August 2011

OPENING CEREMONIES

The meeting was called to order at 8:05 PM on August 2nd, at the home Mark and Robin Schaffer. Vice President Elizabeth “Betsy Rose” Lachowicz presiding, in the absence of Ed Roffman.

Roll Call

Present were Lois DeRitter, Nancy Dugan, Gloria Friedman, Jim Gartner, Bobbie Rosengarten and Ellen Schwartz (Trustees), Mike Agranoff, Scooter Ferguson, Nancy Kelner, Elizabeth Lachowicz, Sandie Reilly, Chris Riemer, Pam Robinson, Bob Safranek, Robin Schaffer, Jean Scully, Rachel Streich and Rick Thomas (Other Board Members), and Mark Schaffer and Leigh Walker (Guests). Absent were Pat Brangs, Carl Croce, Allan Kugel, Bob McNally and Ed Roffman.

Also note that in July, Connie Crawford resigned as Swingin’ Tern chair. Leigh Walker was there to represent the dance, but it was not clear if he would take on this position permanently.

Secretary’s Report

Nancy “Hawkeye” Kelner found one typo in the July minutes (sigh). The minutes were approved as amended.

Treasurer’s Report

Rachel assured us that things were financially sound. As of July 31, the checking account balance was about $6,800, and we had about $23,400 in the money market.

BUSINESS ITEMS

ACMA Grant Submission

We had expected Diane Goodheart to be present this evening, but she did not appear. Chris did have a hard copy of the final submission Diane had prepared for ACMA, and has also contacted her seeking soft copy for the wiki.

Changing of the Guard

As per her email, Connie Crawford’s work will be taking her to Washington (DC) for several years, so she needs to step down as Swingin’ Tern chair. Leigh Walker was present to represent the dance this evening, but was unsure if he wanted to accept this responsibility on a permanent basis. The election of a permanent dance representative was therefore deferred until September.

Proposed Constitutional Change

Chris took the floor to recap the discussion of the last two months, and developments since then. He had also summarized this earlier, in an email to the board.

We first recognized in June that some gaps in our recordkeeping have introduced a degree of confusion regarding the terms of Trustees. We have good records of when each person was voted in, but since some are voted in as replacements (serving only partial terms) it’s less clear when their terms expire.

While trying to sort this out, it came to our attention that New Jersey state law indicates replacement trustees should only serve until the next election, when they could be voted in by the general members. There’s an escape clause in the statute, so we don’t have to make such a change. But it seemed reasonable enough to Chris that he made such a motion at the July meeting.

That motion generated a surprising amount of heated discussion and was only passed by President Ed Roffman’s tie-breaking vote. The change was then announced to the general members in the August newsletter (according to our process for amending the Constitution), and a “simple majority of those responding” rejected it. As of this evening, one general member replied, and voted no.

Chris was somewhat troubled by the procedural implications, here. On this particular matter, the board was closely divided. But if the Directors were strongly in support of a Constitutional change, the idea that a single member could quash it doesn’t seem right. However, he felt this brought the matter in question to a close, and no further discussion was necessary. Others were not so sure.

Mike and Mark Schaffer felt that all of the Directors were general members as well, so Board members should be able to vote twice on the matter: once in a general membership phase and again in a Director’s phase. Scooter disagreed, and felt recent events supported him. If the Directors really believed they should vote twice, there would have been more negative votes, including Scooter’s. Bobbie wondered if we should allow more time for people to respond, but Chris felt this was the kind of thing people tend to do right away or not at all. They’ve had a week.

Scooter was willing to support the idea that Trustees should be elected rather than appointed, though, and wondered if we might amend our By-Laws in some way to establish this practice. Perhaps we should have a By-Law that solicited general member input whenever a Trustee was replaced. (The process for amending the By-Laws does not require input from the general membership.) Or perhaps we should let replacement Trustees be elected to partial terms, and not assume that a term must always be three years from the date a person is elected.

Mike pointed out that contested elections for any position are very rare. The general membership has little input or interest in how we conduct the group’s business. So Scooter’s idea is trying to solve a problem that doesn’t exist.

In the end, the group agreed that the best way forward was just to let the matter rest. We’ll return to business as usual, and future secretaries should exert special care in capturing the details of terms and appointments, especially where replacement Trustees are concerned.

REPORTS OF THE STANDING COMMITTEES

Sound Reinforcement

Bob let us know that Mike has found and will repair a bad cable at the Minstrel. He’s also gotten some spare parts to keep on hand. Scooter wondered if we had a soldering kit on site, in case someone knew how to use it. We do.

Special Concerts

Pam recapped the information in her email report. She could use some kitchen help for Aztec Two-Step, but asked any volunteers to call her (rather than email) since she and Bob are leaving for points west right after this meeting. She also needs a blank check to pay the band, and there was some discussion about whether the check goes to their agent or the band itself. Mike and Rachel will look into the contract. The sales are a little low for Aztec, but not so low that Pam is worried about it.

