IJA Board Meeting - May 14, 2002

Called to order 6:20pm PST. Norman joined at 6:22pm PST.

Present: Board chair Paul Richmond; general manager Norm Schneiderman; directors Art Jennings, Martin Frost, Todd Strong, Katje Sabin, Ben Schoenberg, Andy Ford, Bill Ritchie

The agenda was approved as amended.

The minutes of the Nov. 27, 2001, meeting were approved as written, with Katje abstaining.

Staff Reports:

General Manager: Norm reported that both sides are totally in agreement in principle on the JUGGLE magazine contract. We are waiting for our lawyer's final response. Also, the video contract is ready to go and will be sent to Alan Plotkin soon. Also, the work on getting consent forms for the BEST OF videos was progressing.

Festival Coordinator: Ginny Rose turned in a festival report via Paul. The contacts are being made for the 2004 festival. Several sites are being investigated. Reno for 2003 has been signed; Reading 2002 is very close to being signed.

Secretary/Treasurer: Richard Dingman had no specific report.

Committee Reports:

Elections: An elections committee was formed. Bill Ritchie will begin by soliticing members of the committee from the IJA membership. This committee will review existing election procedures and make recommendations to the board regarding these policies.

Committees: The board discussed how committee members should be selected. Normally, anyone who wants to be on a committee would be accepted. The name of a potential new committee person would be submitted to the entire board (e.g., by email to all board members) and if no board member objects within 96 hours, the person is on the committee. If there is any objection, then the whole board would consider the person and decide by majority vote; this decision could be made by email. The board retains control over who is on each committee and can by majority vote (e.g., by email) remove anyone from a committee. Some control of this form is necessary to keep committees from being inundated with too many members, etc.

Membership: The projects that the membership committee is working on right now are: following up on WJD participants, inviting lapsed members to rejoin, reviewing the youth member program, and investigating the issue of dues.

Finance: Dan Southard has resigned from the finance committee. The finance committee has received the adjusted and unaudited statements for 3/31/02. There was a discussion of confidentiality and the importance of committee members understanding which pieces of information coming from the board or developed by the committee are to be kept confidential. The committee will continue to examine the IJA's financial situation and make recommendations to the board, especially with respect to reducing expenses. Martin expressed strong concern about the $37,000 deficit projected by the budget published by Paul. Martin questioned the budget's accuracy with regard to festival expenses. Paul reported that a CPA will be at the IJA office on May 28 to go over our financial systems and set up for a possible audit.

Festival: The festival committee has nothing new to report.

Fundraising: The board directed the fundraising committee to go raise funds. They are looking into several projects, including another life member donation drive.

Old Business:

Job descriptions:
Martin made the following motion and Katje seconded:

The Secretary/Treasurer and the Festival Coordinator are each directed to submit to the entire IJA Board, by June 15, 2002, a list of all activities they do as part of their jobs for the IJA along with the estimated average number of hours and minutes spent on each such activity each week.

The discussion made clear that this information was meant as a step towards creating job descriptions for constructive evaluations.

The motion passed 7-1.
Aye: Art, Martin, Todd, Andy, Paul, Ben, Katje
Nay: Bill

Festival expenses:
Martin made the following motion and Todd seconded:

The Festival Coordinator of the IJA is directed to provide to the entire IJA board, by June 15, 2002, the names of all persons or organizations who, for the 2001 Madison festival, were paid fees or expenses or were granted waivers of part or all of their 2001 Madison festival registration fees. For each such person or organization, the Festival Coordinator will provide: (a) the amount of fees, if any, paid to the person or organization and the reasons therefor; (b) the amount of the person's or organization's expenses reimbursed by the IJA and the reasons therefor; and (c) the amount of IJA registration fees waived for said person or organization and the reasons therefor. The Festival Coordinator will further provide to the entire IJA board the same information indicated above (names, amounts and reasons for the fees, expenses and waivers) for each future IJA festival within 60 days after the end of each such festival.

The motion was amended to add the following statement at the end:

This information will be kept confidential by the board, except to the extent that the board agrees to disclose any of it.

The amended motion passed 5-2-1.
Aye: Martin, Todd, Andy, Ben, Katje
Nay: Bill, Art
Abstain: Paul

Executive session:
The board went into executive session at 8:15pm PST.
The board came out of executive session at 8:29pm PST.

Next meeting: will be Tuesday, May 28, 2002.

Meeting adjourned: 8:30pm PST.

Respectfully submitted,
Katje Sabin, notetaker