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Regular Board Meeting May 18, 2011 @ 8:15pm Eastern Time...
1. CALL TO ORDER: Chair Kim Laird called the meeting to order at 8:18 p.m. EST.
2. ROLL:
Present: Kim Laird (Chair), Matt Hall, Richard Kennison, Kevin McBeth, Thom Wall, Erin Stephens, Brandi Axtell (recording secretary), Mike Sullivan (Future fest director, 2011 fest director), Martin Frost (joined call later)
Absent: Kevin Axtell, Erin Stephens, Brandi Axtell (recording secretary)
3. APPROVAL OF AGENDA: Thom W. moved to approve the agenda for May 18, 2011. Second by Matt H. Approved unanimously.
4. APPROVAL OF MINUTES: ____ moved to approve the minutes from April 27, 2011. Second by ____.
Motion to table approval of April 17, 2011 minutes. Motion: Matt H. Second: Thom W.
5. REPORTS:
2011 Fest (Mike Sullivan)...
The 2011 IJA Festival begins two months from today's date, just 61 days from today!
REVENUE
Hotel bookings and registrations are not where I'd like them to be. We are well under our hotel room-night goals at both hotels, showing just 72% toward our goal at the DoubleTree and a pitiful 19% toward our goal at the Hilton Garden Inn. I suspect a good many of our registered jugglers so far have booked lodging at hotels just outside of downtown, or at other hotels downtown.
Our big risk here is that if we do not attain 90% of our contracted block at the DoubleTree, IJA will lose a number of comped rooms we are counting on for housing of our special guests and some staff. Losing our comped rooms at the DoubleTree would cost the IJA several thousand dollars we'd have to spend to house our Special Guests and staff.
With a little over five weeks left before our blocks release, I need to put a push on to get reservations up at both hotels, but mostly at the DoubleTree. One idea I have is to send out an incentive in the next IJA eNews: reserve your festival hotel room by May June 7 and e-mail a copy of your reservation confirmation to me by then, and you'll get an extra festival t-shirt free when you get to Rochester and show your room key and check-in slip at the IJA table. Does anyone have any other ideas for a little incentive we can put out there to get people to make their hotel rezzies NOW?
On the registration front, I'm also concerned that as of today we have only 250 packages sold; just six Special Workshops have been sold, and none of the special publicity photo sittings have been sold. I am starting to think that $4.00/gallon gas prices, the general economy, and the cost of a whole week at an IJA festival is impacting our ability to sell packages.
In Sparks, we had a comparably small number of packages sold, but wound up with a lot of walk-in, day-pass and individual ticket sales at the fest itself, indicating that many people are unable or unwilling to commit in advance to an entire week at the fest, but instead buy their fest experience in bits and pieces as they are able.
Early registration closes June 30. Our hotel room blocks release on June 26. I will be doing everything I can to get a lot more action on both registrations and hotel reservations between now and then.
EXPENSE
On the costs side of the budget, I am seeing now that I will run over my budget for guest performer travel, probably by a few thousand dollars. The reason is that this year, we are bringing in an unprecedented number of acts from overseas -- Europe and Africa -- and other performers are requesting "open jaw" itineraries for their travel to the IJA fest, meaning they are starting their trip in one city and winding up in different city on the outbound leg. That is affecting ticket costs, as well as the sheer number of performers we have.
I'm about mid-way through booking all our special guests, but as of today I've spent $6,200 of my $10k budget on guest travel, with probably another $6,000 or so to go. I have another budget bucket I can use to cover the overage (Guest / VIP Housing not comped), but I'll do whatever I can to keep as close to my original budget for guest travel as possible. Overall, I have $20,950 budgeted for all travel for the fest, with $13.6k left to spend and still be on budget.
Don Higgins of Higgins Brothers juggling equipment very generously came forward with an offer to sponsor the access control wristbands for this year. Don and I worked together on our needs and within a few days, everything was settled and I'm glad to say that thanks to their sponsorship, IJA will have zero costs this year for access control. A small Higgins Brothers logo will appear alongside "IJA Rochester 2011" on each wristband.
The next 30 days are the super-crunch time for our expense items and supplies ordering. I'll be doing all of the following in the next two to three weeks:
- Finalizing the festival artwork and logo and paying our outside designer for their work on that.
