PRESENT: Paul Richmond, Chairman; Art Jennings, Braidy Brown, Norman Schneiderman (acting CAO), Martin Frost, Todd Strong, Board Members; Becky Schneiderman, recorder.

ABSENT: Ginny Rose, Festival Coordinator; Richard Dingman, Secretary/Treasurer.

Ben Schoenberg and Katje Sabin have not joined the meeting yet.

1. Paul presents information given by Ginny and Richard.

FESTIVAL 2001

Ginny has been assured the hotel under construction will be completed by the end of April.

Negotiations regarding theatre selection are ongoing due to the Madison club wanting to use the expensive theater. Fundraising is in progress. Ginny has negotiated some savings in a few areas.

FESTIVAL 2002

It doesn't appear that Davis, CA, will be a possibility for the festival, as all weekends in July and the first couple weekends in August are already booked. Ginny is putting out feelers in search of an alternate site. It was suggested Martin post a request for ideas on the web page. Other sites previously mentioned include Reno and South Carolina. Martin wondered exactly what dates Ginny targeted for Davis, CA, and wants to confirm they are not available.

Paul said he would send Martin the letter Ginny received from Davis, CA.

Braidy indicated that it would be favorable to have more than one site from which to choose.

The goal is to have a site selected so it can be announced at Madison this summer.

BOARD MEMBER EXPENSES

Hotel accommodations and food have been budgeted for board members. Travel to the festival has not. Martin and Katje are in favor of travel expenses being paid, Todd is not, and Ben has said before he is leaning towards not.

JOB DESCRIPTIONS

Work continues on developing job descriptions for Festival Coordinator, Secretary/Treasurer and CAO.

MAILING LIST

We received a request to send the regional IJA mailing list electronically to a festival organizer so he could print the addresses directly on mailers. Richard feels the labels should be sent each time to affiliates rather than the mailing list to protect members from potential misuse and unwanted solicitation. A discussion among those present included other suggestions: asking the membership directly via check boxes on their membership registration as to whether they want their name included on a mailing list that might be shared for certain purposes (e.g., festival notices, products, etc.); and making e-mail addresses available to festival coordinators only and requiring them to sign a waiver of intent. More to be discussed at another time after asking members.

A potential recipient of the Historical Achievement Award was discussed.

Ben Schoenberg and Katje Sabin, joined the meeting.

2. BOARD STRUCTURE

Most discussion should be occurring at the committee level rather than with the full board. Committees need to have regular meetings and report to the board at meetings. Nothing should come to the board before being approved by the committee. Proposals and recommendations along with the agenda, should go out to the board members at least a week prior to board meetings. Committee chairs need to rein in discussions and facilitate proposal development.

Board members are requested to acknowledge that they are receiving and reading all communications, even if just to say they agree with what has been said or that they are thinking, need more information or have questions, etc.

A discussion was held on clarifying staff's and board members' roles in getting work done on financial statements, video contracts, board minutes, etc., and on having clear lines of responsibility and accountability.

Another concern was that of burn out, of taking on too much work and then not wanting to serve on the board anymore. One suggestion was to end meetings with a clear idea of the tasks at hand, the time lines for their completion, and who is responsible, in order to avoid the confusion and frustration over whether things are getting done or not.

Also discussed was that the board needs to focus its energy, it has many irons in the fire at this time. People are expecting things to happen too quickly. We need to prioritize the issues and to see the big picture. Many board members are on several committees making it difficult to focus on an issue and resolve them. Issues which need to be prioritized are hiring a CAO, Life Membership, fund raising, magazine contract, the video contract and the best of video proposal.

The board discussed whether an executive committee should be formed to handle issues and emergencies which come up between meetings. Information would go out to all board members who could be contacted for input but the executive committee ultimately would have the authority to act in the Association's best interest when issues can't wait and all board members can't be reached. No decision was made.

3. BUDGET

The budget was put out to the financial committee for over two weeks and to the board for over one week. There has been little discussion so far. Questions were raised regarding large differences between last year and this year. Norman will go through and explain them.

The budget was sent back to committee.

4. MINUTES FROM JANUARY 29, 2001

All board members are requested to review the latest version of the minutes. All comments regarding the minutes are to be made by Friday, March 2. Martin will draw up a third draft.

5. JUGGLE MAGAZINE

The board discussed someone's unpaid bill to JUGGLE magazine for ads. Norman will look into it.

Stan Allen wants the IJA to share in the cost of single issue sales. Single issue sales may be hurting membership if people can buy the magazine at the newsstand. The board will discuss via the net the pros and cons and make comments by Friday, March 2, so the magazine committee can develop a consensus.

6. BYLAWS

Paul has sent a copy of the Family Member bylaw changes to all board members and has presented them to Sam Kilbourne for legal comment. Paul is waiting for response from all board members and will let Martin know when the changes are official so the bylaws on the web page can be updated.

Katje knows someone is interested in working on the bylaws. They need to be updated and some parts need to be clarified and made more concise.

7. FUNDRAISING

Todd reports the fundraising committee has been working on a coupon program. He will try to have a proposal together for the next board meeting.

8. VIDEO

Norman, as Acting CAO, is negotiating a contract for a videographer for the Madison fest.

Martin is in discussion with Alan Plotkin regarding his proposal to produce "Best Of The Championships" videos.

9. ROSTER

It was found that the Roster's geographical listing was mistakenly printed with last year's data. An apology will be posted in the Insider as well as on the web page. Norman, Acting CAO, and Richard will investigate to find the source of the error.

After it is determined how the error happened, ideas will be discussed on how to publish the correct geographical data.

10. WORLD JUGGLING DAY

The Web Site is nearly ready.

11. BOARD MEETINGS

Next meeting will be March 26 at 9:00 p.m. EST. Braidy will not be available to participate as he will be in Ireland. Some board members are not comfortable with all staff not participating. A request was made that Ginny be at meetings as festival time draws near. All staff are available to answer questions as they arise.

12. ACTIONS

Becky will post the first draft of the minutes by Friday, March 2. All comments are to be made by the end of one week from posting after which time Becky will post a second draft.

Committee, board and staff reports should be sent to the entire board by Monday, March 19. An agenda will be sent to board members by March 24, listing proposals to be voted upon at the March 26 meeting. Reports and proposals will include (but not be limited to):

• Approval of the Feb. 26, 2001 meeting minutes
• Member comments & communications (sharing of letters, emails, etc.)
• CAO report - Norm
• Sect./treas. report - Richard
• Festival report - Ginny
• Executive Committee discussion
• Finance committee report - budget
• Fundraising committee report - coupons, general donations
• Magazine committee report - single issue sales, contract
• Membership committee - brochures, incentives, Life Membership
• Video committee (Norman and Martin) - contract negotiations and the Best Of video proposal
• Web report - Martin
• WJD report - Martin
• Affiliates report - Katje
• CAO selection committee (Paul, Martin, Todd and Katje) - proposal presented by mid-March

MEETING ADJOURNED 10:44pm EST.