Minutes of the meeting of the Festival Chorus Board, Aug. 7, 2006
The meeting was called to order at 7:24.
Present: Walter Lefmann, Deborah Rose-Lefmann, Kelly Wehrung, Ellen Lamarre, Marcy Heston, Greg Rose, Dave Wilson, Garry Alden
Review of minutes from the May meeting:
Moved Ellen moved to accept the minutes; Greg seconded. Acceptance was unanimous.
Treasurer’s report (appended)
Discussion:
Note that box office receipts for year include last year’s income paid late, as the receipts from the May concert were booked last fiscal year but not received until September.
We are up about $2000 for year and have $41,000 in the bank.
IAC grant final report needs to be done by Sept. 30; we have the year-end paperwork for it. We have not yet received the grant letter for this year. Marcy will deliver the fiscal year-end paperwork to the accountant so he can file the taxes.
Kelley moved to accept the report; Marcy seconded. The report was accepted unanimously.
Member at Large report:
No report
Garry will evangelize his position starting the first meeting.
Committee reports:
Ways and means:
Wine tasting will be Sept 9 at Julie and Harry’s house, outside.
We will pay ca. 350-450 for tent and furniture rental and will rent a porta-potty.
We will hand out a wine glass painted with the Festival Chorus logo with each registration to be used for tasting and as a souvenir. Any leftover glasses can be sold (some might like to have a set) or added to the auction.
Food donations have been arranged.
We expect ca. $1000 in expenses. We need 50 people to cover expenses.
Last year we made $1300 at the wine tasting.
A professional from Wine Discount Center will run the tasting and we hope he will donate at least some of the wine for tasting as well as his time.
The next event will be the Fannie Mae sale in November.
The newsletter went out mid –July.
Dave moved to accept the report, Garry seconded. Approval was unanimous.
Publicity: no report, chair absent.
Laurie prepared a press release for recruitment; no one knows whether it was sent out yet or not.
Side note: former member Larry Stefan (sp?) died suddenly last week. His funeral was Saturday. This should be announced to the membership, as many of us knew him.
Membership:
25 altos
21 sopranos
10 basses
5 tenors
A letter was sent Aug. 2 to those who had promised to register as students to remind them how.
Ellen requested the board members show up at 6:45 next week to help with registration.
Marianne Buguiell will be new soprano section leader; Elaine is taking a semester off.
If we can get e-mail addresses, we can send e-newsletters instead of paper. Attendance letters will also go out via e-mail whenever possible.
Some members sent registration in late but didn’t pay late fee. Should we charge them or let them slide? We’ll charge them.
Garry has had trouble registering with Harper. His online account is blocked. We hope this isn’t happening to others registering as students.
If everyone who promised to register as student does we will be all set to meet our obligation to the College.
Addendum: registration will be allowed for the first 3 weeks. No registration will be allowed after Labor Day.
Greg moved to accept the report, Kelly seconded; the report was unanimously accepted.
Outreach:
We have dates set up for the Lutheran Home: Dec. 4, 2006, May 7, 2007, Dec 3, 2007.
Marcy is pursuing other lines of inquiry as well, possibly the Moorings, but is awaiting word from Ed.
Kelly moved to accept; Ellen seconded, acceptance was unanimous.
We need to recruit tenors. It was suggested that we call old tenors and invite them back.
Old business:
Documentation:
Be sure to document dates and tasks as we go to add to institutional memory.
Newsletter and program will be taken over by Marcy.
Publicity options: we need to find out if recruitment press release went out.
Items resulting from Member-at-Large comments:
Usher training—stage direction
We no longer control or train the ushers; they are arranged by the box office.
We would have to tell Tom there was a problem. Marcy or Walter will deal with this.
Membership items:
Behavior management issues. No formal complaints filed so we can do nothing formal.
We should pay close attention and rescue anyone in distress, ask them if they need help.
New business:
Harper college relationship management—nothing new. We should have enough students so that will help.
Shadow account—still in limbo. We pay $25 per student to music academy and they pay for ushers, printing, a few other things. This should be documented somewhere (it might be in the secretary’s file box) in a letter from Kathy Albergo
For now we will let sleeping dogs lie, but the secretary will look for the documentation.
Music department holds an annual kick-off luncheon, probably 8/16/06, Walter hopes to attend.
Kelly will drop by department and collect mail and ask for department calendar.
Grants:
Marcy recently found out that the United Way gives to arts organizations. Marcy will check on this; it may be too late for this year but we can try it.
Walter will ask Goldman Sachs again.
Uniform issues.
Marcy has a new catalog of uniform stuff.
Possibilities include dresses for the ladies or matching blouses, tuxes for the men or bow ties with their suits.
If we’re going to make this mandatory it would have to be for spring, not fall.
Let’s shelve this till next meeting. Let’s establish a committee to decide on the attire but there will be a mandatory uniform.
Announcements to be made at the first rehearsal:
Formation of attire committee.
Folders
Larry passed away
Attendance policy
Wine tasting
Ways & means
Registration ending date
Schedule
Member-at-large program
Follow-ups from Annual Meeting:
Summer break plans:
Fiscal year-end planning. Greg did this.
Web site work still to do.
Documentation in progress.
Calendar of board meetings (all 7 PM at Dave’s)
Sept 5
Sept 26
Oct 17
Nov 14
Dec. 12
Newsletter needs to come out Nov. 6
News to Kelly or Marcy by Oct 27.
Jan. 4 (Thursday)
Feb. 13
Mar. 20
Annual meeting Mar. 26
Newsletter must come out 2 weeks before the Annual Meeting
Deadline for news Mar. 2
April 17
May 14
Garry moved to adjourn, Kelly seconded.
Marcy opposed (in jest) but was overruled.
The meeting was adjourned at 8:58.