February 2011

OPENING CEREMONIES

Because of the snow and ice on February 1, the meeting was called to order a week later than originally scheduled. We convened at 8:17 at the home of Connie Crawford, and Ms. Cody Chase served admirably as acting hostess.

Roll Call

Present were Lois DeRitter, Allan Kugel, Gloria Friedman, Jim Gartner, Ed Roffman and Ruth Wolfish (Trustees), Mike Agranoff, Carl Croce, Nancy Kelner, Sandie Reilly, Chris Riemer, Pam Robinson, Bob Safranek, Robin Schaffer, Jean Scully, Rachel Streich and Rick Thomas (Other Board Members) and Cody Chase, Joanne Cronin and Mark Schaffer (Guests). Absent were Pat Brangs, Connie Crawford, Scooter Ferguson, Elizabeth Lachowicz, Carolyn Messina, Brad Pryor and Bobbie Rosengarten.

Secretary’s Report

There were a few minor wording changes in the January minutes, as shown by the revision marks in the online version. Just clarifications, without material impact. The minutes were approved as so amended.

Treasurer’s Report

Rachel reported a January 31 checking account balance of about $5,700, with $23,350 in the money market account. Otherwise, all is well. As outgoing Treasurer, Eddie added that the 1099s are in the mail to all the performers who need them.

BUSINESS ITEMS

Proposal: FP Family Music Programs

President Ed Roffman took the floor to introduce a new potential activity for the Folk Project. He positioned this as an informational discussion, rather than a formal proposal.

Back in the day, there were a lot more kids at Folk Project events, sitting on the floor in front of the stage, eyes wide. It was a matter of “providence and biology,” in that we were younger and a lot of us had kids of our own. He thinks we’ve lost something by letting that get away from us, and has a number of suggestions that might help bring it back. He also thinks it would be a “hot market,” since schools are cutting back and parents “love this kind of stuff.” Ruth thought that was a good idea: “If you get the kids, you get the parents.”

Eddie had a handout to present some of his ideas, and hoped that a champion might come forward, perhaps forming an ad-hoc committee that would pull things together. Some discussion ensued.

Answering a question from Mike, Eddie imagined the target demographic to be age three and up. Everyone who spoke liked the idea, although there were also some concerns. Allan felt that kids today are a lot busier than they were 25 years ago, and also have far more options in the way of entertainment. Lois thought we’d need to educate the parents in some way, too, to keep the kids from disrupting the concerts. Nancy thought if we were doing this kind of thing at the Minstrel, we might want to start the show earlier. Cody suggested that we should incorporate something more than sitting and listening for the proposed afternoon sessions: maybe dancing or playing a game.

The only one of Eddie’s ideas the group didn’t care for was using some kind of icon to flag “kid-friendly” shows. Some worried it might keep adults away.

A number of names were dropped as potential organizers, including Tim and Abby Rutka, Carolyn Messina, Elaine Brouchard Boucher and Mindy Schmidt Schmitt. Both the Morris Museum and the Morristown Unitarian Fellowship were mentioned as potential partner organizations. Mike also suggested that Eddie write something for the newsletter on this topic. He will.

Grants and Grant Writing

Nancy was “dismayed” to learn that we will not be getting an ACMA grant this year, because no one stepped up to write the application. (In answer to a question from Pam, Nancy admitted that she wasn’t willing to take it on herself, finding her plate full enough as Publicity chair.)

Rick Thomas agreed this was unfortunate, but pointed out that filling out those applications is something of a pain, and eventually everyone who does it burns out. We’ve asked for volunteers at previous meetings without success, but perhaps Eddie could put something in the newsletter. Until we have a champion, we won’t be looking for more grants.

Pam has probably done this job longer than anyone, and she felt ACMA would like to see us back. However, she pointed out that while the amount awarded has in some years been equal to our entire profit margin, it’s still a very small amount compared to revenue. In our best year, it was only 2%. Nancy was surprised at that.

Chris added that applying for grants is a relatively new idea for the Project, historically speaking, and it was controversial when first suggested. So in some ways, the disappearance of this revenue stream really represents a return to the norm.

REPORTS OF THE STANDING COMMITTEES

Membership

Rick’s earlier email confirmed that we have members. With the help of Lori Falco, he has initiated a new program to send “Renew” reminders to those who get the electronic newsletter. Until now, we’ve had no way to go after them, and Rick believes this lapse accounts for at least some of the decline in membership.

This kicked off a surprisingly long (and surprisingly interesting) discussion of the potential impact of technology on the Folk Project membership model. There were several threads in this discussion.

One topic was a deeply-held belief that we need to collect dues to cover the cost of the newsletter. Some still held this point of view, and felt we should therefore restrict the newsletter to paying members only. However, since distributing the electronic newsletter costs us nothing, others believed we should make it available as broadly as possible, as a form of publicity.

If that’s the case, Mike suggested we stop looking at the total member metric as a performance indicator. Mark tended to agree with that. He pointed out that if you counted the total “virtual” membership (including every name on all our various distribution lists), it would be much higher than the actual membership. Pam was leaning in the same direction. She noted that grant applications generally use the word impacted (as in “How many people have your programs impacted during the year?”). If we look at that number it’s well into the thousands, not even counting the almost limitless potential of people who might watch Horses Sing None of It on TV or on the Web.

