The meeting was called to order at 8:17 pm on February 7, by Vice President Paul Fisher. This meeting was held via Zoom.
ROLL CALL
Present: Trustees: Todd Dennison, Loretta Brooks, Allan Kugel, Bob McNally, Tina Ross; Officers: Paul Fisher*, Peggy Karr, Jeff Canter*; Committees: Sam Edelston, George Otto, Gary Pratt, Sandie Reilly, Jean Scully, Mark Schaffer
Absent: Mike Agranoff, Elizabeth Lachowicz*, Leigh Walker, John Mahon, Pamela Zave
Guests: Helene Ferm (MUUF), Shari Loe (MUUF), Robin Schaffer, Andrew Warner, Kathleen Caccavale, Evelyn Maurer
*Also Trustee
MOTIONS MADE
Motion made to accept the January minutes. Motion passed unanimously.
TREASURER'S REPORT (written report below)
OLD BUSINESS
Free Morristown Event Proposal Robin Schaffer had brought up the idea last month of doing a free festival and had wanted to get a sense from the Board as to whether it was worth pursuing. and people were very enthusiastic. She did some pursuing. and provided a report (below) that has some of the detail on it. She concluded that it seems to be a pretty unattainable goal because of the costs. She felt that if we try to keep the costs moderate, it's really not going to address the goals that we set for it like extending the reach and getting new members. So, at this point, she strongly recommending against the idea of doing a festival, but we can maybe think about it next year. She added that attendance is down, and we're getting older and felt a discussion needed to be had that the idea of having a festival was kind of one idea, but it's really part of a bigger question about how the folk project operates and is funding. She felt that we need to get creative about some different ways to attract members. But whatever ideas we have, we need to be creative about funding. She and Peggy Karr and have committed to doing some outreach and exploration of grants and looking funding sources outside of our operating, budget that could fund some of these features, but we're short on time to just say we'll do the exploration, as some grants have a short deadline. She concluded by saying we can have different ideas and she volunteered to be a collector of ideas. Gary Pratt brought up fundraising, possibly a charity auction which he has experience in. Bob McNally added that the Grant group, which while unsuccessful, generated a very considerable body of knowledge and documentation which he would transmit to Robin.
Need Officers for 2024 Vice President Paul Fisher reminded everyone that this is the last term for all of the officers, and the FP needs to be proactive in finding nominees to replace them.
NEW BUSINESS
MUUF Presentation MUUF members Helene Ferm and Shari Loe discussed the capital campaign at the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship. After showing a brief introduction by their minister, the Reverend Joel Miller, they discussed the project is to build a about a 9,000 square foot addition that will connect with the existing building through the terrace room and which will house a big multi-purpose room, classrooms, bathrooms, and kitchen (details in included presentation). Also included in the project is more accessible parking. They described their fundraising effort to provide the 8.5 million dollars needed for the project of which they have $7.78 million pledged to date, and the plans for remaining amount of approximately $720,000 that they need. Part of the renovation was the roof replacement which they just completed. This building is "poster child for green construction" including groundwater management , heat pump control of the smaller spaces, solar photovoltaic on the roof to generate their own electricity, as well as features like low flow toilets, and led lighting. The Board discussed the possibility of using the new space for larger concerts. There was some discussion about accessibility as some members are disabled. They said they were working on accessibility to the new space, and looking at ways to provide accessibility to the present meeting room. There was additional discussion about the possibility of a small podcasting studio, which might also be used by Horses Sing None of It. There was also additional discussion about the use of the new space and whether or not the FP can compete with others who want to use the space for other events like weddings. They responded that they could have weddings in the sanctuary, but they are limited in the types of receptions that they could throw for weddings, among other things because they are a 501 c.3 and are also constrained by their mission. They promised that they had no plans to turn it into a catering hall, and were going to continue to seek out tenants who are in accord with their values, including non-profit cultural organizations such as FP. When asked about accessibility during construction, they said that it would have no impact on our events. They concluded by asking the Board and Board members to consider contributing individually and also as an organization. They also requested that the Board publicize their fundraising request as their strategic plan included being a community center and reaching out and connecting with community and other organizations. The Board promised to consider their requests and respond to them when possible.
COMMITTEE REPORT HIGHLIGHTS
Archives (advisory) (written report below)
Community Services (advisory)
Horses Sing None of It
Open Stage Chair Todd Dennison reported that open stages getting bigger every month. and while he is usually looking for two or three more people to fill it out, he has already had turn away about four to six people and expects to get another two or three people or maybe four or five in the next couple of days. He thought maybe next month he might open up the Terrace Room.
