January 2009

OPENING CEREMONIES

The meeting was called to order at 8:00 PM at the home of Ruth Wolfish, by President Mark Schaffer. The weather was icy, so we never achieved a quorum. No motions were passed.

Roll Call

Present were Lois De Ritter, Scooter Ferguson, Jim King and Ruth Wolfish (Trustees) Mark Schaffer, Evelyn Maurer, Ed Roffman, Rick Thomas, Mike Agranoff, Connie Crawford, Carl Croce, Elizabeth Lachowicz, George Otto, Pam Robinson, Bobbie Rosengarten and Bob Safranek (Other Board Members) and Hartmann (Guest).

Secretary’s Report

The minutes of the December meeting were accepted without corrections.

Treasurer’s Report

Eddie reported that he is successfully writing checks, so the transition is underway. He notes that he has lots to learn, but the system looks good. He will be away February 11th-28th so please plan accordingly.

BUSINESS ITEMS

Location of Future Meetings

February-Bob&Pam, March-Mark, April-Eddie, May-Bobbie, June-Connie, July-Mark. Volunteers for the remaining months are solicited.

REPORTS OF THE STANDING COMMITTEES

Membership

Pat has sent out the January membership roster.

Newsletter

Carl reports that his first mailing went out smoothly. For the eNewsletter, Chris is working toward a more “webish” structure. He also envisions an “eFlyer” for distribution to the general (non-member) public.

An idea was kicked around of giving out one free admission per year with your eNL subscription. The point is that many of our members don’t come to even one event per year, and this may get them out to see what their membership is all about. Money saved from distributing the NL electronically rather than by US-Mail can be used to defray the cost of free admissions used in this way.

Merchandising

Bobbie directed our attention to Margaret’s survey. See the article in this month’s NL for an idea of the direction Margaret wants to take the activity in. They have not received any surveys back yet.

Connie suggested that they do some things with the S’n’T logo. Margaret has received from Brad and inventoried the shirts left from the last run – there are 13 left in various sizes. These will be marked down so that we can get them sold.

Internal Affairs

Jean reports that this month's party is at the home of Nancy Haslam, in Morris Plains. She has nice home just a few miles from Minstrel and has been hosting fairly regular after-minstrel parties. She just finished her basement, which is going to give us a nice big space for a circle.

February's party will be on February 14 (Singles Awareness Day) at the home of Jeff and Maureen Heilbrun in Mountain Lakes. They have a nice old home with a big great room for schmoozing and singing, which also has a piano for those folkies so inclined.

She will be sending out her yearly recruitment plea for folks to help with fruit salad assembly and venue decoration for the Valentine's Day Show, which will be on Friday, February 13. Mark notes that there were not enough volunteers for the Minstrels of Love Chorus this year, so there is currently a 20-minute open spot in the schedule. He’s looking for suggestions to fill it in. Jim King suggested that the call for singers for the MoLC should go out earlier. Mike suggested that prior choir members be contacted personally to see if they are interested but just haven’t got around to it yet. Lois suggested that the January EoM may generate new choir volunteers, as well.

Community Affairs

Elizabeth is working on the updated Performers Directory but she needs a techie to help get the old database loaded into her new software.

Publicity

George has been cleaning up dead links on the web page. The contacts page has been revised to reflect the 2009 Board members. Some page updates are waiting on copy that must come from the Committees (hint, hint). Ed asked if venues could update their own pages? George replied that this would require a “content management system” which would be a big investment of his time (and some FP money), so is not likely to happen anytime soon. Pam suggested links to the FP Facebook page (administered by Connie’s daughter, Cody Chase.)

Sound

Bob reports that they have purchased two new microphones for the Minstrel. If folks like them, they will get two more.

Finance

Andy submitted an (as usual) very complete written report. Copies are available from the Secretary. The short summary is “The bad news is that we lost money again in the 4th quarter. The good news is that the loss is much less than we would have had with many of the alternatives we considered, and we actually gained in December.”

Minstrel

Mike reports that December is always slow. In part that's because of our schedule, which includes the Chorus Song Night, an Open Stage, and a dead night. $370 loss for the month $1,800 gain for the year. The rather striking decline in numbers over last December's performance was due primarily to the fact that we closed 2007 with Jean Ritchie, who sold the place out.

January and February look to be strong with Anne Hills, Jeremy Kittel (Agranoff Imperative), David Mallett, and the Contra demo all on tap.

Coco Pazzo as a post-show gathering place has turned out to be a bust. They've started to present live "music" and close their kitchen. They no longer seem to be interested in accommodating us. Nancy Haslam, on the other hand, has put together a number of wonderful post-show gatherings. Mike doesn’t expect this to be a regular thing, though.

As of this month, our rent is up to $225 per show, but MUF has agreed to no longer charge us $50 extra for use of the Terrace Room for food during big shows. We still need to schedule that with them on a show-by-show basis, and they can refuse us the room if they have another event planned there. Larry Flanigan and Mike will again be doing sound with the FP equipment for the MUF S.C.A.N. concert on Jan 31. Hopefully, we’ll have a good Spring.

On the subject of getting folkies into seats (or up off their seats and dancing), Mark said that he’s working on a press release to raise awareness of Minstrel and other FP activities with the local news outlets. WFDU’s fundraiser show will mention the Minstrel. George reports that Nancy has contacted all outlets to make sure they know about us and want to get our stuff and will use it. Connie asked if anybody is working on recruiting college kids from the local colleges and universities? There was a call for volunteers to take this on. Ed suggested that we begin a regular program of giving away free tickets on local radio shows.