Even so, there was some feeling that if we made the newsletter free (instead of a benefit of membership), our membership revenue would decline. Perhaps, but Mark pointed out that for everyone who opted to keep paying dues, we’d be making even more money since we’d be saving the cost of printing and postage. He’d also like to see our electronic communications evolve to the point where they could provide a channel to solicit donations, as well as letting folks sign up for mailing lists.

Eddie thought this was all very exciting, and said what Lori is doing to bring us up to speed on Constant Contact is some of the most important work going on this winter. It’s going to “invigorate” the way we connect with our core audiences. In fact, he admitted that he hasn’t been sure lately if our communications program has been all it should be. As a marketing professional, Robin agreed there was much room for improvement. She also felt it was time for us to consider what membership really means to the Folk Project. “What is membership about?” Interesting question...

Rick closed out the conversation by agreeing there were lots of possibilities. He felt we should move slowly, but could imagine a future where all of our electronic communications were well-integrated and professional. It will get better as we move forward.

Minstrel (Booking)

Mike summarized the information in his earlier email reports. January was weak, with a loss of $525, and will probably show a loss, and the whole picture is not that pretty, from a financial perspective. He’s rethinking the Birthday Party, given what appears to be a declining level of interest.

He’s developed a new practice of uploading booking data to the Web tool as soon as he confirms the details. So when the new site goes live, the Minstrel booking pages will always show the latest information. He’s also trying to convince Alice Weimer to follow the same principle for uploading performer photos, but so far she feels it’s important to confirm the images with the performers before they go live on our site.

Nancy wondered if there were any guidelines for the distribution of the free Minstrel passes. There’s nothing formal, and Mike thinks they can be distributed pretty broadly. He and Nancy will discuss.

Minstrel (Staffing)

No report from the absent Scooter Ferguson, other than that sent via email.

Festival

Carl Croce summarized the information in his email report, letting us know that the Festival Committee got together in January, and decided that they will not (in fact) try to stage an event this Spring.

They have settled on the weekend of 30 September for the fall, and he’s finalized that date with the camp. He expects to meet with them soon to nail down the other details.

Special Concerts

Pam said her email report pretty well covers what’s new. The Raina Rose house concert will be rescheduled due to a Swingin’ Tern conflict, for which Pam apologized. Za Zu Zaz and Aztec Two Step are in the works for May and August, respectively.

Swingin’ Tern

No report this evening from the absent Connie Crawford, but she did report via email the following day.

Horses Sing None of It

Sandy is sad to report that Horses taped two great shows in December (Alan Friend and The Lords of Liechtenstein), but as explained in Ralph Litwin's email report, the recordings were unusable because of technical problems. They thought they had two more great shows in January (Michelle Citrin and Caleb Hawley), but those recordings were ruined by a mysterious hum on the audio. They are working with Cablevision's technical staff to sort things out. A real shame, because these were very good shows indeed.

Publicity

Nancy has circulated a report via email, and will be sending out some revisions as well.

Pam Robinson mentioned that she’s begun creating Facebook “events” for Minstrel and Special Concerts, as well as Swingin’ Tern, and posting them to the Folk Project’s wall. She can go one more step and invite her own Facebook friends to them, but that’s all she can do. She suggested any of the Directors who are on Facebook do the same.

Via email discussions, we've decided it was probably time to abandon the Project’s MySpace page. Cody will put Rick Thomas in touch with Chris Jacoby, the page administrator, to facilitate the process of taking it down.

Merchandising

The bulk of Robin’s news is in her email, but she also had samples of the new, embroidered denim shirts (prompting an impromptu fashion show during her report).

She has a new T-shirt design that will be unveiled at this Friday’s Valentine’s Day show, and intends to follow a strategy of small merchandise runs. It will make the individual items slightly more expensive, but will give us more flexibility.

Internal Affairs

Jean reported that the Evenings of Music are now fully booked through September.

She could use some more fruit choppers for the Valentine’s Day show. On that note, Mark added that the practice sessions with the two bands that will play for Valentine’s Day show have been a lot of fun. He’s looking forward to it.

Community Affairs

No report from the absent Pat Brangs, other than that sent via email.

Sound Reinforcement

Bob waved hello, but was then reminded that Mike Agranoff will be doing a sound reinforcement workshop on Wednesday, March 16, with a focus on mixing and EQ. Mike hopes to get as many Sound Assistant folks engaged as possible, and bring them all up to the point where they can take on the Head Sound job. Joanne asked if he might also schedule a Sound 101 workshop at some point. She’s worked the Head Sound job in the past, but needs both a refresher and an introduction to the current equipment.

Newsletter

Carl summarized the information in his usual email report.

Pam mentioned that she’s heard some complaints from people who are not getting their newsletters until after the first of the month. Carl explained that he’s had to cancel a print run at Staples several times after it was underway, because of an error discovered in the copy. Because of that, Staples had started holding our file for a week before they printed it, and that’s why things have been arriving late. He’s told them he’ll stop stopping the presses, so they’ve agreed to go back to printing our newsletter as soon as they get the files.

ADJOURNMENT

The meeting was adjourned at 9:42. Next month’s meeting is at the home of Pam Robinson and Bob Safranek, in New Providence.

Respectfully submitted,

Chris Riemer

Recording Secretary