Membership (advisory) (written report below)
Newsletter (written report below) Chair George Otto wanted to thank all the people who have been submitting as he depends on submissions and he has been getting interesting articles and information about gigs.
Publicity (written report below)
Sound Reinforcement
Special Events Chair Mark Schaffer reported that the last Evening of Music at Jay Wilensky's was very nice with close to two dozen attendees. He briefly discussed the Getaways, but was waiting for further information from the venue. He said that he really enjoyed the Stayaways at home and that they saved a lot of costs. He added that he poured all of the money into into the performers, which worked "well enough". He was not sure he would be able to produce a Getaway in May, and if he could not, since Getaway is FP's most expensive event, he would take both of the Getaway funds, and both of the endowments pour them into October, where FP already have a reservation for Columbus Day weekend. In regards to grants, he said that Mid Atlantic is will fund FP half of the cost of any performer, which means, if FP has $3,500 in ticket sales, we can now get a $7,000 act. They have two programs that will support us. One of their programs is specifically for touring musicians. The other program is aimed at including ethnicities. He looked into an Oriental Appalachian hybrid and American Indian presentations, which are expensive. He also plans to look into a soul music presentation also, with the understanding that Mid-Atlantic arts will pay many thousands of dollars, and he intend to do it because he did think not that FP alone will turn out the numbers, but if we run this with a month, their interest, and do a concert in concert with MUUF, that will turn out in enough people that will be able to fill the house and with Mid-Atlantic's grant money the risk is a lot lower. He felt that, the way he was accustomed to running Getaway would have to change. He is accustomed to special concerts that fill the house and that's will have to change. He hasn't found the right formula, but he felt that the resources that we have between the people, the infrastructure and the cash on hand, there has to be a solution that will be available to us over time.
Streaming Concerts (written report below)
Swingin' Tern (written report below)
Troubadour (Booking) (written report below)
Troubadour (Staffing) Chair Jean Scully reported that they had a very successful Valentine's Day show and that Chris Bukata did a great job as usual. She added that they ran it with a fairly lean staff, but got everything done that they needed to do. She also reported that they had a couple of new folks who expressed interest in volunteering and she is following up with them.
ADJOURNMENT
This meeting was adjourned at 10:18 PM. Next month’s meeting is March 7, at 8:15 PM via Zoom.
Submitted by Jeff Canter
WRITTEN COMMITTEE REPORTS
I am still in the process of transitioning parts of membership to Susan Lembo.
My plan is to split the membership responsibilities into two parts to make it more manageable.
Last year at this time membership was at 223 paid memberships with a total of 353 total members
I have worked to grow the membership base this year with several initiatives including reaching out to people whose membership lapsed over the last 10 years with an email campaign that is still ongoing.
With the help of people like Gary, Mark, Tina, and Jay, to name just a few people who emcee our shows, we have more actively urged audience members to join the Folk Project.
With everyone's effort we have grown the membership base to 319 memberships with a total of 424 total members.
I have received over 350 emails this year in the membership inbox that required action of some type.
My plan is to offload some of the work to Susan and focus on transitioning the actual membership management to an online solution.
Thank you for your efforts in growing our membership base.
Please address all questions to IHaveAQuestionAboutMembership@Folkproject.org
Later!
Todd
Newsletter Committee Report 2023-02
Things are proceeding as usual with the invaluable help of Kathi Caccavale, Pat Brangs, Bill Henderson, Gary Pratt, Susan Lembo, and Todd Dennison.
George Otto
Folk Project Newsletter Editor
newsletter@folkproject.org
Publicity Report for the February 7, 2023 Board Meeting
Sam Edelston, February 6, 2023
Publicity Committee Members
Alicia Weimer, George Otto, Howard Goldman, Jean Scully, Jim Gartner, Joanne Cronin, Kathi Caccavale, Liz Pagan, Loretta Brooks, Mark Schaffer, Michael Mitsch, Mike Rauchwerk, Olga Alvarez, Pat Brangs, Paul Fisher, Ralph Pedicini, Rebecca Rydell
Web Team Members
John Lamb, Allan Kugel, Charles Lamb, Lori Falco
Reports
Chairperson’s Report – Sam Edelston
Happy New Year, everyone, and may 2023 be as good as we hoped 2022 would be.
Ø At last month’s Board meeting, I reported that I had met with Todd Dennison, Mark Schaffer, and Mike Agranoff to begin drafting a survey and anticipated sending it out sometime in January. To-do lists intervened. We’ll be getting that project back on track now.
