Thursday, December 15, 2011

Minutes 10/17/11

Columbia Traditional Music & Dance

Minutes for Business Meeting held on Tuesday, Oct 17, 2011

Submitted by Virginia Winn



Meeting was called to order at 7:53pm.


Attending were:

John Wetzel

Connie Robinnette

Judy Wells

Marguerite Frongillo

Virginia Winn

Fred Druseikis

Dianne Britton

Lucy Gordon

Tim Piesch

Absent were:

Kenny Greer was called but was unavailable

Mary Joe Wannamaker

Tim Sneed

Stephanie & Scott McCravy


The 08/30/11 Minutes were discussed, voted on, and approved.


Treasurer’s Report was discussed, voted on, and approved.

$1616 [bank balance, kitty, & money from October dance] minus $7.00 [reimbursement to Connie for telephone calls] equals $1609 [balance in bank and cash on hand].


Board Recruitment:

Because of his interest in becoming a Board member, Lucy & Virginia recommended Ben Coonrod as a new Board member. It was discussed, voted on, and approved. Lucy will contact Ben, let him know, and see if he still wants to serve.


Recruitment of Dancers:

The Outreach Committee asked all Board members to assist in recruiting new and/or experienced dancers to our Columbia dance. It was agreed that we are having a problem with turnover of new dancers, as well as retention of experienced dancers. A brainstorming session occurred.

•Connie will continue the FaceBook and Twitter accounts promoting the dances. She requested that we all acknowledge our intentions [coming/not coming, etc] on FB and to write comments when possible.

•Connie also wants us to share the Columbia Contra page with our own FB pages and post photos/comments before and after each dance.

•Marguerite will continue to promote our Contra dance via the International Folk Dance and the Scottish dance groups.

•Virginia handed out Columbia Contra business cards to all those present and asked that they keep some in their wallet to promote the dance. She also gave out promotional fliers as requested. She will print up some more of both.

•It was suggested that we contact yoga studios, exercise gyms, and church social groups.


Raising the level of the dance in Columbia:

•The 6:15pm pre-dance intermediate workshop has not been very well attended and we discussed ways to increase attendance because of the need to raise the level of our dances. It was suggested that we send out a separate notice for the earlier workshop stressing the fact it is to cover more advanced moves. We could contact the caller to see what moves they suggest for the evening.

• It was suggested that we also have a contra move taught during the break, [in addition to or instead of the folk dance, as time permitted] to try and raise the beginners’ level. This would be in addition to the 6:15 intermediate workshop.

•Fred mentioned that our dances need attention to both the level of the dancers, as well as the flow of the whole evening, in order to increase both the total number of dancers and the ratio of experienced to beginner dancers. We seem to lose a lot of people during break and so our use of the break should be to try and get folks to stay.

•It was agreed that if the callers don’t feel they can call more advanced dances, then we will not be able to retain the experienced dancers.


Co-dance with Lake Murray Contra Dance:

Lake Murray has expressed a desire to have a co-sponsored dance at their facility.

•Virginia has been corresponding with Susan Fort about this possibility since July 2011. Both parties agree that money is tight. The LMContra Hall can hold 2 lines of dancers at about 32-36 per line for a total of 64-72 people on the floor at any one time with additional room for people to sit. The Board discussed the pros/cons of having a joint dance and/or a joint workshop. The Board is leaning toward a one-day/night free social event with a pick-up band and pick-up caller that would be both a social and workshop combined event; people that wanted to see what playing in a contra band was like could join in; people who wanted to try calling could take their turn. Virginia will discuss this possibility with Susan and will get back to the Board in January.


Assist USC start a Student Contra dance:

Lucy and Virginia were broached by Jacob LeGrone [legrone@email.sc.edu, 980-428-6101] about the Columbia Contra sponsoring a new Student Contra Club at USC for the student body.

•The Board agreed that COTMD does not have the monetary liquidity to sponsor the new club but would be willing to assist where possible, i.e., giving a few demo dances to help teach students; Dianne said she may be willing to play free for one dance; see what materials CDSS has on starting a new contra dance and recorded music with calls; recommend Jacob contact both Clemson and Furman to see how they promote & manage their Contra dances. Lucy and Virginia will dialog with Jacob and report back to the Board in January.


Presidential Duties:

Dianne gave John the remaining letters from CDSS. John will complete a list of pertinent Presidential duties which he will supply Dianne. She will then develop a calendar which will automatically send out reminders to the President on a timely bases.


