February 2009

OPENING CEREMONIES

The meeting was called to order at 8:06 PM on February 10, 2009 at the home of Bob Safranek & Pam Robinson by President Mark Schaffer

Roll Call

Present were Lois De Ritter, Scooter Ferguson, Jim King, Allan Kugel, Jim West and Ruth Wolfish (Trustees) Mark Schaffer, Evelyn Maurer, Rick Thomas. Lori Falco, Andy Koenig, Elizabeth Lachowicz, George Otto, Sandie Reilly, Pam Robinson, Pat Rolston, Bobbie Rosengarten, Bob Safranek and Jean Scully, and Bill Hartmann and Chris Riemer. (Guests)

Absent were Jim Gartner, Brad Pryor, Ed Roffman, Mike Agranoff, Connie Crawford, Carl Croce and Rivka Willick.

Secretary’s Report

Pam (Special Concerts), Lori (Festival), and Ralph (Horses Sing) filed email reports that may have more detail than contained in the minutes. Copies of these reports are available from the Secretary. I encourage Board members to follow their example!

The minutes of December were re-accepted without further correction, as we didn’t have a quorum last month so the acceptance then was un-official. The January minutes were accepted with only minor editorial changes.

Treasurer’s Report

Eddie was on vacation, so he did not make an in-person report, but the automatic email reports from QuickBooks provided all the figures we could have asked for. Have a great trip, Ed&Robin!

President’s Remarks

Mark spotlighted the work that Pam’s Special Concerts Committee has done in conjunction with the S’n’T folks and the Minstrel. The teamwork that brought together the Tern Swings! Dance/concert, and the Special Concerts at the Minstrel series should be an inspiration to us all.

BUSINESS ITEMS

Location of Future Meetings

In addition to those listed in the January minutes, Mark will host the August meeting; September will be at Rick’s, October at Ruth’s, and November at Dave & Liz’s.

Compensation for Conventions

Jim King expressed a desire to make sure we didn’t have another all-night talkathon the next time this came up. An ad-hoc committee consisting of Rick, Andy, and Jim was appointed to come up with a clear-cut policy that we could refer to the next time.

Concerns discussed include: (Andy) compliance with IRS record-keeping regulations and avoidance of any conflict of interest; (Jim) avoiding another long last-minute discussion by having a definite policy that can be pointed to in the future; (Evelyn & Pat) participation in events should not have to depend on your – or your Committee’s – ability to pay; (Rick) a general feeling that it is inappropriate for anyone to ask the Folk Project to subsidize their personal vacation; (George) people should not be able to approve their own travel subsidy requests – there should be oversight and it should happen before the fact; (Andy) there must be effective procedures.

Publicity Proposal

Chris suggested that we look into a company, PRNewswire.com, that handles distribution of press releases and has worked well for one of his clients. Mark agreed to check out the details and come back in two months with a recommendation.

Concerns discussed include: (Pam & Lori) you need to send a full press release, a couple of pages, to get significant coverage – this may not allow us to do that; we’re not sending out full press releases now and this is hurting our visibility; (Chris) somebody needs to write those press releases, but something like PRNewswire could help us get them out to news outlets; (several folks) it won’t/shouldn’t replace our current, highly targeted, ways of communication with the local media; (Jean) there are still lots of folks out there who are not getting the message; (Andy) we can’t afford the expense of doing something like this very frequently; (Chris) agreed – we would only do it a couple of times a year; (Andy) we would need some way of measuring the effectiveness of the procedure – something like “mention this announcement and get a free admission”.

E-Newsletter and other E-stuff

Chris described his vision of a web based organizational-records-keeping system that would do for the Membership Committee and the Newsletter committee (and the membership/audience-related functions of other committees) what the introduction of QuickBooks Online has done for the Treasurer’s office. He is in the data-gathering stages now. Please talk to Chris if you would like to help out.

