The meeting was called to order at 8:17 PM on November 4th  by President Elizabeth Lachowicz.  This meeting was held via Zoom.

ROLL CALL

Present: Mike Agranoff, Loretta Brooks, Jeff Canter, Todd Dennison, Paul Fisher, Doug Heacock, Allan Kugel, Elizabeth Lachowicz, John Mahon, George Otto, Sandie Reilly, Tina Ross, Mark Schaffer, Robin Schaffer, Jean Scully, Pamela Zave 

Absent: Christine DeLeon, Sam Edelston, Jeff Jonas, Bob McNally   

Guests:  None

MOTIONS MADE

• The minutes of the October 2025 monthly meeting were approved (with clarified wording on the Newsletter committee report) with two abstentions.  Motion by Jeff Canter, second by Mike Agranoff.

• A motion to adjourn was made at 9:51 PM and approved unanimously.

ADMINISTRATIVE OVERVIEW 

• Secretary

  • A motion was entered to accept the minutes of the October 2025 meeting with corrections to the wording of the Newsletter report.  It was approved with two abstentions.   

• Treasurer

  • A written report was submitted.

OLD BUSINESS

• Question on Quorums

  • As promised, Jeff Canter spoke with Steve Humphreys and it is confirmed that having 7 Board members present, of whom 4 are Trustees, constitutes a quorum.  This is one third of the total board of whom 4 must be Trustees.

• Nominations Committee

  • Jean covered the written report with the list of proposed nominations..  

  • Jeff Canter has agreed to stand for the position of Secretary.

  • Marshal Chaifetz  will stand for completing the two remaining years of Christine DeLeon's term as Trustee.

  • Steve Humphreys is nominated as Trustee through 2028, replacing Allan Kugel, who decided to not stand for another term.

    • Elizabeth thanked Allan for his decades of service to the Board.

    • Jeff Canter and Paul Fisher have also been re-nominated for another 3-year term ending in 2028.

  • .The Board voted unanimously to approve the slate provided by the Nominations Committee.

  • Additional organizational changes.

    • Ken Galipeau will take over running the Getaway as a subcommittee under Special Events.

    • Andrew Dunn is proposing that the Big Orange Tarp (BOT), which originated at Falcon Ridge, become a subcommittee of Special Events dedicated to providing a Folk Project-sponsored venue for emerging artists at festivals and events like NERFA.

  • Future of the Newsletter

    • George asked that the Board consider the long term future of the Newsletter, as people have a lot of other ways to get information.

    • He is concerned what will happen when he steps away as he has the software and knowledge to do the layout work.

    • Elizabeth and Pamela both said that succession planning is needed in all Committees and Venues and it should be ongoing.

NEW  BUSINESS

• None

COMMITTEE REPORT HIGHLIGHTS 

Open Stage

• Todd had nothing to report.

Membership

• Todd has found web-based membership software and is in discussion with the company that makes it.

• He plans to have it in place for January 1st but be able to run the existing process in parallel.

• People will be able to check their membership at the front desk for concert discounts, renewals, etc.

  • Like a virtual membership card with automated expiration notices.

  • Renewal notices will be sent out automatically via email.

  • Each member gets to manage their own membership, relieving the Membership committee of a lot of its work.

• The software is called Membership Toolkit.

• Todd will work with John Lamb to integrate it into our website.

• Allan asked about the privacy of our data

  • Todd confirmed that we will be paying for the software and our data will be private to us but hosted on their server.

  • No data will be sold and no marketing will be done to our list by any third party.

Sound Reinforcement

• John stood on his report.

• Elizabeth thanked him for his work on the Halloween Show.

Newsletter

• George stood on his report.

Publicity/Web

• Sam was not present because he is a poll worker.

• Sent a written report.

Special Events and Troubadour

• In November, Mark and Ken will start working on booking for Spring Getaway.

• High school senior Tatiana Olivares is our new Sound Reinforcement intern.

  • She is studying Audio Visual Production and taking classes at Morris County College as part of the program.

• We should think about creating an intern position for editing and posting Instagram videos.

  • Mark will talk to the Guidance Counselor at the high school.

• Marshal will be given a few days in the upcoming year to learn how we do booking.

• Allan asked about the part of Mark’s report where performer bonuses are mentioned.  

  • He is concerned about being too generous and risking having to close.  

  • Too many other venues are now gone.

  • Mark said we stayed afloat during CoViD because of the generosity of Bill Henderson and Mike Agranoff.

  • Mark said we are ahead by $17K for the year and paying better will get us better performers who will also come back repeatedly.

  • We are currently booked over six months out with more performers seeking spots than we can handle.

  • It is good to be able to pay more for better performers.

Troubadour Staffing

• Jean told us we’ve had some more new volunteers show up in the last month and a half.

• Some have turned out to be quite wonderful.

• Some volunteers have asked about bringing a friend to help but Jean is uncomfortable about having people working who are not formal volunteers because of potential liability issue.

• For a while, Jean has wanted to add audio in the lobby for the volunteers to hear the show.

  • Paul said the video to the TV is done with a Chromecast.

  • Jean said she tried using the Afton stream, but it is not listenable because it is not synchronous with what is live in the room.

• The Halloween Show was wonderful thanks to the great volunteers.  

  • Bob with the food and decorations.

  • People liked the photo booth

  • George asked for pics and an article for Newsletter.

  • Mike suggested that pictures be captioned if we add them to the slideshow.

• Mike suggested we have volunteer name tags.

Horses Sing None of It

• Sandie is going to NERFA to try the first run of the new Horses format.

  • Mostly fixed cameras and then doing editing on the recordings to get a show.

  • They will set up at the Big Orange Tarp (BOT) showcase during the daytime.

  • They will also have a presence in the Exhibit Hall.

• Jean reported that when she googles some performers lately, links to the Horses shows come up.

Future Planning

• Robin rested on her written report.

Addendum to NomCom Report

• Jean pointed out that, in listing some of the non-voting committee chairs in the Nominations Committee report, she omitted Gary Pratt as chair of the Streaming Sub-committee.  Gary has been doing a great job and she apologized for the oversight.

LAST MINUTE DISCUSSIONS

• None

ADJOURNMENT

The meeting  was adjourned at  9:51  PM.  Next month’s meeting is December 2nd, at 8:15 PM, via Zoom. 

Submitted by Paul Fisher

FUTURE PLANNING

NEWSLETTER

NOMINATIONS COMMITTEE

OPEN STAGE

PUBLICITY

SOUND REINFORCEMENT

STREAMING CONCERTS

SWINGIN' TERN

TROUBADOUR AND SPECIAL EVENTS