Ø The WNYC on-air spots promoting the Troubadour began airing in January. We’ll have a week later this month promoting the 2/17 “Dead to the Core” show. But, at Mike’s suggestion, the last ¼ of it has been rescheduled to support our 4/7 Christine Lavin show.
Ø Publicity still needs more helpers.
E-communications – Mark Schaffer
Here’s Mark’s e-Communications Report for February 2023 Board Meeting.
· 40,198 Total Sends for the Music Alert
· 14,154 Opens … 38.9% open rate, up from 37.5% last month
· 534 Clicks … 3.4% click rate, down from 4.2% last month
· Project-wide, we had a total of 47,171 email Sends in January. This includes newsletter, volunteering, membership renewal requests, dance, poster distribution, etc.
Facebook – Kathi Caccavale
From Kathi and Sam:
Folk Project Page: 4,707 people Like this (up from 4,645 last month). 5,898 Followers (up from 5,823).
Folk Project group: 1,821 members, up from 1,786 last month.
Swingin’ Tern group: 620 members; up from 611 last month.
NJ Uke Fest group: 255 members; Up from 251 last month.
Content Overview:
Kathi says, “This month’s biggest issue is that Facebook is giving us an error message when we try to start livestreams. We have gotten free livestreams to work – eventually – and test streams work, but we have not found a workaround for online paid events. I blame on it on some internal Facebook conflicts as they move to the New Pages experience, which has a different way of managing Pages. For example, I cannot share an event from the Facebook page using my Folk Project profile, I have to share it using my personal profile even though the end result is that shows up as a Folk Project post. This has caused problems and delays in my usual routine of posting reminders of upcoming events and pinning those posts to the top of the page or to the Featured section in the group.”
1,860 Facebook Page Visits in December were by far the highest they’ve been since last May. (Page Visits tend to get their biggest numbers on Streaming Tuesdays and Open Stage Fridays.) And our 63 new Page Likes for December were the most since last February.
Row Labels FB Page Visits FB Page Likes
2022.01 2,750 70
2022.02 2,592 83
2022.03 2,094 57
2022.04 1,625 60
2022.05 2,111 38
2022.06 1,171 31
2022.07 1,621 55
2022.08 1,485 56
2022.09 958 40
2022.10 1,403 46
2022.11 1,546 48
2022.12 1,030 22
2023.01 1,860 63
Grand Total 22,246 669
Our biggest Event of the month was Troubadour 1/6 with Gathering Time (reach of 5316, and 99 responses). As noted above, Troubadour Paid Events at the end of the month didn’t work.
Streaming Tuesday 1/24 with Andrew Dunn and Todd Dennison had 64 Responses.
Vance Gilbert Inside the Song had 79 Responses.
Instagram – Ralph Pedicini
Sam says:
Content Overview (from Facebook/Instagram reports):
· Instagram followers: 374, up from 358 last month.
· Instagram – Down from December, but up compared to November.
o Reach: 243 … down from 293 last month
o Profile visits: 42 … down from 51
o New Likes & Followers: 18 … down from 20
· Instagram posts (90-day results)
o Reach: 451 … up 117%
o Engagement (likes, comments, shares): 192 … up 44%
· Instagram Stories (90-day results)
o 25 Story posts.
o Reach: 107
o Engagement: 4
Twitter – Jean Scully
No report from Jean.
Web – John Lamb
Here’s John’s writeup on both October and November, since he didn’t have a chance to compile his usual full report last month:
January was a moderately busy month:
· we updated several individual pages, including the Administration page, the Swingin' Tern page, the COVID policy page and the Inside the Song Video Archive Page
· we updated the board@folkproject.org and boardplus@folkproject.org mailing lists and forwarded the current lists of recipients to the members of those lists
· we added an adult language notice to Amy Englehardt Troubadour appearance
· we added events to the calendar for Inside the Song and the Getaway Songwriters Day
· we assisted the Membership Chair with his CiviCRM login
· we advised the Troubadour Chair concerning replacement of the computer used at Troubadour events and pointed out a potential grant source to pay for it
· we discussed adding a new Job Description section to the Volunteer page with several interested parties. Work is still under way on the page design.
· we assisted the Newsletter Chair in getting the most recent edition of the e-newsletter online
As always, many thanks to Lori, Allan, Charles and Liz. Please send questions, comments and suggestions to webmaster@folkproject.org.
John Lamb, webmaster
Merch – Paul Fisher (acting)
Nothing new.
February 2023 Special Events Report to Board:
January’s Evening of Music was wonderful. 25 in attendance and some great music all night long. February will also be at our home.
