Oct 2011 Board Minutes

HONOLULU ACADEMY OF ARTS DOCENT COUNCIL EXECUTIVE BOARD

MEETING MINUTES – Spalding House, October 29, 2011

ATTENDANCE: Jill Clapes, chair; Cathy Levinson, Anna Hoover, Deb Nehmad, Jim

Marsh, Anne Miller, Betsy Robb, Sabra Feldstein,, Dietra Cordea, Dorothy Bicks, Nina Mullally, Cookie Stephan Apologies: Claire Shimabukuro

I. CALL TO ORDER

Meeting called to order by Jill Clapes at 11:10 a.m. with Deb Nehmad sitting in as co president, representing Claire Shimabukuro. Deb and Jill shared the function of facilitating the meeting .

Handouts by Jill Clapes included: Meeting agenda, Treasurer’s report, Bylaws Proposal, Hospitality Report, Docent Room Report, Docent Council Executive Board Roster, Paul Chesney calendar

Lengthy committee reports will be made available posted with the minutes.

ACTION: Membership updates to the Docent Executive Board Council roster made. A list of Officers and and Committees will be posted on the Docent Bulletin Board

II. REPORTS

A. Communications Items

1. Docent Council Meeting dates, times, location discussed and

approved, as follows: Council Meetings will alternate each month

between the third Thursday and third Saturday

November 17th, Thursday, Beretania Campus, 12noon

January 21st, Saturday, Beretania Campus, 11am

February 16th, Thursday, Beretania Campus, 12pm

March 17th Saturday, Beretania Campus, 11am

April 19th, Thursday, Beretania Campus, 12 pm

May 19th, Saturday, Beretania Campus, 11am (tentative)

Docent Luncheon May 17,2012

Suggestion: Post Docent Council meeting minutes on docent website.

2. Brown Bag Open Forums to be held at noon, First Friday of the month.

November meeting to be held instead on Nov.11th @noon,

Discussion: question DOTS participation, review of purpose, how many attend, topics discussed.

Action: Betsy to monitor questions from DOTS related to training issues

3. E-topic Discussion – Topics raised at Open Forums on First Friday to be

discussed on line through monthly e-mail. Docents are invited to respond

to posted questions, online.

Difficulty experienced when not all docents get emails, or posted follow-

up commentary. One’s comments are to be forwarded by using “forward

all” icon.

B. Docent Responsibilities: Items discussed as ordered on Agenda

listing.

DOCENTS:

attend Continuing Education events

Support Peer Evaluation

Encourage inactive Docents to return

Organize and conduct research on exhibitions as needed

Maintain Docent Room

Contribute pertinent information to the Docent Council Website through Jan

Serve on the Docent Board as needed

Work with the Education Department to help construct tours

Partner with new Docents or lapsed Docents on Tours

Organize social events

EDUCATION DEPARTMENT (as it pertains to Docents)

Docent Training for new exhibitions

Schedule Walkthroughs with Curators

Construct School Tours

Maintain Scheduling of Tours and Training

Maintain Web site with pertinent information for Docents

Provide open sessions for Dialogue

Work with Docents to create new educational programing

Train new Docents

Participate in Docent Evaluations

Tour Sign Up - this is a priority for all docents.

Deb is working with Jan Tucker to make calendar sign-up easier, more

comprehensive.

Palace art podcasts are online through docent website. Request made for soonest possible notification for new training

opportunities, new exhibits, new walk-throughs, so that docents can plan

their calenders in a more timely manner.

Report from Docent Room Committee reviewed:

Artists files from Spalding House have been organized and filed in Docent

Room ; to be completed by Nov.6th, thanks to several diligent docent

volunteers.

Lead docents will now pick up Colonial America and Animals in Art

accessories and routing slips in Betsy/Jan’s office. That way Betsy and

Jan will be able to greet docents and affirm presence .

Discussed issue of insufficient DVD for circulation. Need someone to

volunteer to make extra copies . One copy of Spalding house exhibit left up at Spalding House for convenience of those just touring at this place.

Dietra is working on making maps for select galleries re: placement of

each piece of art work with its corresponding artist.

Contribute Information to Docent Website- Deb Nehmad knows how to

do this.

Cathy Levinson - handout of Docent’s Holiday Luncheon reviewed and

details discussed.

Addition of 4 people to Invitee list: Aaron Padilla, Sheryl Kramer, Inger

Tully and Vicky Reisner

Docent Council Treasurer’s Report –Lily Tashima

Balance as of September 30, 2011: $8818.49 Account # 4010

Spalding House Docent account needs to be added.

5. Education Department

Add Docent Evaluations

Aaron Padilla, Curator of Education at Spalding House and Vince Hazen Director at Linekona

C. NEW BUSINESS

Orientation Tours for TCM Docents

Suggestion for repeat of Beretania Campus orientation tours for

logistics purposes for Spalding House Docents. Suggest 3 Saturday sessions, about 10:30 a.m.