This will also be Pam’s last event as Special Concerts chair, since her November possibility has fallen through and she intends to retire at year end. Not from the Folk Project, just from this job.

Swingin’ Tern

No report from the now retired Connie Crawford, but Leigh Walker had submitted one earlier via email. He was also on hand to answer questions, and Mike wondered how their open microphone idea worked out with the callers last month. There were no problems. While these callers had varying levels of experience, none of them were entirely new to the game.

There was consensus though, on the Tern Swings event. Everyone thought it was great, but from now on we should have it in the winter!

Horses Sing None of It

Sandie recapped the information in Ralph’s email report, and also put in a plug for the Horses technical training. She’s had a lot of fun on the tech side of this activity, and Rick Thomas said it’s a lot of fun being in the Horses audience too. To be trained, you need to be 18 or over; to be in the audience, you need to be one of the lucky three at each session.

Merchandising

Robin recapped the information in her email report. She’s not going to pursue the re-creation of the lost art work from the Mandala T-Shirt design, but thought we might ask people to select images for such a piece, which could then be combined digitally. She also has a cool new water bottle in the works.

Minstrel Booking

Mike recapped the information in his email report, noting that it had been a fairly good month for the Minstrel, which is gratifying since the summer is often slow. Average attendance in July was 105.7 paid for the three regular shows and 86.4 including the open stage and Birthday show. The Treasurer’s reports seem a little odd to him, though, given the attendance figures. Rachel will look into it.

Mike thinks the Birthday Show was better than last year, and went over some of the upcoming bookings. The Old Timer’s night should be fun, and Pam brought up a third-party's suggestion for a Past President’s Night. Nancy Dugan suggested a Young People’s Night, and felt Thanksgiving would be a good time to schedule it, since lots of kids are home from college that weekend.

Nancy also had a new idea to throw on the table. She pointed out that at the end of the academic year, kids often get school awards. But there’s generally a community of outsiders, who are talented but shy. They don’t get recognized and just fall through the cracks. She knows several kids in this category herself. So she was thinking that perhaps the Folk Project could have a program where it would audition teenage performers during the year, and then sponsor an award that would be given to them through the auspices of their own graduation ceremonies. We loved this concept, and thought it fit in very well with Eddie’s proposed youth outreach program. Nancy will contact some music teachers in Morristown and Morris Plains and report back next month.

Mike wasn’t opposed to the idea, but did remind the group of our “Fresh Start” experiment some years ago, in which young performers were showcased at the Minstrel. That didn’t work out too well.

Minstrel Staffing

Things are going well, according to Scooter. He thanked the "fantastic" Amy and Alice, and gave a special shout-out to Larry Flannigan and Greg More, for an above-and-beyond performance at the Birthday Party.

Internal Affairs

Jean reported a "very nice" Fourth of July party at Eddie Roffman's, and some "loverly" other events in July. The Evenings of Music are pretty well booked through year end.

Publicity

Nancy recapped the information in her email report. Pam added that our Facebook page now has 460 "fans" or "likes" or whatever the heck Facebook is calling them now. People are also posting comments that lead to their own gigs on our page, and Pam monitors them to be sure they're actually Folk Project members.

Nancy Gloria noted that Doug Heacock is working on a dance flyer intended to draw college students to Swingin' Tern. She's not sure about the progress on the Cody Chase Outreach program that we talked about a year ago, give or take.

Newsletter

No report from the absent Carl Croce, beyond that submitted via email.

Festival

No report from the absent Carl Croce, beyond that submitted via email. Mark added that the committee is working on the volunteer assignments, and that he’s generally satisfied with the status of things, given that they got off to a late start. He’s set a “moderate” goal of bringing in 20 new folks with the Open Stage outreach marketing, and is cautiously optimistic. Special thanks to Pam Robinson, Barb Moo and Lori Falco for mentoring this relatively inexperienced Festival committee.

Membership

“We have members,” said Rick, something that we also heard in his email report. However, he’s realized that he can’t say for sure if everyone in the room is a member in good standing, because the population of the board has changed so much since January. He doesn’t think monitoring and maintaining an up to date Board directory should be part of the Membership chair’s job, and Chris agreed. Sounds like a Secretary job, and Chris will make it so. He'll come up with some kind of wiki-based approach.

In answering a question from Mike, Rick confirmed that there is no current mechanism to alert readers of the e-newsletter that their memberships are lapsing. But he has something in the works.

Community Services

No report from the absent Pat Brangs, beyond that submitted via email.

ADJOURNMENT

The meeting was adjourned at 9:40. Next month’s meeting is September 6th, at the home of Cecilia Rowedder and Allan Kugel, in Highland Park.

Respectfully submitted,

Chris Riemer

Recording Secretary