IJA Board Meeting- February 13, 2008

1. CALL TO ORDER: Chair Don Lewis called the meeting to order at 8:02 p.m. EST.

2. ROLL:
Present: Don Lewis, Chair; Sandy Brown, Kim Laird, John Satriano, Chuck Hawley, Jerry Martin (board members), Janelle Hawley (Recording Secretary), Martin Frost (Communications Director), Richard Kennison (Festival Director),
Absent: Will Penman

3. APPROVAL OF AGENDA: Kim Laird moved to approve the agenda - agenda was passed by unanimous consent

4. PREVIOUS MINUTES: Chuck Hawley moved to approve the minutes from the January 16, 2008 meeting - minutes passed by unanimous consent

Don Lewis moved to amend the December 5, 2007 minutes. At the December 5th BOD meeting, they approved the minutes from the October 24. However, the minutes currently say they approved the September 12 meeting minutes; instead it should read the October 24 minutes. Motion is passed by unanimous consent

5. REPORTS:
Festival 2008 (Richard Kennison) - Holly Greeley and Richard created a 2008 IJA Festival budget, which is based on the 2007 IJA festival budget. The joggling sight is close to the festival venue.

Store (Sandy Brown) - Naranja put in another video order. The 2007 IJA Festival DVD's have been selling, as well as, IJA Festival t-shirts.

Video (Jeff Peden) - John Satriano relayed that there have been no bids for videographers.

Stage Competition (Chuck Hawley) - A test video has been compiled of different acts from different years for people to test the new judging system.

eNewsletter (Don Lewis) - There is good response about the newsletter. Don needs help writing articles.

World Juggling Day (Dean Wicklund & Barry Rappaport) - Kim Laird relayed that they are looking into producing a WJD T-shirt.

Bylaw Committee (Kim Laird) - The bylaw committee is comprised of Kim, Mini Mansell, Dave Davis, Will Penman, and Mark Bakalor. One of the issues the committee is working on is the article in the bylaws regarding initiation fees. An initiation fee was charged the first year to new members and used to help cover the cost of the magazine. Another issue they are researching is the process to vote on board members.

6. MOTIONS:
6a. John Satriano proposed the creation of a backup copy of the IJA video archives, in 2 segments:

1) Digital video from 1999 to present - This can be copied 'at home' with no loss of original quality. A budget of $1000 for blank tape should be sufficient.
2) VHS and other analog formats from 1979 to 1998 - The initial copy from analog to digital format will involve loss of original quality. These tapes should be copied professionally to preserve the original quality as much as is possible.

Backup copies will be kept by Alan Howard as part of the IJA archives.
Financing for this project will be drawn from the IJA archive fund.

Discussion: We do have funds available to support this project.

Motion is approved by unanimous consent

6b. Kim Laird proposed the adoption of a Juggle Camp as part of the annual IJA fest. This program would require a budget of $0 for 2008.

Juggle Camp at the Annual IJA Festival...
Juggle Camp is part of the IJA Jugglership Program but is also open to any other youth who wants to participate. This is a particularly beneficial program to first-time IJA Fest attendees.

The purpose of Juggle Camp is to introduce young, first-time festival attendees to all the IJA fest has to offer. Even as an adult your first IJA fest can be overwhelming and confusing. Adding some structure to a young fest-goer's day will help to give them direction to their day. The "Juggle Camp Counselor" acts as a guide and mentor. This is someone familiar with the workings of the IJA fest and whom youngsters can approach comfortably in those first days when everything is so new to them.

Juggle Camp runs on the following Daily Schedule:
9am...Group Check-in with "Juggle Camp Counselor(s)" to discuss
Workshops offered that day. Camp attendees select at least one
morning workshop and one afternoon workshop to attend. This
meeting will take approximately 30 to 45 minutes.

When not in a workshop "campers" are expected to spend time practicing and mingling in the gym."Campers" keep a journal of tricks learned, attempted, and experiences each day.

3pm...Group check-in with "Juggle Camp Counselor(s)" to discuss the workshops they attended and demonstrate what they learned that day or what they are working on. Again, this group meeting will take approximately 30 to 45 minutes.

Juggle Camp attendees will meet with the Juggle Camp Counselor(s) for the first time on the free day of the fest. This is a brief introduction where the youngster would be given information about the Juggle Camp Program. There would not be a set meeting time, but rather a designated meeting place.

Camp would actually begin on Tuesday of the fest and run through Saturday. Certificates will be presented to camp attendees at the end of the week to celebrate their accomplishments.

Discussion: There needs to be a provision that the Counselor is not responsible for the child at all times throughout the week. The Counselor is simply a mentor.

Motion is passed by unanimous consent.

6c. Sandy Brown moves that whereby the upcoming trip Sandy is coordinating from February 21-24 in Las Vegas is to begin the categorizing, digitizing, and preserving of the IJA archives, and whereby there is currently $2,500 in the IJA archive fund specifically earmarked for such a project, the Board approve the use of these funds for this trip. No flight or hotel expenses will be spent on this project.

Discussion: The process needs to begin now to start preserving this information. There is one scanner available to us.

Motion is passed by unanimous consent.

7. VARIA

7a. Sandy Brown proposes the following (for discussion):
This is a set of guidelines for any IJA forum moderator for when he or she encounters a post that, in their opinion, contains a personal attack.

1. No edited posts.
(If the context is posts with personal attacks, the above is OK. For other contexts, however, we don't want to preclude the webmaster or other moderators from correcting a post when requested to by the person who made the post. The moderator doesn't have to agree to do such editing but should be allowed to.)
2. The moderator will make invisible the entire post in question and post it in the Moderated Messages Forum for the board to view. Spam can simply be deleted.
3. He/she will contact the poster to notify them of their deleted post and the poster will have the right to remove personal attacks.
4. The poster can post his/her revised post directly. Of course a revised post that still has personal attacks will be removed.
5. The Board will have no involvement in this process unless a removed post seems particularly benign, then the majority vote rule comes into effect.
6. It is up to the moderator to post a message saying a message has been deleted. There may be cases where the moderator does not want to do that and other cases he or she does.

Discussion: There was a question about whether we should have a moderator or not have a moderator. If there is a moderator what are the guidelines for that person to follow. If there is no moderator do we hold the individual member accountable for his or her own actions on the forum; there needs to be enforcement. There was concern about keeping the Webmaster as the moderator due to the time involved with moderating the posts and the consequences that can ensue. Everyone has felt the consequences of a moderated forum because of a few members. The organization has bylaws in place to back up the forum, if necessary.

New Motion: Chuck Hawley proposes that the moderation be ended in the Open Discussion Forum. The board supports all decisions made by the moderators during the period of moderation.

Discussion: The original motion (6c, January 16th, 2008 minutes) proposed by Sandy Brown has been revised to take out the moderation portion of that motion. The question was asked about what to do with the motions that were moderated. The board supports all decisions made during the period of moderation.

Motion is passed by unanimous consent.

8. NEXT MEETING: Next regular BOD meeting will be held on March 12, 2008 at 8:00 p.m. EDT.

9. ADJOURNMENT: Kim Laird moves to adjourn the meeting at 10:01 p.m. EST.

Respectfully submitted by Janelle Hawley.