The Bill Hall House Concert with Rachel Marie opening was fantastic. Almost 60 with staff, great show, great music, great food. The Project profited $100.
So far April 15th's Songwriters Day with concert sold nine tickets to the full day and two for the concert only.
Getaway Songwriters Day is on track for April 15th. It features Dan Navarro and Abbie Gardner leading workshops during the day and a concert in the evening that will be open to the general public.
Spring Getaway:
On the theory that only bigger names are drawing crowds in this post-COVID era, I aimed too high and failed to secure the bigger-named artists I aimed for. We’ve reserved MUUF for Friday and Saturday, May 19 and 20th. I expect Sunday, May 21st to be a Getaway@Home members event. The first Folk Project Acoustic Getaway was 50 years ago this May according to our founder Laurie Riley’s history on line. We will celebrate this landmark by reflecting that in our Getaway programming. Two main acts will be preceded by Folk Project member performers chosen to reflect both our historical and our current crop of excellent artists. Frank Vignola and Vinny Raniolo will lead workshops and perform Saturday.
The format will be:
Friday and Saturday evening concerts will also be open to the public. Saturday workshops at MUUF. Sunday in Rockaway, members concert and music making workshops.
Fall Getaway:
Stoney Point did not have my correct email address, so I didn’t receive the contract for the Fall Getaway 2023 in time for the meeting. We previously sold out at 150, often in weeks. We will never get close to that number this year. They emailed with a contract for an October 6, 7 & 8 Getaway. The contract was for 100 guests and the prices were substantially higher than last time. The 100-guest minimum seemed too big a risk for too huge a loss. I requested a new contract for 76 guests, 38 rooms. We will be sharing the camp because we can’t possibly fill it. If we charge $364 and get 76 guests, we will have enough budget for a smaller, but substantial, performer’s budget.
IMPORTANT:
By agreement with Stoney Point, the financial risk is minimal if we only get 61 guests. Below 61, the Projects risks $364 for every guest less than 61.
Please send comments, concerns, and suggestions to Mark.Schaffer@FolkProject.org
Yours in song,
Mark
Folk Project board members,
Since the beginning of January, we have been unable to stream Facebook paid online events. This is most likely due to a major update Facebook is the process of implementing. Kathi Caccavale has submitted trouble tickets to Facebook, but has so far not received any reply from them. Refunds have been made to paid online ticket purchasers. Until this is resolved, we have created a workaround by streaming Troubadour shows as free events.
We are also researching other streaming platforms in the event that we are unable to resolve this problem with Facebook. It also may turn out that moving to a different streaming platform may be beneficial to The Folk Project regardless of whether the issues with Facebook can be resolved.
This is the top priority for the Streaming Committee.
Gary
Swingin' Tern January report
We have a good trend with another good month. First, some news about our vaccination policy. At our most recent dance, I noted that from what I understand, vaccinated people are generally more protected against the virus to the extent that not infrequently they are asymptomatic when they do contract the virus. As a consequence, they could be less likely to know when they are infected.
Following on that, I jokingly announced that in order to protect our dancers, vaccinated people will not be permitted at the dance starting in March. Obviously ridiculous, as the people currently attending our dance are vaccinated -- though many vaccinated people have been jabbed so long ago their shots don't much matter. And even if vaccinated people are more of a risk to others, the difference is doubtless small.
So... starting in March we will not be requiring vaccinations unless Morris County is in the "orange" zone.
As for last month, at our anniversary dance on January 7 Bob Isaacs led a group calling to Squirrel's Chair. On January 21, Michael Karcher called to Torrent.
Finally, we finished $123 in the black for the month.
Leigh Walker
Swingin' Tern
Hello Everyone,
Attached are three Profit & Loss statements.
P&L ytd 2023 Our current statement. It is showing negative numbers because we have paid some of our Insurance invoices for the year.
P&L ytd 2022 The general Profit & Loss. P&L byClass 2022 Is the same year with more detail. This is last years numbers. We are almost ready to close the books.
Numbers to pay attention to and numbers explained.
The first important number to notice is the loss in our Vanguard account due to the stock market corrections we are experiencing. -($34,329.88) the total value is currently $173,636.55 which is down from its value in 2021 of $202,518.62.
We show an operations profit of $2,251.98. That is not completely correct. $10,000.00 needs to be deducted for the pass-through WNYC donation we received but did not spend in 2022. We will be spending it in 2023. We also need to add in and additional $6,000.00 for both Getaways and the Uke fest for using unrealized gains (The Vanguard account). If anyone needs an explanation just let me know. That brings us to an operating loss of -($2,251.98). This is excellent news.
