August 2012

The August 2012 Folk Project Board meeting was called to order at 8:04 pm on August 7, 2012 at the home of Mark and Robin Schaffer in Rockaway.

ROLL CALL

Present were Pat Brangs, Lois DeRitter, Jim Gartner, Allan Kugel, Elizabeth Lachowicz, Bob McNally, Eddie Roffman, and Bobbie Rosengarten (Trustees); Mike Agranoff, Carl Croce, Lori Falco, Howie Goldman, Joe Graziano, Nancy Kelner, Lindsey Meyer, Kevin Redden, Sandie Reilly, Pam Robinson, Scott Ross, Mark Schaffer, Robin Schaffer, Jean Scully, Rachel Streich, Leigh Walker (Other Board Members); Absent were Nancy Dugan, Gloria Friedman, Kevin Redden.

ADMINISTRATION

Secretary’s Report

The June minutes were approved with a correction from Mike. The July minutes were approved with 4 minor corrections from Lori.

Treasurer’s Report

Rachel reported a checking account balance of $5,733.02 and a Money Market balance of $23,575.79 as of July 31. Interested parties can look at the financials and run their own, customized reports, by logging in at QuickBooksOnline. If you don't have a login (or don't remember your password), contact Rachel and she can set you up.

BUSINESS ITEM

Community Development: Post-Minstrel Food and Song

Mark Schaffer followed up an email by asking the Board for input about whether to continue and if so, how to improve and who will help. To date, there have been 3 post-Minstrel gatherings at MUUF with food, music, and schmoozing, for the purpose of exposing more newcomers to the FP community. Mark has been running the gatherings, with assistance from Jean Scully, and the FP has picked up the food tab. They’ve experimented with different locations for food and music, with varying results. As usual, a major concern is to keep eaters/talkers from disturbing singers/players.

Discussion ensued. There was general agreement that the gatherings are a good idea and align with our FP mission. Bob spoke about them as a “sampler” of our culture for visitors to encourage them to get more involved. There was quite a bit of discussion about food: don’t separate food and music, make people walk past the music to get to the food or put food out later (to avoid people eating and leaving), drop the food altogether (general disagreement: food is a social lubricant). There were several ideas about putting food and music in different rooms, some have already been tried. Music has been in the Terrace Room which is big, noisy, and cold but can hold any size crowd. The Library is comfy and intimate but small. The Dining Room has the large un-movable table which is fine for food but tempts people to eat and leave. It was also suggested to put out chairs so people can sit easily. Mike requested that food purchases not be part of the Minstrel budget. He also suggested that if it continues, it should be advertised through MinstrelGram to remind people to bring instruments.

The Board agreed to continue the gatherings and as no one offered to take over, Mark will carry on experimenting with food and music arrangements.

STANDING COMMITTEE REPORTS

Festival

Recapping his email report, Mark said that the committee is nailing down workshops, both performer and Project-led. They’re focusing on attracting first-timers and marketing through folk radio shows, cultural web sites, Minstrel audiences, and FP email lists. Spring 2012 festival made $2,000 but the fall fest usually nets less, so they hope to at least break even for the year. Pat asked about one-day passes (besides the Sunday concert passes) and Mark responded that, like last spring, they’ll only sell single day tickets if there are unsold weekend tickets. Mark encouraged everyone to volunteer in some capacity.

Minstrel Staffing

Jean reported that they’ve been fully staffed and that Mark loves the automatic bill counter. Amy Livingston told Mike that the ease of use of the new database versus Yahoo is 50-50. Mike pointed out that the main advantages of the database aren’t in day-to-day operations but during special situations which haven’t come up yet. There was no email report.

Swingin’ Tern

Referring to his email report, Leigh said that attendance has been down due to the summer heat and income hasn’t covered the rent. Bands and callers are booked 6 months in advance and the volunteers are in good shape. Upcoming dances include Experienced, Techno, and Harvest Hoot.

Internal Affairs

Jean reported that she’s happy about the number of new homes opened up for Evenings of Music and said she still needs a location for November. She thanked Eddie and Robin for a splendid July 4 picnic. There was no email report.

Minstrel Booking

Recapping his email report, Mike stated that July’s Minstrel had an average paid attendance of 91.3 per show for regular shows and is $318 in the black. The Birthday Show had 96 paid and 20 groups, an increase from the 16 groups that performed last year. This show was moved back one week to avoid conflicting with Falcon Ridge.

