November 2011

MOTIONS THIS MONTH

The board agreed to appoint Mark and Robin Schaffer as Festival co-chairs, following the resignation of Carl Croce, with the provision that the committee casts only one vote.

The board accepted the slate of directors recommended by the Nominations Committee.

OPENING CEREMONIES

The meeting was called to order at roughly 8:00 PM on November 1, at the home of Ruth Wolfish in Bedminster. According to eyewitness accounts, everyone was exceptionally well-behaved and there was a marked absence of fisticuffs, perhaps owing to the attendance of 2012 hopefuls. A pleasant time was had by all.

Roll Call

Present were Lois DeRitter, Nancy Dugan, Gloria Friedman, Jim Gartner, Allan Kugel, Ed Roffman and Bobbie Rosengarten (Trustees); Mike Agranoff, Pat Brangs, Nancy Kelner, Elizabeth Lachowicz, Pam Robinson, Bob Safranek, Robin Schaffer, Rachel Streich, Rick Thomas and Leigh Walker. (Other Board Members); and Howie Goldman, Joe Graziano, Jim King, Lindsey Meyer, Greg More, Kevin Redden, Robin Roffman, Scott Ross, Mark Schaffer and Ruth Wolfish (Guests). Absent were Carl Croce, Scooter Ferguson, Bob McNally, Sandie Reilly, Chris Riemer, Ellen Schwartz and Jean Scully. And special thanks to Ruth, for playing guest hostess this evening.

Given the unusual number of guests in the room, the first 15 minutes were spent in a series of round-robin introductions, filled with blood-curdling tales of cold and darkened homesteads without heat or electricity.

Secretary’s Report

The October minutes were amended to clarify comments attributed to “Nancy” (since we now have two Nancys on the board), and accepted as amended. (The Secretary thanks Ms. Meyer for taking the roll in his absence, and Mr. Roffman for recording the meeting, given that the Secretary was unable to attend.)

Treasurer’s Report

As of October 31, our checking account balance was about $7,100 with another $23,400 in the Money Market. The Minstrel numbers for October are about $800 low, because the October 28 tally sheet is still in transit.

BUSINESS ITEMS

Nominations Committee

Pam Robinson thanked Scooter, Rick Thomas and Jim Gartner for some interesting ideas and aggressive outreach. A summary of their recommendations is attached at end of these minutes, and Pam explained that we have to consider nominations at three levels. The first level, relating to Trustees, are actual nominations. The second two are more in the way of unofficial recommendations, which will be submitted at the annual meeting next month.

• Starting with the Trustees, Gloria Friedman will be resigning early, and Pat Brangs will fill out the remainder of her term, through 2012. Lois DeRitter and Jim Gartner will each continue for another term. Ellen Schwartz is stepping down, to be replaced by Elizabeth Lachowicz. The other trustees will continue.

• At the Officer level, the vice president and secretary are both term-limited this year, and will be replaced by Pam Robinson and Lindsey Meyer, respectively. Ed Roffman will continue as president and Rachel as treasurer.

• At the Committee level, Pat will be replaced by Joe Graziano in Community Services, and Rick Thomas will be replaced by Scott Ross in Membership. Pam has learned from Eddie that Carl Croce will be stepping down as Festival chair, to be replaced by co-chairs Mark and Robin Schaffer. To make room for Festival duties, Robin will be passing the Merchandising baton to Gloria Friedman. Bob Safranek will be handing off Sound Reinforcement duties to Kevin Redden, and Howie Goldman will replace Pam herself as Special Concerts chair.

"Great, great job," said Mike. He was impressed to see so many key people shuffled so effectively, and all the nominees are worthy replacements he’d never have thought of. "Thank you very much." (A round of applause).

Eddie also reminded the board that Carl Croce deserves special thanks, for being the one who really kept the Festival alive this fall. When Lori Falco resigned last year, Carl was the only one willing to step up to the job. If he hadn't done so, there'd have been no Festival in 2012, and it might even have faded away forever. So next time you see him, give him a pat on the back.