This is in part due to some generous Donations throughout the year. If you look at the report you will see $25,110.33 in donations. The biggest number is the pass-through donation to WNYC for $10,000. The next biggest donation is Mike Agranoff for $6,203.91 followed by a grant for Mid Atlantic for $3,000. Other donations to mention was the Loose Cannons concert who donated their income. Others to mention are Scotty Rovner and Pat Brangs. Added together with a lot of smaller numbers it comes to $5,906.42
Another big advance was in Membership. We went from $5,487 in 2021 to $9,350 last year almost double, thanks to all of Todds efforts.
The last big number to notice is our Bookkeeper Karen Buchanan. Her expense last year was $5,883.75. It should have been $4,000. This was in part due to all the things we needed to straighten out to get our books correct. Plus new federal rules for filing 990ez tax forms became more difficult and took us a while to figure out. Had we hired an accountant it would have cost more. I have been talking with Karen about ways to cut some of the costs by me doing some of the data entry. I will inform you when I have more details.
Respectfully submitted
Peggy Karr Treasurer
From: The Troubadour <mike.agranoff@folkproject.org>
Sent: Sunday, January 29, 2023 5:19 PM
To: boardplus@folkproject.org
Subject: Troubadour Booking Report, February, 2023
Well, things are at last looking up a little bit. Our average paid attendance for lesser-known acts is still hovering around 30 – 40, but at last the better-known performers are drawing closer to their pre-COVID levels. So although we still haven’t regained our previous “house audience”, more people seem to be willing to venture out for their favorites. Average paid attendance for January was 50.7, but Tracy Grammer drew 85, which compares well with her 2016 draw of 95. Fans of opener Michael Arthur helped swell those numbers as well. That show actually made a profit of $187. However January as a whole ran $160 in the red.
We received a generous donation of $200 from Bill Cox and Cathy Ballard. And I am continuing to cover the Troubadour’s losses.
Performers’ pay has been pretty decent, averaging $765 for the Feature Act since we resumed shows in April of last year, plus another $77 in online tips from streaming viewers. But recently, those online donations have dwindled considerably. Since the beginning of October, they have only averaged $33.80, from an average viewership of 22.5, or only $1.50 per viewer. So we are now asking our emcees to extend our “Creel” pitch to our online viewers, as well as our in-person attendees.
That situation has not been helped by the fact that would-be streaming viewers have not been able to connect to the FaceBook Live webcast for the last two shows of January. Kathi Caccavale, Bill Henderson, John Mahon and Gary Pratt managed to create a free webcast for those two shows, so some of the disappointed viewers with the patience to wait were able to watch the shows eventually. But that has also created a revenue loss for the Folk Project as well, because all the tickets for those shows had to be refunded. The fault lies with FaceBook, not with any failure of our equipment or procedures. Gary will cover this subject more fully in his Streaming Committee report.
*I will not be able to attend the February meeting.
New bookings since last report.
1. March 17: Folk Project favorite Glen Coleman opening for No Fuss & Feathers
2. March 24: Another FP favorite Andrew Dunn opening for The Kennedys
3. April 7: General populace favorite Christine Lavin
4. May 5: Enrico Granafei A name previously unknown to me, and most of you as well. But an act well worth attending. He is one of the best players of the chromatic harmonica in the world, and known world-wide to Jazz aficionados. He is also a virtuoso guitarist, and has a hands-free harmonica that allows him to play guitar and harmonica simultaneously. He sings too. Don’t miss this show.
5. October 6: Up-and-coming singer songwriter Sam Robbins.
February highlight:
1. February 17: Dead to the Core: A collaboration of top notch acoustic musicians and songwriters presenting acoustic songs of the Grateful Dead, spearheaded by Jeffrey Pepper Rogers, who is also a music journalist. He has interviewed Jerry Garcia and Bob Wier, and will be presenting readings from those interviews and other stories about the band
Mike Agranoff
Program Chair
The Troubadour Acoustic Concert Series
Morristown, NJ. USA
www.Troubadour.FolkProject.org
Addition by John Mahon:
I also wanted to highlight the hard work that Kathi Caccavale is doing to get to the bottom of the problem caused by Facebook. They frequently change the screens used to operate it in an obscure manor with no explanation and no apparent method to sort out a solution. Kathi is dealing with Facebook with "trouble tickets" to get a response from the techs "behind the curtain". This can be a frustrating and time-consuming task. Kathi, thank you for your work here.
John Mahon