October 2009
MOTIONS THIS MONTH
The board agreed to Ed Roffman's proposal, as amended, that we co-sponsor a fund-raising event with the Huntington’s Disease Society of America. 18 for, 1 against, 1 abstention.
OPENING CEREMONIES
The meeting was called to order at 8:03 PM on October 13 at the home of Ruth Wolfish, by President Mark Schaffer.
Roll Call
Present were Lois De Ritter, Scooter Ferguson, Jim Gartner, Jim King, Allan Kugel, Jim West and Ruth Wolfish (Trustees), Mark Schaffer, Evelyn Maurer, Ed Roffman, Rick Thomas, Mike Agranoff, Connie Crawford, Carl Croce, Lori Falco, Andy Koenig, Elizabeth Lachowicz, Sandie Reilly, Pam Robinson, Pat Rolston, Bob Safranek and Jean Scully (Other Board Members) and Judy Bubar and Kristie Rokicki of the Huntington’s Disease Society (Guests).
Absent were Brad Pryor, Rivka Willick and Bobbie Rosengarten.
President’s Remarks
Mark says he has had a lot of discussions this month with people who are extremely passionate about this organization.
Secretary’s Report
The minutes of September were accepted.
Treasurer’s Report
Eddie says that he and Lori have been working on Festival numbers. After Festival bills are all paid, all departments are doing well financially.
Key Dates
We need to publish the Annual Meeting date and location in the November Newsletter, the deadline for which is the 15th, so that needs to be taken care of ASAP.
BUSINESS ITEMS
Workers Comp
The Pro Bono lawyer is studying the materials that Mark has provided to him, including all the emails on the subject that went to the Board mailing list.
ACMA Grant
Pam reports that for 2010 the grant amount will be $1,000. This is less than last year but, considering the economic situation in NJ, it’s still good to know they still like us.
Annual Meeting
George has indicated that he still wants to be involved. Connie will work with George to get it done.
Nominating Committee
Mike, Evelyn, Eddie, and Mark Schaffer volunteered to be on the committee. Evelyn will chair. Nominations must be reported in the December Newsletter.
Concert Proposal and Guest
Eddie introduced Kristi Rokicki, Executive Director of the NJ Chapter of the Huntington’s Disease Society of America, who was here to answer questions about the HDSA in connection with Eddie’s proposal. The HDSA provides support for families with Huntington’s Disease. They raise funds for their activities with events such as walks, telethons, etc. They have two full-time paid office staff.
Eddie outlined a proposal for the Folk Project to co-sponsor, with the HDSA, a concert of Woody Guthrie songs and story materials. All profits from the concert will be donated to support research in finding a cure for Huntington’s Disease. Eddie’s proposal is included in the attachments to these minutes. The general outline is to re-create the show “Bound for Glory” based on Woody’s book by that name. There would be one big-name performer who would be the lead narrator and perform a few songs during the performance. The rest of the songs and narration would be performed by local FP performers.
There was much discussion. Topics discussed include:
Andy felt that the proposal was not sufficiently clear as to who was supposed to do what in putting on this show.
Lori answered that we would provide our good will, our good name, and our contacts with performers, Folk Project and otherwise. We would also provide a pool of technical and support volunteers. Much of the day-to-day work would be done by the HDSA’s paid staff. She felt that our participation is not very risky.
Mike said that we can almost certainly provide the performers. He would like an option to call it off if it did not seem to be coming together in time.
Scooter said he has wondered for years why we don’t do more of this kind of thing.
Pam (speaking from her experience as Special Concerts Chair) asked about the division of responsibility for getting volunteers. Kristi replied that the HDSA would provide some volunteers. Eddie noted that the Theater would probably provide some paid professional technicians.
Jim King said that he had spent considerable time with Eddie over his proposal; he had made major modifications. Jim felt the present proposal now protected the Folk Project from financial and responsibility issues; he still intended to vote against it.
Ruth suggested that this could teach us how to put on larger events. She suggested that we will need the usual set of management tools, such as a roadmap with milestones and target dates.
Evelyn noted that Woody Guthrie is one of the Founding Fathers of contemporary Folk Music and it’s a great publicity opportunity for the Folk Project.
Mark noted that “we support musicians.” We try to put our musicians on stage – we know musicians and how they work. Ed’s motion limits our exposure to finding musicians and putting them on stage. We know we can do that.
Judy wondered if we can sell enough tickets to make it worthwhile? Ed answered that we will have the HDSA and other volunteer organizations collaborating on that problem.
Andy offered a re-worded motion, citing Eddie’s original motion as source material. The reworded motion was passed (18 for, 1 against, 1 abstention) to set up an ad-hoc committee, chaired by Eddie, for this project. The full text of the motion and supporting materials are in the attachments.