Next Board Meeting:

We will not have a Board meeting in November or December 2011. The next Board meeting will be Tuesday, January 17, 2012 at Virginia Winn’s home, 3025 Dalloz Road, Cola 29204, C: 803-760-5881.


Meeting was adjourned at 9:40pm.

Minutes 8/30/11

Attending:
John Wetzel
Connie Robinette
Dianne Britton
Fred Druseikis
Lucy Gordon
Marguerite Frongillo
Virginia Winn (hostess)
Tim Piesch
Kenny Greer (via phone)
Stephanie and Scott McCravy

Previous minutes taken by Mary Jo will be sent out via email for the board to approve, as they are unavailable at this time.

Treasurer's Report: There is $1315.00 in the bank. Connie will need to be reimbursed for some long distance calls at the next meeting.

Outreach Report: A newsletter is now sent out two to three weeks before the dance, and the regular announcement is sent two to three days before the dance. The newsletter features different stories about callers, dancers, bands, etc, to encourage community development. Connie has Facebook and Twitter accounts that promote the dance as well.

Lucy's calculations purport that we need 49 dancers on average. All board members need to work on marketing and recruiting new dancers. Publicity needs to be separate from the Outreach Committee because it's too much for one committee. We need to figure out how to market to large groups like gymnasiums. Dianne suggests contacting Youth Ministries of churches. Actively pursuing, contacting, and marketing to potential new dancers is now an action item to be carried out by all board members.

Presidential Duties: John asked Dianne to work on a calendar that would list all the duties of the president that must meet deadlines. Another presidential duty will be to get the updated email list for board members after the elections.

The possibility of having an "extra" dance next season is deferred to the next meeting, scheduled for October 18, 2011.

Meeting adjourned at 9:08pm.

Wednesday, October 12, 2011

Minutes June 28, 2011

Attending: John Wetzel, Dianne Britton, Fred Druseikis, Mary Jo Wannamaker, Lucy Gordon, Virginia Winn (hostess), Connie Robinette, and Tim Sneed.

The previous meeting’s minutes were approved.

Treasurer’s Report: (made by Virginia in Scott’s absence) Current bank balance is $1335.00. June dance profit of $98 has yet to be deposited. $102 remains in the kitty.

Board Members: No one presented any possible board member recruits.

Reimbursements: Fred was reimbursed $15 for renewal of domain name and John was reimbursed $43.65 for new mic stand out of the $98 profit from the June dance.

Next Season Dance Dates: John has confirmed the last two dates for the next season with the city.

Process of keeping a current list of board members email addresses on the COTMD board member list: Diane will be responsible for keeping the email list up to date for both board members and contra dancers. Virginia volunteered to be the backup person.

Additional discussion of new band pay rates and related issues. This issue was revisited because we had a good turnout for the June dance but only had a profit of $25 with the lower 2011 band rates. Discussion related to whether we should increase local band rates as previously agreed upon. Fred explained his spreadsheet which clarified current costs, dancer attendance, and revenue for each dance over a two year period. This was very insightful. John moved that the basic rate of pay per member of a local band should be $35 up to a maximum of $140 for the entire band. Connie has the discretion to pay a lump sum amount not to exceed $140 for a local band as she lines up the bands for next season. The maximum price for an out of town band will remain at $200 at this time. Motion passed.

Extra dance with Susan Fort: We will rediscuss the issue of an extra dance with Susan Fort at our next meeting.

We did not get to the outreach report. It will be discussed at the next meeting.

Next meeting is set for August 30, 2011 at 7:00. Virginia has graciously agreed to host the meeting.

Meeting adjoined at 9:45 pm.

Tuesday, May 10, 2011

Minutes 5/10/11

Attending:
John Wetzel
Dianne Britton
Fred Druseikis
Mary Jo Wannamaker
Lucy Gordon
Virginia Winn (hostess)
Judy Wells
Connie Robinette (via phone)
Scott and Stephanie McCravy

Previous meeting's minutes approved.

Treasurer's Report: We have $1451.oo. That total includes the contingency fund ($400.00). The CDSS fee is due in June, and that amount is $75.00. Treasurer's report approved.

Reimbursements: Fred will require $15.00 for the renewal of the domain name.

Hall Rental: The hall is paid for through next season, but they can't book the last two dates until June. However, the full amount has been paid for all dates next season.