Mike received the new MUUF contract with a per-show rent increase from the current $225 to $295. He negotiated them down to $250 as of July but as they intend to raise it to $300 over the next 2-3 years, we’ll eventually need to raise the admission price (currently $7). Bob suggested raising the admission once rather than twice. MUUF has decided to remain in its present location, with renovations planned for some time in the future.

ASCAP sent a dunning letter for all of 2011 and a notice that 2 payments for 2012 were past due. It was understood that payments were to be made yearly (the 2011 payment was made before this letter was received) but the ASCAP contract specifies quarterly payments. Mike paid everything up to date and will administer the ASCAP fees from now on. The fees are based on ticket price only (not creel donations) and make up about 0.8% of ticket revenue. He noted that the Special Concerts Committee is responsible for ASCAP fees for major performers, although house concerts and workshops are exempt.

Jean reported that Barrett Wilson has contacted all past presidents for the Past Presidents Concert on Nov. 23. He's encouraging collaboration, spoken work, etc. FP memorabilia will be solicited for an auction, which drew some hilarious, unprintable suggestions.

Publicity

Nancy reported that the MinstrelGram is still in the process of moving to Constant Contact and said that our FB Minstrel Birthday pictures had over 800 unique views in less than 24 hours. She passed around a lovely HSNOI flyer designed by Sandie, which Nancy is including in her publicity packets. The NY Times has published some of our event notices, so Nancy followed up and discovered how to tailor the PR so they’ll hopefully print more. The email report is here.

Electronic Communications

Lori reported that Festival and Minstrel Staff emails are now being sent out through Constant Contact and the MinstrelGram will join them soon. Her email report is here.

Discussion ensued about who receives emails sent to fullboard [at] folkproject.org and whether they all should stay on the list or whether there should be different lists for different purposes. Lori said that besides the current Board members, there are 15 others on the list, including former Board members and committee members who aren’t chairs. Lori cited Chris Riemer as saying the 10-year tradition is that when people leave the Board, they can choose to stay on the list. Some people were added to the list when they were being courted as possible nominees (so they could follow Board conversations).

Lori reminded us that email isn’t a good medium for private conversations because they can be kept and forwarded forever. She read aloud a note from John Lamb saying if you need privacy, use the phone or talk in person. We could make different lists for different levels of organization and privacy, but Lori didn’t recommend this because it can get too confusing.

Mike wanted the ability to send emails only to those with a vote because they’d be responsible for the vote. He also thought there were many more people on the “fullboard” list than Lori stated. Bob thought having the expanded list is useful because our “tag team” way of running the FP makes it easier to bring people up to speed. Pam agreed that having multiple lists would be too confusing. Eddie encouraged us to stay inclusive and said that if we have something negative to say, don’t use email. Carl was glad there are fewer “fullboard” emails than last year and that we should define what’s appropriate for “fullboard” emails. Lori will ask non-board members if they want to stay on the list. Lindsey said she wasn’t comfortable sending messages to the list without knowing who the recipients were and requested the list. Lori then read aloud the names of the 15 non-Board members. Eddie said he’d ask John Lamb to come up with a list. Scott said there are 25 board-type positions in the database. [Secretary's note: there are currently 26 Board members.] The fullboard email list, generated by Lori, is available on "The Board" page elsewhere in this wiki.

Eddie’s comment on the cross-committee relevance of the Electronic Communications Committee: “It’s where the rubber hits the road, except there is no rubber and no road.”

Membership

Scott said the “statistics report is bogus”. The past 6 months’ statistics have been incorrect and he will redo. There are currently 466 memberships (not individuals). Lori has started sending out renewal emails that include a live link to click on. There was no email report.

Newsletter

Carl printed 400 newsletters for $279. He was thanked for getting them out on time this month. His email report is here.

Community Services

Joe received two requests for performers and also from someone looking for a guitar teacher in Morris County. Pam got a performer request through Facebook. Mark and others suggested including performers who aren’t on the performers’ list. The email report is here.

HSNOI

Sandy reported two shows taped in July and two will be be taped in August and September. Ralph’s email report is here.

Merchandise

No report.

Sound Reinforcement

No report. Pam brought up the grant and wondered what Kevin is doing about it.

Special Concerts

Recapping his email report, Howie said that tickets can now be purchased on our website for the Trout Fishing in America concert on December 28. Jim King’s working on the flyer and TFIA is sending posters. A pre-show dinner is planned for volunteers and the band. Carl reminded Howie that we get 20% off printing at Staples.

ADJOURNMENT

The meeting was adjourned at 9:53 pm. The next meeting is on September 4 at the home of Allan Kugel & Cecilia Rowedder in Highland Park.

Respectfully submitted,

Lindsey Meyer, Secretary