Minstrel Staffing

Hartmann points out that we look good when we have enough volunteers to cover the jobs, but we look really bad when we don’t. We’re not getting enough volunteers. Sandie’s doing everything she can, but it’s not enough.

Mike suggested a “one-on-one” approach. Rick suggested a blurb in the Newsletter once every six months touting the values of volunteering. Elizabeth suggested talking to people who attend regularly but don’t seem to be volunteering. Hartman affirmed that reaching out to people is the best way to get them to volunteer. Connie said that, at the end of each dance, she asks individuals to help with putting things away. Ruth noted that she is trying out the “greeter” position idea.

Swingin’ Tern

Connie reports that the New Year’s Eve Dance and the 25th Anniversary dance on January 3rd were big successes. We’re considering ending the NYE dance earlier than 1:00AM. Overall, S’n’T has lost money for the year. We are looking at a possible move to a new location. Rent at Ogden Church is currently $275 and goes up to $300 in mid 2009. Also, Ogden has asked us to refinish the floor.

Paid attendance in 2008 averaged 56 dancers, down from 60 in 2007, in large part due to several extreme weather days. Lois suggested that if we’re going to be moving anyway, we should add air-conditioning as a desirable item. Ruth asks if we are doing cross advertising with other venues?

Horses Sing None of It

Ralph reports that in December we received the $1,000 advance on royalties for the John Jackson DVD footage from Stefan Grossman so HSNOI is in the black this year. The DVD is to be released this month on Rounder/Vestapol. It's nicely edited and produced. Stefan sent 5 advance copies, of which Ralph sent two with thank you notes to the pro-bono lawyers. Let Ralph know who else would like to have or borrow the other copies.

The bad news is he forgot to be specific with Stefan, assuming that he would include the info on volunteer staff, FolkProject.org, etc. from our credit roll. He did acknowledge "Horses Sing None of It!" (which, when Googled, will take you to FP's website) and Ralph personally, both on the packaging and in the credit roll.

In December we taped an especially good show with Bob Wright & Harbortown Revue, on which Sandie worked sonic magic to bring forward Bob's vocals from full bluegrass back-up. The scheduled Dec. 15 tapings did not take place. We found out later that the Cablevision tech's car had broken down en route. Cablevision's Public Access Coordinator gave me her cell phone number in case something like this happens in the future. Doubly unfortunate was that last time we scheduled Sharon Katz & The Peace Train (from S. Africa), it was also cancelled at the last minute (by bad weather). Lots of good stuff coming up.

Special Concerts

Pam says that 2009 looks to be an exciting year for the Folk Project. Special Concerts is planning a lot of exciting events.

So far we have under contract: Peter Ostroushko, A Special Concert at the Minstrel Friday January 16. Tickets $15. This looks to be a great night. Peter will be accompanied by guitarist Danny Gotham.

Tern Swings! featuring Reeds, Rhythm, and All That Brass. This event is in partnership with Swingin’ Tern at the Ogden Memorial Church on Saturday January 31st. Tickets $15 advance/$20 door. Both dance and listening areas will be available. RRB is an 18 piece swing band specializing in ’30’s and ’40’s swing music. Swinging With Simone - a Montclair dance studio will be presenting a demonstration of swing dance.

In contract negotiations: 2 Workshops in conjunction with the Internal Affairs committee (working on a third). Randall Williams presenting a 3 hour guitar workshop followed by a pot luck dinner and an Evening o’ Music Saturday March 14th at the Robinson/Safranek home. Siobhan Quinn presenting a 3 hour vocal workshop followed by a pot luck dinner and an Evening o’ Music in either April or May.

A Celtic Holiday featuring the Tommy Sands Trio with Danaher & MacCloud opening on Wednesday March 11th at the Morristown Unitarian Fellowship. Tickets $20 advance/$25 door.

An evening with John McCutcheon on Saturday November 7th at Drew University. Tickets $20 advance/$25 door/Drew Students $10.

Festival

Lori reports that work on the spring ’09 festival is well underway. We have booked all of the performers. Featured performers are Small Potatoes, the Dave Rowe Trio and Harvey Reid. The Folk Project performers are Scooter, Kathy Moser and Amy Ksir and Tom Rhoads. The caller is Dan Black and Rumpus will be the band for the big contra dance on Saturday afternoon.

Chris Jacoby is putting together a house band to play for the other dances and workshops. Rumpus will only be there from 2-5 pm on Saturday, but Dan Black will be there for the entire weekend.

The work flyer and registration form are almost complete and it will be included in the February newsletter. The festival will be April 17-19 and I hope all of you sign up! George has updated the website with the information for spring.

Recently, Barbara Moo and Liz Pagan met with our caterer, Richard Schrack, at the camp so that he could check out what the kitchen facilities were like. In November, Mike Agranoff, Sandie Reilly and Lori attended NERFA and were checking out performers with an eye to future bookings.

It’s full speed ahead for 2009!

Storytelling

Rivka is going to an event to explore new storytelling venues.

ADJOURNMENT

The meeting adjourned at 9:55 PM. Next meeting will be at Bob & Pam Safranek/Robinson’s house on February 3rd.

– Rick