IJA Board Meeting- April 16, 2008

1. CALL TO ORDER: Chair Don Lewis called the meeting to order at 8:04 p.m. EDT.

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), Holly Greeley (Treasurer), Anthony Shave (Board Candidate)
Absent: Will Penman (Board Member)

3. APPROVAL OF AGENDA: The video digitization project is going to require an extra $500 funding which has been added to the agenda.
Kim Laird moved to approved the agenda with the addition - agenda was approved by unanimous consent.

4. PREVIOUS MINUTES: John Satriano moved to approve the minutes from the March 12, 2008 meeting - Jerry Martin abstained from the vote.
The minutes were approved with the abstention.

5. REPORTS:
Festival 2008 (Richard Kennison) - The festival program is being worked on. The joggling location has been secured at a nearby location to the Lexington festival, Richard worked with Bill Giduz. The Shriner's show (to benefit the community) will be held in the theatre on Tuesday night. The festival promo packets are completed. The Welcome show will be held in the Convention Center. The Juggling Seed show could possibly be held outside, weather permitting, there will be further discussion. So far, 215 Adult event packages have been sold. There have been 56 Youth event packages sold. There are no youth group registrations. There are 4 gym admissions and 2 vendors registered.

Don Lewis proposed that in order to accommodate jugglers who do not wish to join the IJA, the IJA will offer non-member festival prices. The cost for the full festival package will be the non-discounted at-the-door IJA member price plus $50. The cost for a single day gym pass for non-members will be the non-discounted at-the-door IJA member price plus $10.

Discussion: There were questions raised about whether or not this is going to be utilized by people and how it will affect the festival attendance. It's been a tradition that you have to be a member to attend the festival. This is something that could be let up to the festival director to decide whether or not they want to use it and if it would work for the festival. It's not a good idea to start it this year; we've had no chance to promote it or set it up effectively. It would also affect the Annual Meeting attendance and figuring out who is a member and who is not. There needs to be further investigation. There's also the possiblity that someone could be made a member at the festival and then resign after the festival. Monday of the festival is available for people to come in and check it out and see what the festival is all about. A suggestion was made to amend the motion to talk to future festival directors about it. The board is not completely against the motion; the timing is just not right now.

No one is against withdrawing the motion.
Motion withdrawn.

Finance (Holly Greeley) - A suggestion was made to revisit the budget due to festival registrations so far. The 4th quarter 2007 financial statements are posted on the website. The 990 has not been started yet. The 1st quarter 2008 financials will be done as soon as Holly gets more information from people. The treasurer position might be better split into different positions and duties due to time and compiling restraints. Holly suggests having a board member be the treasurer and then being a liaison and coordinator to the rest of the volunteers. Then have at least 2 bookkeepers; 1 to pay bills and the other to handle Paypal transactions, especially during festival registration time. Then hire a person to complete the 990 and compile the annual report. Then the treasurer can do the bank reconciliations. Holly's intention is to get through the festival and then turn everything over to the next volunteers at the festival.

Membership (Jim Maxwell) - Via email, the Membership total is 1611 as of April 16, 2008.

Store (Sandy Brown) - Nothing new to report.

Video (Jeff Peden via John Satriano) - John has delivered tapes to the duplicator, some of the tapes are more expensive to transfer over then originally thought. The Umatics are not going to get done this year, they are expensive. The total will come to $5000, which is $500 more than the original estimate. It covers the cost to rent the machine to actually view the footage. We'll put those we cannot convert aside and complete the videos we can convert.

John Satriano moved to allocate another $500 for the video digitization project. Motion was approved to spend the extra $500.

There is major progress on videographers for Lexington. Contracts are being set up with Ivan Pecel, Jay Ko, and Jon Hinkey.

Stage Competition (Chuck Hawley) - There have been 16 test DVD's sent out to various members to test the new judging system and work out kinks, if needed. About half of them have been returned with feedback. Judging selection is also being considered for Lexington.

World Juggling Day (Dean Wicklund & Barry Rappaport via Kim Laird) - They are waiting for a t-shirt design so shirts can be produced. The IJA donations have been made official and are located on the website. The WJD website is up and running and registration is open. The 2007 sponsers need to be taken off the website until the new 2008 sponserships have been completed.

eNewsletter (Don Lewis) - The enewsletter will be coming out in the next few days. It will contain articles on festival buzz, archive donations, and the vendor director volunteer position is still open. Also, it would be a good idea to include information on donating to the IJA and have a link available to donate on the IJA homepage, since the IJA is a 501c3 non-profit organization and donations are tax-deductible.

Bylaw Committee (Kim Laird) - Nothing to report.

Forums (Sandy Brown) - The forums are "relatively" better since the Open Discussion forum is not moderated. Members have been able to get passwords to the forum quicker than before. It was a good move to go members only on the Open Discussion forum.

Youth Jugglership (Kim Laird) - The update is that 1 application came in from a girl in Salt Lake City, UT. The Committee is pleased with the prospect. Kim is expecting one more application. The Committee is willing to extend the deadline since it is the first year and people are still learning about the program.

6. MOTIONS:
6a. Don Lewis moved that Steve Rahn be appointed Chief Teller for the Lexington 2008 election.

Discussion: He did a great job last year.
Motion is passed by unanimous consent.

6b. Don Lewis moved that the IJA roster be changed from a protected PDF format, to an unprotected format as a convenience to members.

Discussion: It makes email addresses too easy to collect; which can lead to spam for members. Right now, members can send requests for email addresses to the Membership team and they will send them out specifically to that person. You currently cannot search or find email addresses easily on the roster. We need to expedite the availability of the email addresses to people who need them, but still protect the members. We could add some policy on the motion specifying what can be sent out and what cannot be sent out. What happens if email addresses start getting in the wrong hands and a mass email is sent out to the membership that shouldn't be. Right now there is no policy actually stating how they can use the roster email addresses. It should be for member use only and no mass emailing beyond juggling festival notification. There should be more discussion on the forums on this topic.

Motion is tabled till next meeting.

6c. John Satriano moved that Mike Sullivan be appointed Festival Director for the 2009 Winston-Salem festival.

Discussion: He did a good job as Memberships Director. One of Mike's concerns is getting guests and shows together. John said he would help fill that role. Mike is a good communicator and is very well organized.

Motion is passed. Congratulations Mike!

7. NEXT MEETING: BOD meeting will be on Wednesday, May 21, 2008 at 8:00 p.m. EDT.

8. ADJOURNMENT:John Satriano moved to adjourn the meeting at 9:24 p.m. EDT.

Respectfully submitted by Janelle Hawley.