Sound Equipment Status: The microphone stand still needs to be replaced, but John has not priced any yet.

Duties of President: John suggests mapping out the specific duties so he (and future presidents) will have a succinct, complete list of the responsibilities, especially those that require action by a set date or time within the season. Dianne and Lucy came up with the idea of creating a calendar with all the essential dates that can be viewed by all board members and be sent as a reminder to the president (or other responsible officers or board members). Such a calendar would have to be accessible to all board members and be controlled by someone who sends or directs the reminders. John will go through the bylaws and compile a list of the president's official duties to place on the calendar and to possibly delegate some of the said duties if need be.

Pre-dance Workshops: Virginia and Lucy have been discussing this at length and plan to present/promote it at the next dance (May) with the intention of implementing the workshop at the June dance. They need a way for interested volunteers to respond via email without inundating Virginia's email account. Dianne suggested putting a filter on the email responses that would minimize this concern. Lucy, Virginia, and Dianne plan to confer on this later.

Duties of Vice President: Connie said that the hiring of callers and bands is an official duty of the vice president, but John could not find anything written in the bylaws or anywhere else on this situation. Dianne confirmed that at some point in the past the board had decided to assign this responsibility to the vice president. We decided to take action to clarify the situtation. So the choices were to either make this an official duty of the vice president or assign this responsibility to a person (chosen with discretion by the president). John moved to give the president the authority to assign this duty to a person (an officer or board member), not a particular office. Motion passed.

Election: The slate was voted through by the attending board members and some write-in (email) votes by those not attending. The results of the election are as follows:
John Wetzel---President
Connie Robinette---Vice President
Stephanie McCravy---Secretary
Scott McCravy---Treasurer
Fred Druseikis
Dianne Britton
Virginia Winn
Lucy Gordon
Marguerite Frongillo
Kenny Greer
Tim Sneed
Tim Piesch
Mary Jo Wannamaker
Judy Wells

Local Bands vs. Out-Of-Town Bands: John is concerned with variety (or lack of) concerning the bands we hire. After much discussion we all agreed that more variety is definitely what we want for our dance group. As a result of this discussion, we agreed that, if possible, we should let any given band play only two dances during a season. We also agreed that this guideline could also apply to callers as well. Such a guideline could of course be suspended should the need arise, and this decision would be at the discretion of Connie, who schedules all of these bands and callers. To promote or allow for more variety, John moved that we change the rate of pay for local bands from $35.00 per band member to a total of $140.00 per band. Motion passed. Another motion was made to remove the limit of three out-of-town bands per year. Motion passed. These actions will allow us more freedom to increase the variety with both local and out-of-town bands. Lucy urged caution in raising the pay rates of the out-of-town bands just yet, as we need to see how these other changes play out. Fred agreed to produce spreadsheets to illustrate our attendance trends and operating funds, so we can better understand how attendance affects our operations. Scott will provide him with the necessary documents to complete this task.

Next meeting scheduled for June 28, 2011. Virginia graciously agreed to act as hostess again.

Meeting adjourned at 9:35pm.

Tuesday, March 8, 2011

Minutes 3/8/11

Attending:
John Wetzel
Connie Robinette
Virginia Winn (hostess)
Lucy Gordon
Marguerite Frongillo
Tim Sneed
Stephanie & Scott McCravy
Judy Wells
Tim Piesch

Previous meeting's minutes reviewed. Clarification regarding when the raise in pay rates will be in effect added to said minutes. Minutes approved.

Treasurer's Report: There is $1990 in the bank. Treasurer's report approved. Issue of the "one free dance admission" cards deemed a non-issue. The concern being what effect a large influx of said cards would have in terms of money. (See Minutes 1/25/11)

Reimbursements: The president wanted to be sure that this is a recurring agenda item so that those who need reimbursing (for various purchases/services) won't have to bring it up themselves. Lucy suggested and volunteered to create a simple form for such things that can be turned in to the treasurer for said reimbursements.

Form 990-N is taken care of by John.

Sound Equipment Status: John's repair for the equipment cost only around $60.00, but he will need about $20.00 to replace a microphone stand.

Bylaws Rewrite: Motion to accept the new bylaws passed.

Pre-dance Workshop: Lucy had only about five people sign up showing an interest in participating in this workshop, the purpose of which is to be a more in-depth lesson for newer dancers. Lucy would prefer announcing it one more time at the March 12th contra, and she would also like to check with Dianne about putting this up on the website in a way that allows those so inclined to respond.