Mike moved that we accept the Nominations Committee's proposed slate, and that motion was accepted without discussion. Pam noted that Mark and Robin are taking the helm of Festival immediately, but the other changes don't take effect until January. She also reviewed the turnover process, whereby all General Members who attend the December meeting vote on the slate of Trustees, and then the new group of Trustees votes on the Offficers, and then the Officers and Trustees vote on the recommended Committee Chairs.

As a footnote to the nominations report, President Roffman read to the board a statement of his vision for the organization, which he later distributed by email. In summary, he believes "the currency of our organization is best measured by the power of the volunteers and our ability to develop them."

Future Meetings

The annual meeting will be held on December 6th at the Chimney Rock Inn, with the same set-up as last year. We are guestimating 30 odd people (some of whom are odder than others), but the menu will be changed up just a tad. Starting time for those who intend to join the group for dinner is 6:30. Pam explained the logistics for the benefit of the guests, with people chipping in $15 toward the cost of their meal, and going for a cash bar if they want more than soft drinks.

There was some discussion about sending postcards to people who get the electronic newsletter, to comply with state non-profit laws that may require physical (rather than virtual) notifications of the location of an Annual General Meeting. President Roffman knows we've done it in some past years, but does not feel it's necessary. RSVPs for the annual meeting will go to the president.

Nancy Dugan volunteered to host the first meeting of 2012, which will take place on January 3rd.

COMMITTEE REPORTS

Festival

As reported in Mark and Robin's email, the good news is that we had a good festival. They are working on trying to line up new volunteers, and also reorganize some of the jobs so they're not so "techie." Pat Brangs will be joining the committee as Chief of Operations, and Scooter will play an important leadership role as well.

The bad news is that Star Lake will not be open to us in May, so we are checking out other places. We have a possibility at a site with the "unfortunate" name of Camp Bernie, a YMCA facility near Hackettstown. It's closer to Fairview Lake in feel, and has lots of outdoor activity potential (archery, climbing, hiking, etc.). They're willing to give us the whole camp, and the accommodations are mostly dormitory style with a handful of private rooms. They also allow camping, and are willing to throw in a whole weekend of kid-friendly activities at no extra cost.

Mark stressed that the committee is still looking, and hasn't settled on this site. He also pointed out that while you never really get what you want in this situation, you do get to pick the negatives you can live with. He and Robin will be going to NERFA for the first time, and will use that as an opportunity to look for new ideas. Camp Bernie does look good from a cost perspective, so we might try a Spring event there, even if we don't opt for it permanently. They seemed to like the idea of having us, and would be willing to let us store stuff on location, between Festivals. That's a big plus.

Some discussion ensued. Answering a question from Mike, Mark reported that Camp Bernie has a small pond, but nothing that would provide much lake-side interest. Camp Bernie has one room with a pretty good dance floor that can accommodate maybe 25 dancers, but it could not support an expanded dance program. There are also lots of meet-and-greet spaces that would be good for workshops and jamming and such. There's no separate auditorium, but the camp staff will handle the tear-down and set-up so the dining space can be used for concerts. With concert seating, it holds 200 people, but it does mean we'll need to buy or rent another stage. Bob asked that the Festival please run the details by the Sound and Lighting crew before making a commitment.

Mike also wondered if the new committee is considering Lori Falco's recommendation to move to one Festival per year. Mark and Robin like the two-Festival model, but they may consider developing two Festivals that have "different personalities." So the main message is that we have not selected a final location for May, but Camp Bernie shows promise.

Newsletter

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

Community Services

Pat recapped the information submitted in her email. Kathy Moser has gotten married and Pat’s mother-in-law passed away. Nothing new on the music front.

Minstrel Booking

Mike recapped the information he submitted via email. October was a great month, and Frank Vignolia Vignola took home more than $2,000 in door, creel and product sales. Another big turnout for the Jeremy Kittel Band, and even the Open Stage was strong at 55. We probably averaged 130 paid for regular shows, which is "pretty damn good for us."

Mike and Scooter have agreed plans to change his the reservation policy for Open Stage, and in 2012 will start taking reservations at Saturday noon, instead of midnight on Friday. He doesn't want people to jump through hoops in order to reserve a slot. MUF cancelled their cancellation for January December 16, but Mike plans to leave the hall dark that night unless he comes across a surprise performer at NERFA or some place. He’ll let Rachel and the staffing chair know if he does make a booking.

