January 2010

Note: Chris Riemer, the official Secretary as per the 2009 elections, was sidelined by a cold on this date. These minutes were captured by the inestimable Lori Falco... long may she wave.)

The meeting was held at the home of Ruth Wolfish and called to order at 8:06 p.m. on January 5, 2010.

Roll Call

Present were Jim King, Evelyn Maurer, Lois DeRitter, Brad Pryor, Scooter Ferguson and Ruth Wolfish (Trustees); Elizabeth Lachowicz, Ed Roffman, Mike Agranoff, Pat Brangs, Connie Crawford, Lori Falco, Pam Robinson, Bob Safranek, Mark Schaffer and Rick Thomas (Other Board Members).

Absent were Allan Kugel, Jim Gartner, Alison Mazie, Chris Riemer, Carl Croce, Margaret Crowl, Sandie Reilly, Jean Scully, Rivka Willick and Bobbie Rosengarten.

Secretary’s Report

The minutes for December were accepted by acclamation, after the spelling was corrected on Mark Levanda’s name.

Rick handed out an attendance report from last year. Bob, Pam and Lois all had perfect attendance, but most board members attended only 60% to 80% of the meetings. Rivka, Connie and Carl attended less than half of the meetings. Bobbie, Elizabeth, Scooter, Ruth and Jean missed more than three. On two evenings, we failed to make a quorum.

Rick asked if there were constitutional implications for this. Jim K. said the lack of quorum was a problem. We discussed having committee chairs submit their reports in writing as a way to save time at meetings. Mike said there is no constitutional obligation to attend but it does show a commitment and keeps us in touch with what is going on. Connie suggested having the committees report quarterly and only doing a quarter of them each month. These reports would be in more depth than the monthly reports we have now. Pam said spending so much time on reports takes away from time we might spend on new business.

Scooter said he plans to run meetings by going around the circle and giving each person a chance to respond.

Lori said that she doesn’t see a problem with some committee chairs not attending regularly, especially if they give a report, but she wondered if there is an issue with Storytelling. In general, the storytellers do not seem to be a part of the Project community. They rarely attend our events and now that Rivka can no longer attend the Board meetings they are having trouble finding a replacement. Scooter volunteered to go to a Storyteller’s meeting and discuss the matter with them. Rick volunteered to join him.

Treasurer's Report

Eddie is working to finalize the figures for last year. See written report for details. “We had a good year.”

NEW BUSINESS

Meeting Calendar

Since so many people were absent, Scooter decided not to set up the Board meeting locations for the year. Rick volunteered to host on Feb. 2, and we’ll set up the rest of the year at that meeting. If people would like to host, they should let Scooter know.

Update of Constitution and Bylaws

Scooter said the information on our website is from 1993 and thought this might be out of date. Several people thought the constitution and bylaws had not been updated since then.

Rick suggested Scooter check with Chris. Scooter will email a copy of the constitution to everybody. Mark said the new website will have an Administrative tab where we can store things like this. Rick said Chris is looking into a wiki to keep track of these things. There was some discussion of what a wiki is. Mike can provide archives of the minutes that Scooter can look through for important motions. He also has some typewritten minutes.

REPORTS OF THE STANDING COMMITTEES

Membership

Rick and Pat will meet in the next week or two to transfer membership data. Pam mentioned a concern that membership may be declining, although it’s not obvious from Pat’s report that this is true. However, it does seem that we are not attracting many new members. Scooter said the Board should try to find ways to get new members. He said that even when the Minstrel is crowded, most of the people are not regular members.

Pat also submitted a written report

Publicity

Mark noted that Joe D’Andrea recently wrote an iPhone app that is the bestseller in the country. Working on that has taken time away from his work on the FP website. Mark said when the new design goes into production, each committee chair will be able to update the website. Cathy Thomas has been helping Mark update the HTML on the current website.

Mark has been working with HSNOI to put together a DVD of blues music. Ralph is selecting the music and Don Riemer is editing it down to a 20 song DVD video. Mark hopes that this will help attract more traffic to our site. Joe expects to launch the new website in the first quarter of 2010, but he considers this a year-long project.

Mark passed around his laptop so we could see the test version of the new website. Evelyn noted that the new website refers to “the Project”, but not “the Folk Project”. Mark said that the word “folk” turns people off. Young people like acoustic music, not folk music. He said that by downplaying “folk” and using “acoustic” a lot he hopes to attract more newcomers.

Bob suggested we wait until the new site is up and then tweak it.

Lori asked if the Fullboard email list had been updated, and Mark said that it has. She also said the webpage listing the FP Directors had not been updated. Mark will follow up with Joe.

Mike is concerned that we might be changing our brand and logo. He suggested that Mark talk to people before he finalizes that. Pam also suggested a printer friendly calendar for the website.

Merchandising

Bobbie was absent, but Pam had spoken to her. She said all is ok. Margaret’s move should not affect things very much.

Internal Affairs

Jean was absent, but the January Evening of Music will be at the home of the Heilbruns.

Community Affairs

Elizabeth will meet with Pat to pass on all the necessary information.

Sound

There will be a workshop on Jan. 24. Seven people have already registered and Bob would like to keep it to 15 or less. Several Board members said they would like to attend.

Minstrel Booking

Mike noted that attendance is up 5-6% over last year, but we are down in terms of profit because our rent went up. Minstrel made about $1,800 for 2009. Mike relabeled and fixed up some equipment. For the opening of 2010 he has booked a very strong schedule. In 2009, Scooter became the host for the Open Stages. This fact was inadvertently omitted from the Minstrel annual report.

Minstrel Staffing

Sandie was absent, but Mark reported that he had setup a 6-week cycle for staffing. This will take some of the burden off Sandie. Rick and others have been working hard on writing instructions for Minstrel staff. Rick has also donated a computer to the Minstrel.

HSNOI

Rick said that the Rutgers archive is now accepting electronic submissions, so Ralph will send them DVDs of the entire collection of HSNOI shows. Scooter suggested that we might want to buy a hard drive and put all the HSNOI shows on it – a terabyte drive can be purchased for about $200. Rick will pass this idea along to Ralph.

Swingin’ Tern

Connie was absent but had submitted a report via email. Due to the lateness of the hour, Connie opted to forgo a verbal report, given that she had submitted a written report earlier.

Special Concerts

Tickets for Michael Manring are selling well and we have almost reached the break-even point. Mike booked Jay Ungar and Molly Mason for the Minstrel and then approached Pam about coordinating the event with Special Concerts. It will be Friday, 3/5 for a $15 ticket.

On Sunday 3/7 there will be a 3-hr flat pick workshop with Beppe Gambetta, followed by a potluck dinner, followed by a concert at 7 pm, all held at MUF. The tickets for the workshop, concert and combo all have separate prices for advance tickets and those sold at the door.

Sandie is working on another workshop to be held with the Evening of Music at the Thomas’ home, which will coincide with Rick’s 64th birthday.

Festival

The Spring ’10 Festival is now fully booked with the addition of Trout Fishing in America. They will be there for Saturday only, doing a one-hour concert set and a two-hour workshop during the day. The Festival date is May 14-16, the weekend after Mother’s Day weekend.

Fellowship

No report.

Good of the Order

As usual, a number of people contributed their thoughts for the good of the order.

ADJOURNMENT

The meeting was adjourned at 10:10 PM.

Respectfully submitted,

Lori Falco

(Acting) Secretary