Deb will utilize doodle.com to organize these tours.

Proposal for Bylaws Exploratory Committee - Dietra Cordea

Bylaws Exploratory Committee Proposal submitted by Dietra

Cordea, 10/29/11 reviewed by all council members present. It read:

“Whereas the merger is still defining itself, I propose two docents from the HAA Council and two docents from the TCM Council be approached with a view to be nominated by these boards to explore and investigate issues to be included in a future joint by-laws for the docent council. Examples of issues to be explored are: requirements of the national Docent Organization, does the Museum Accreditation have requirements of docents, degree of self-governance by the docent board, how the docent board and council can facilitate museum staff through communications and self-monitoring, should dues be collected and if so how much and what for, on-going committees that will need a leader to report to the board, conduct informal survey of respective docent council body

looking for desires and expectations of the board,etc ( additional issues can be put forward as they arise and come to mind)

Purpose of this proposal is to gain knowledge and be prepared should and when the time comes to draft the by-laws.”

The Council amended the proposal to read:

Whereas the affect of the merger is still defining itself, I propose two docents from the former HAA docent council and two docents from the former TCM docent council be approached with a view to be nominated by the executive board to explore and investigate issues to be included in future by-laws for the docent council. Examples of issues to be explored are; requirements of the National Docent Organization, does the Museum Accreditation have requirements of docents, degree of self governance by the docent board, how the docent board and council can facilitate museum staff through communications and self monitoring, should dues be collected and if so how much and what for, on-going committees that will need a leader to report to the board, conduct informal surveys of respective docent council body looking for docent desires and expectations of the board, etc. (additional issues can be put forward as they arise and come to mind).

The purpose for this proposal is to gain knowledge and be prepared should and when the time comes to draft the by-laws.

The Council discussed the proposal as amended. The Executive Board discussed that while a future governing structure needs to be considered, the early stage of a developing Docent Council calls for patience and clarity before immediately framing a form of governance. Currently operating without bylaws has not hindered operations at this point. We are meeting the needs of the business at hand which is the orientation of the new Docent body to giving tours on unfamiliar campuses and navigating new procedures for tour sign ups and scheduling.

It was suggested that too much digression into the pursuit of bylaws would be a distraction from the most important task at hand, learning and giving tours in new settings.

The Council did open the discussion to propose to accept some kind of Docent Governance Exploratory Committee . Participation in this Committee would be open to interested members of the Docent Council, the number and approval of these members on the research team to be decided by the Executive Board of the Docent Council. Suggested avenues of research could be other museums, National Docent Guidelines, and needs of the existing Museum we serve.

Betsy reminded Council members of Draft Guidelines for HAA Docent

Council for 2011-2012, on the Docent Website. The guidelines have Stephan

Jost’s input.

Action: Motion by Anne Miller to develop a committee to explore and

investigate issues for future bylaws or governance consideration, as posted above. Nina Mullally seconded the motion. Motion passed; Jim Marsh voted no.

Meeting adjourned at 12:30 p.m.

Respectfully submitted,

Dorothy A. Bicks, Docent Council Secretary Next meeting: Thursday, November 17th, noon, Beretania, lecture hall.

Stephan Jost Follow-up email:

Hello Jill, Deborah, Sabra, Judie, Jim, Dorothy, Nina, Lily, Dietra, Marilyn, Anne, Cookie, Kit, Anna, Laura, and Claire,

This is Stephan and I am writing on Betsy's computer. I heard that there was a meeting last weekend which ended with some friction and frustration. There has been so much good happening I was saddened to hear this. That said, we are where we are and need to move forward.

Here are my thoughts. First, we need to have everyone focused on how to serve our pubic. Next, the docent leadership reports to Betsy who has the job to ensure that the highest quality training program is in effect and that the systems are in place to ensure that public demand is met by great tours from a strong docent corps (which is what Jan does). Additionally, there are other areas where our education staff, working with docents, can help our mission. Things like using technology, developing quality programming for Gallery 30 and Spalding House and events like Art After Dark and Question Art are key. There is SO VERY much to do, I am at a loss why the conversation moves to internal issues and becomes political in a negative way for some.

I am fearful that some of our best docents will find better uses for their time if we don't focus on our educational mission.

Recently the conversation among some of the docents has been pretty internal by which I mean focused more on us than upon our public. My goal, again, is to make sure the docents are working to support the mission of the the Academy of Arts. As I say again and again, this is not about me, or our staff but about our public.

I can help spell spell out the values that I hold deeply if it will help to either the docent leadership or the group as a whole. Once we get everyone working in the same direction, I am game to have a conversation about the structures of docents group but I want to see clear evidence that we are all focused on our public before we move to this part of our growth. If we don't have a sense of public service when we figure out our structure the result will most likely be self serving. Ideally we will get to this point in early summer.

There is so much we are working on that is great.

Stephan