On the booking front, we'll be having the Cotillion Singers on Dec 30, and Mike hopes to make that an annual tradition. They'll be opening for Dougan’s Hooligans. John Forster will return on January 6, and the Nuala Kennedy Band on March 2. Beppe Gambetta will return in June, Bill Stains in September and Brother Sun next November.

Minstrel Staffing

No report, but Eddie knows that Scooter is among those still without power.

Special Concerts

As reported in Pam's email, Lindsey Meyer will host a house concert at her new digs in January, featuring Peter Spencer, an old favorite of the Folk Project who now lives in Washington State. He comes east to visit family during the holidays, and Lindsey was originally going to do this on her own until Pam convinced her the Project's umbrella offered some definite benefits. She's planning a pot luck at 1:30, and an afternoon concert at 3:00.

Swingin’ Tern

The Princeton Country Dancers' Rum & Onions event took a hit because of the storm, and reportedly had more players than dancers.

Swingin' Tern is doing OK, but they did have a low turnout for the last dance because of competing events. They were short on staff this summer, particularly for the head staff job, but are breaking in some new folks. Three of their biggest events are coming up, with the Harvest Hoot, the New Year’s Dance and the Anniversary Dance all set for the next three months.

Horses

Eddie recapped the information from Ralph's email report. Several people have taken up the offer of training.

Membership

"Hi," said Rick. (A more formal report was submitted once Rick got his power back.) PDF rosters will be distributed in January, but Rick can also generate one in a minute or two if there's a particular need.

Publicity

Nancy summarized the information in her email report, and also brought show-and-tell items illustrating some recent coverage, including the Jersey Jazz Journal. She thinks we should consider issuing Press Passes for journalists, rather than giving them free admission coupons on a one-off basis. The Minstrel and Swingin’ Tern are both OK with that idea, so Nancy will come up with a format.

Nancy is still trying to get a handle on the Swingin' Tern college outreach program. Cody Chase has moved away to college, and some believe she handed off the administration of this effort to Joel Remde. No one is really sure, but Nancy will keep digging. Lynn Miles is willing to write a second Minstrel Press Release each month, if appropriate, and is in touch with Jim King (who writes the first one). Nancy also got a note about the Frank Vignola concert from someone who heard about it in a Jersey Jazz Society member email.

Pam added that there was a formatting error in our listings at the Independent Press website, with two events combined in a single entry. Maybe a glitch but perhaps worth looking into. Our Facebook page now has 492 "likes" and the stats tell her we had 329 visitors in the last seven days. She doesn't know if that represents 329 different people or one person visiting 329 times.

And remember that Nancy can always use more help on Publicity. Raise your hands, please. Eddie praised the publicity team's efforts and said we're really "hitting on all cylinders." Alan added that he still needs to get Swingin' Tern up to speed on the our site's Content Management System, so they can post their own updates. "It's real easy," said Mike, who's been using it for close to a year.

Merchandising

As explained in her email, not much is new with merchandising. Any Swingin' Tern specific merchandise will wait until next year. We did have an issue with the recently acquired water bottles, and weren't happy with the print job. The vendor is giving us a $200 credit. Pam suggested that perhaps Swingin' Tern would like something to sell in connection with their Anniversary Dance. If so, now's the time to get it into production.

Eddie added that while some folks think of Merchandising as a profit center, its real purpose is to develop items that help spread our name for general promotion and publicity. Jim Gartner agreed. He thinks we should leave the goods unattended, since even if people steal them, they're helping publicize the Folk Project.

Internal Affairs

No report from the absent Jean Scully, but Eddie said the Evenings of Music have been booked through the rest of the year. Jean will be running the November EOM at Mark and Robin's, while the Schaffers are at NERFA.

Sound Reinforcement

Some equipment maintenance is underway at the Minstrel, but otherwise everything’s good. New cables should be in by Friday, and Mike needs to provide labels for same.

ADJOURNMENT

The meeting was adjourned at about 9:30. Next month’s meeting is November 6th, at the Chimney Rock Inn, in Gilette.

Respectfully submitted,

Chris Riemer

Recording Secretary