- Placing our order for the show carpeting and vendor tables and chairs -this requires a 50% deposit with the order, which will be about $7,000.
- Sending in our show ticket specifications to the Mayo Civic Center box office, so they can produce ticket stock we'll use to stuff registration packets as well as sell on-line through TicketMaster.com and the MCC box office.
- Pre-ordering t-shirts.
- Selecting and ordering volunteer gifts for our hard-working volunteers.
- Double-checking on all our awards needs: trophies, plaques and medals.
- Creating flight and shuttle bus manifests for all the ground transportation logistics for our special guests.
- Creating hotel rooming lists for our special guests and staff, and welcome letter packets for all the volunteers and special guests.
- Re-confirming arrangements with the Rochester Fire Department for our fire nights; same for Rochester PD and city Traffic Engineer for our parade; same for Rochester Downtown Alliance for our Thursdays on First stage with the Planting the Juggling Seed show
- Writing most of the festival program and pre-writing many newsletter blurbs and show program layouts and boilerplate.
iiWii Fest Fun Fund Committee (Matt Hall)... Some have asked how they are to pay for the things they need to order/buy. Mike prefers they not have to front their own money and be reimbursed at the fest. Kim has a debit card which can be used for fun fund purchases. We can then move the money from iiWii Fun Fund at the bank to the general fund to track purchases. Matt had told the committee members that if possible they should make purchases and present receipts for reimbursements but if not this plan will work. How will honorariums work? There would be a check issued so there is a paper trail.
Future Festivals (Mike Sullivan)... Reports coming from Lexington, KY and Richmond, VA. We will have those two and Bowling Green when we get to Rochester to make a decision for 2013. Pretty sure Rochester will give us a proposal to return. Many cities are vying for our attention and business.
Financial (Kevin McBeth & Holly Greeley)... List of checks needed for the fest prior to the fest if possible. Reviewed 990. Accountant will review the 990 before it is filed. Financial statements for 2010 and Q1 2011 are up on the website.
Website Team (David Landowne, Martin Frost, Mike Sullivan)... As of meeting date iiWii approved the expenditure for working with an AMS consultant and has made this additional donation. Wes Trochill will begin working with the website team and the board after the festival in Rochester is over. Board will then be presented "Good/Better/Best" scenario. Looking at early 2012 for completion of project. We could not have done this without iiWii's financial support of the project.
Membership (Marilyn Sullivan)...
# records 1277
# members 1531
# youths 85
# families 180
# Life 280
Fest
# regs 250
# benefit shows 77
# special workshops 6
# photo shoots 0
# vendors 5
# full comps 21
# partial comps 1
Marketing/Promotions (Thom Wall)... WJD number one on his radar. Asking that motion to approve funds for shirts be approved tonight. Shirts will not have an "expiration date" on them. General IJA vintage shirts. All information on the website soon. Tutorial contest prizes are going out. Working with Niels Duinker on fresh text for KASKADE.
7. MOTIONS FOR CONSIDERATION:
A. Motion to approve cost of shipping original videos to archives with expenses to be taken from the Archive Fund.
Motion:
Thom W.
Second: Matt H.
Discussion: Straw poll held online
which received four affirmative votes.
Vote: approved unanimously
B. Motion to approve the plan, as outlined in Attachment A, to begin the magazine contract bid process.
Motion:
Thom W.
Second: Richard K.
Discussion: Kim put this together
after discussion and research on other organizations and what they
do. This is just a start to get a bid process in place. It was
expressed it's a good start. Kevin McBeth questioned how many
magazines were mailed and it was then suggested and agreed that the
number be dropped from 1600 minimum to 1300 minimum. We need to be
able to buy more if membership numbers go up. 50 magazines sent to
the archive each issue. How do we approach vendors for this? This is
the most formal process (if approved) we have used for the magazine
since Kim has been on the board. Closest was Sandy and Kim
approaching companies two contracts ago and asked for bids. Kim
expressed the need for more structure to the process. Matt likes the
formalization of the process but we need to have even more discussion
about whether the IJA can even still offer a magazine. Comments Matt
has heard is festival and dues are too high and feels we need to deal
with those problems first and maybe forego the magazine for now. Matt
is looking ahead to the August and October discussions on this topic.