Emergency Meeting Cancellations

Pam pointed out that several folks didn’t get the message of last week’s Board Meeting being postponed due to inclement weather. An intrepid few even braved the weather and made it to her house, only to have to turn around and drive home again! She feels that there has to be a better way to get the message out than a last-minute email with no possible follow-up. A phone-tree was suggested. There will undoubtedly be more discussion of this issue.

Ads in other organizations’ Festival Programs: Pam was authorized to spend up to $600 total to place ads in Festival Programs for NJ Folk Festival, Clearwater, Falconridge, and Philly Folk Festival.

REPORTS OF THE STANDING COMMITTEES

Finance Committee

Andy will report on the Vanguard account only when he receives a statement from Vanguard, which is quarterly unless there are transactions. If anyone is interested, it is possible to use online data to figure out the value of the account as of any date. Andy doesn't expect a statement from Vanguard until the end of the quarter. If you send him email, he can tell you how to track the Vanguard fund online.

HSNOI

Ralph reports that they taped two good shows in January. As requested by Prez Mark, they added “Live Music Friday nights, Morristown, NJ” to the credit roll just under the FP logo and just above “www.FolkProject.org”.

Special Concerts

Pam reports that January had two very successful (and profitable) events: Peter Ostroushko in the Special Concerts at the Minstrel series, and the Tern Swings! swing dance and listening event, in cooperation with the S’n’T committee.

Taking a page from the playbook of the very successful Sanctuary Concerts series, they have been raffling tickets to future FP events in order to encourage people to fill out questionnaires, with the aim of sampling the audience for future concert ideas and accumulating an expanded email announcements list. Pam thanked the volunteers for giving each event a friendly, welcoming atmosphere.

Upcoming Special Concerts will be presenting the Tommy Sands trio with Danaher & MacCloud on 3/11, a guitar workshop with Randall Williams on 3/14, and a vocal workshop with Siobhan Quinn on 4/11. They have been working on increased publicity and need volunteers to help with the work.

Festival

Lori reports that registration for the spring festival is open. Flyers went out in the February newsletter and online registration is up and running on the FP web site. Kudos to George for making all the changes to accommodate our very complex pricing structure. We already have 24 people signed up, including 19 paid adults. The Commons rooms are going fast; so please register as soon as possible if you're interested in staying there. Mike has resigned been dismissed from the Festival Committee. Connor Dugan has joined the House Band, which now consists of Connor, Chris Jacoby, Laurie Tupper and Doug Healy.

Publicity

George reminds everyone that we can refund Pay-Pal payments up to 60 days after the purchase. He will work with Elizabeth on improving and simplifying the “performers resource” page. At the March meeting, he plans to propose a statement of the web site’s privacy policy and terms of use. Pam notes that our Facebook entry has “events” for a lot of our concerts and dances.

Internal Affairs

Mark reports that the Valentines Day Extravaganza looks to be a great success with an excellent lineup!

GOOD OF THE ORDER:

Mike reports that Tim Weinrich is home from the hospital after undergoing heart surgery and recuperating well. The procedure appears to have been effective. Jim West has an 8PM, March 14, gig of new material in New Brunswick, upstairs at the old Mine Street site (Nielson & Bayard Street). Andy Koenig joined an electronic music discussion group. On his suggestion, they will be having their annual meeting at Star Lake. Alan Bases has been diagnosed with sleep apnea and gotten a CPAP machine, which has made a big difference in his life. Eddie and Robin are safe and having fun and recovering from jet-lag in Barcelona. Follow their trip 'blog' at: http://medcruisefeb09.blogspot.com. Ray Schaffer, Mark's dad, celebrated his 94th birthday. Andy Dunn, handyman, (“Consider it Dunn, LLC”) just finished renovating the apartment at Rick’s house. It looks GREAT!

ADJOURNMENT

The meeting adjourned at 10:07 PM. Mark and Robin will be sailing in the British Virgin Islands next month. Nevertheless, the next meeting will be hosted by Jean Scully at Mark & Robin’s house in Rockaway on March 3rd.

– Rick