played golf recently and walked the course. It was the first time he had played in four years. Rivka completed the first entry for her blog and says it was an emotional experience. Check it out at http://www.simplyextraordinarytales.com. Barbara said that Bill Cox put on a lovely send-off for Lew Hollander. “He did a beautiful job and the community supported him.”

ADJOURNMENT

Meeting adjourned at 10:11 pm.

The next meeting will be held on November 6 at the home of George Otto.

Respectfully submitted,

Lori Falco

Secretary