Argentinia/Chile digital magazine sent by Matt to the board. Thom
agrees with Matt in print vs. digital but feels it needs to be a
process and not sharp change. Alan Howard emailed Kim the MAGIC
Magazine iPad app. Something different to think about. Martin
commented going digital doesn't really save us much money. Thom
expressed layout can be stripped for a big cost savings if we go
digital but admitted this is discussion for another time. Thom thikns
it's prudent to look for someone who can fit our needs but we also
need to look to the future.
Vote: approved unanimously
C. Motion to approve up to $650 for IJA shirts for use on WJD YEP fundraiser.
Motion:
Thom W.
Second: Richard K.
Discussion: Thom has one donation to
help cover these costs and Erin will be looking at the YEP fund to
see how that fund can help. If debit card is needed call Kim and then
Kevin and Holly will take care of what fund provides the actual
funds.
Vote: approved unanimously
VARIA:
1. youth jugglerships announcements...
Zach Waggoner
Austin, Texas
15 years old
Nathan Lane
15 years old
Kellin Quinn Hentoff-Killian
Florssant, Missouri
14 years old
Blayk Puckett
Heber Springs, Arkansas
15 years old
2. IRC in Mexico – Medals are being delivered to Erin. Digital mock-up looks "sweet." Plan on major article in JUGGLE among other publicity. Competitor profiles and other "fluff" pieces on facebook and such to get across to public what we are trying to do with the IRC. Matt will be videoing the entire trip. All indications are that our current insurance will cover the event in Mexico. Kim will check directly with our insurance company to confirm this.
NEXT MEETING: Next regular BOD meeting will be held June 15, 2011 at 8:15 pm eastern time.
10. ADJOURNMENT: Matt H. moved to adjourn the meeting. Second by Thom W. Meeting adjourned at 9:36 pm eastern time.
Attachment A... Presented by: Kim Laird
I propose that the following procedure and timeline be followed in advertising and procuring bids for the IJA magazine:
June 1, 2011... Advertise a call for bids for the IJA magazine on the IJA forum, IJA Facebook, and the June eNewsletter. The call for bids is proposed to read as follows: "The IJA Board of Directors is seeking bids for the IJA magazine. The contract for such magazine is to begin on January 1, 2012. Length of contract is negotiable. Interested parties are to email board@juggle.org to receive the complete bid packet no later than July 1, 2011.
June 15, 2011... A second call for bids for the IJA magazine to be placed on the IJA forums and IJA Facebook proposed to read as follows: "This is the second call for bids for the IJA magazine. The contract for such magazine is to begin on January 1, 2012. Length of contract is negotiable. Interested parties are to email board@juggle.org to receive the complete bid packet no later than July 1, 2011.
July 1, 2011... All bid packet requests must be made by this date. An announcement will be made on the IJA forum, IJA Facebook and eNewsletter that the bid deadline has passed.
July 20, 2011... Deadline for bids to be submitted by email to the IJA Board of Directors. This will be during the festival in Rochester, MN. By making the deadline on this date it will allow the new board to read and discuss the submitted bids in person. It is understood that a final decision will not be made at the festival but it will be the start of discussion and a chance to sort through any and all bids.
August and September 2011... The board will continue to discuss and vote on an acceptable bid (or go back to the drawing board) and begin formal contract negotiations with winning bidder.
October 2011... Target date for magazine contract approval vote.
IJA Magazine
Bid Form
Date: June 1, 2011
Bid Documents For:
IJA Magazine – Four Issues per Year
Project: The scope of work involves furnishing all of the required labor, materials, equipment, implements, parts and supplies necessary for, or appurtenant for four issues each year of the IJA Magazine, beginning January 1, 2012 until a date specified in final contract negotiations.
Contact Person: IJA Board of Directors (board@juggle.org)
Bid Opening: All bids are due no later than 11:59pm eastern time on Wednesday, July 20, 2011. Bids shall be submitted by email to board@juggle.org and must include "IJA Magazine Bid" in the subject line.
All bidders must use this form and fill out completely. Two samples of completed jobs similar to IJA Magazine must be included with the form.
Bidder Name: _________________________________________________________
Bidder Address: _______________________________________________________
City, State, Zip: _______________________________________________________
Bidder Email Address: __________________________________________________
Print Name of Person Completing Form: ____________________________________
Signature &Title Person Completing Form: __________________________________
**change # from 1600 to 1300