Folk Project Banner
Carl has a design for a banner that can be used at all of our events. He will do a mock-up and present it at the next meeting.
REPORTS OF THE STANDING COMMITTEES
Sound
Bob reports that a speaker processor was purchased at a cost of about $550, and used for the first time at Festival. Andy says that, in his personal and unscientific opinion, it helped a lot in making the song lyrics more intelligible.
Finance
Andy notes that the market recovery has gained us back much of our previous loss. The usual caveats apply regarding trends and their tendency to change eventually.
Minstrel
Mike reports that it was a good month at the Minstrel, but not as good as it might have been. The Kennedys and Tracy Grammer were expected to draw well, and did.
However, the scheduling of the Kennedys on the eve of Rosh Hashanah probably had a negative effect on their attendance. Another result of the coincidence between Rosh Hashanah and the Kennedys' show was that we were presenting the show against an unusual Friday night service at MUF in the Terrace Room. They had indicated that if they had their druthers, they would have been in the Meeting Room, and us in the Terrace Room. That of course would not have been possible with the expected crowd for the Kennedys. We went through some major efforts to have our activities be non-disruptive to the service, and that was acknowledged and appreciated by MUF.
Staffing
Sandie reports that they have been restructuring the Volunteer Coordinator job so that it will be easier and less stressful to do. There would be an “online coordinator” whose responsibility it is to recruit a full complement of volunteers each week. The “on-site coordinator,” or Head Staff, would be a different person – not the same person every week – a rotating group of Head Staff volunteers would make sure that nobody was put into a burnout position. The Head Staff would be responsible for making sure that things went well the night of the concert.
Sandie still intends to step down at the end of December. Anybody who is interested in taking on the job should contact Sandie or Mark.
Some questions were asked about continuing to have the Minstrel Staffing position be a voting Board Member. Evelyn filled us in on the history behind that. She said that it was done to provide an alternative point of view on the big issues affecting volunteers, as a counter-point to Mike’s booking-oriented point of view.
HSNOI
Ralph gave a report on the cable television providers and the many communities they serve in NJ that carry “Horses Sing None of It!” They have made a successful transition to recording masters on mini-DV tape (with a back-up master copy on SVHS). It’s easy to dub from the mini-DV tapes to the DVD recorder for our archival copies. If you want to be part of the volunteer audience for an upcoming show, contact Sandie.
Special Concerts
Gearing up for the McCutcheon concert on Nov 7th. Tickets are still available.
Special Concerts has a deal with The Best Western hotels of Morristown and New Providence. In exchange for them hosting SC performers free of charge, the FP will provide a link on our website to their website. For any concert where they host the performer they will get advertising space on the back cover of the program and up to 5 pairs of tickets. Best Western will also give us a code for our website so that any of our concert attendees can get a discount if they stay at the Morristown or New Providence Best Western's.
Tickets are now on sale for Tern Swings! featuring Reeds, Rhythm & All That Brass. Proceeds will benefit the NJ Jazz Society's Educational Scholarship Fund.
Tickets will soon be on sale for a Michael Manring concert on Thursday February 4th 2010. Michael is an amazing bass guitar player and even has his own listing on Wikipedia.
Festival
Lori and Barb received a standing ovation in recognition of a wonderful Fall Festival. Jim King attested that this is the hardest working committee in the history of the Folk Project.
Lori reports that our attendance numbers were similar to the spring '09 festival. The financial results are not yet finalized as she and Eddie are still crunching the numbers. All in all, it looks like the festival broke even. We'll have more precise numbers next month.
The boutique did a brisk business, and Red Molly sold over 80 CDs - an FP festival record. The FP mugs were very popular and we took in about $300 from the sale of FP merchandise. On the down side, we are seeing declining attendance at the dances.
Swingin’ Tern
Connie reports that they are doing well enough financially at the new location that they are thinking about raising the fees paid to their callers and bands. The Harvest Hoot is November 21st.
Web & Publicity
We need to plan for renewing the registration of our “FolkProject.org” domain name before it expires in August, 2010.
Internal Affairs
Jean reports that the November EoM will be at Cecilia’s house in Highland Park. December will be at Judy Hagan’s. She’s starting to book next year, so give her a call if you want to have a party!
GOOD OF THE ORDER
Good of the Order is reported in the newsletter. Talk to Eddie if you’ve had or know about someone who’s had a significant event in their lives recently.
ADJOURNMENT
The meeting adjourned at 10:30 PM. The next meeting will be on November 10th at Bob & Pam’s house in New Providence.
– Rick