Fliers: The "refrigerator fliers" have been made and are being used. Connie wanted to make sure that all fliers had the exact street address and zip code for the dance hall for those using GPS.

Slate for Election: Judy Wells and Tim Piesch were in attendance for the first time, and both agreed to serve on the board. Motion to elect Judy and Tim to the board passed. John, Connie, Scott and I (Stephanie) all agreed to continue to serve as officers (President, Vice President, Treasurer, and Secretary, respectively) for the next slate, with John and Connie expressing the desire to serve in their respective positions for only one more year. We need to work out the best way to include Kenny Greer in meetings via phone or Skype, as he is willing to serve on the board.
Goals for 2011:
  1. Increase variety in terms of bands, whether that be in the form of more out-of-town bands or encouraging/facilitating the formation of new local bands.
  2. Tim Sneed agreed to head up a committee to explore other options for venues, in case we are not able to use Arsenal Hill anymore due to unforeseen circumstances. This way we will know what our options are should that situation arise unexpectedly. John will also contribute to this committee, as he has experience in researching potential venues. Lucy suggested pooling our resources with or getting help/ideas from other dance groups.
  3. Virginia brought up having a pot-luck dinner before dances to encourage community-building opportunities. Having people volunteer to bring dishes would increase awareness and familiarity between board members and community members.
  4. Connie suggested (as a long term goal) having two dances a month should our attendance rise above the capacity of the hall, which it almost has a few times.
VA Event: Marguerite is looking for volunteers to participate in a contra dance at the VA Health Fair on March 26, 2011. Volunteers should be experienced dancers. She and Virginia will explore sending an email out to ask for volunteers.
Meeting adjourned 9:27pm

Thursday, February 24, 2011

COTMD Bylaws


Tuesday, January 25, 2011

Minutes 1/25/11

Attending:
John Wetzel
Connie Robinette
Fred Druseikis
Dianne Britton
Marguerite Frongillo
Lucy Gordon
Virginia Winn (hostess)
Tim Sneed
Stephanie and Scott McCravy
Mary Jo Wannamaker

Previous meeting's minutes approved.

Treasurer's Report: There was $178.00 in the kitty before the January dance and $513.00 after the dance. There is $1,316.00 in the bank. Combined total is $1,829.00, breaking down to $1,429.00 in operating funds and $400.00 in the contingency fund. Treasurer's report approved.

Issue of Free Admission Cards: There was some concern at the high number of these cards (given to first-time dancers as initiative to come back) that were distributed at the January dance, the concern being the impact on our funds should all these people return to the same dance. Board members will mull this over and discuss via email to get a general consensus as to what, if anything, we should do, and we will revisit this issue at a later date. Marguerite suggested that we wait until the end of this dance season (our May board meeting) to revisit this. Some options to consider are: should we keep distributing the cards, discontinue (but still honor those already distributed) distributing the cards, or change them from "free admission" to "half-off admission".

Pay Rate Per Musician: A motion is made to increase the pay rate to $35.00 per musician. Motion passes. Another motion is made to increase the pay rate for sound also to $35.00. Motion passes. Lucy suggested that discussion regarding adding more out of town bands be an agenda item for the next meeting. She also suggested that we discuss finding and training people who can fill in for essential people such as John and Connie for sound and the hiring of bands. This pay rate increase will become effective in the next dance season.

Form 990 will be taken care of by John before the next meeting.

Repair of Sound Equipment: John estimates that he will need between $40.00 and $100.00 to repair some equipment. Also, a microphone stand was left at the hall and never recovered and will need to be replaced. This will cost somewhere around $35.00 or $40.00.

Goals for 2011: Lucy suggested increasing the experience level of our dancers. Since we have a large numbers of beginners and fairly inexperienced dancers, we could incorporate longer, more detailed and involved workshops or tutorials to improve their skills. John usually arrives at the hall at 6:00pm, so we could have the extended workshop then. We can send an email out and provide some way for people to RSVP via Facebook (creating an event) or possibly Google Calendar; Dianne will research the Google option. Dianne also suggested getting together a carpool to an out-of-town dance. We will continue to think about these and other goals for 2011.

Rewrite of Bylaws: John will submit a draft of his rewritten bylaws and accept any comments, questions, contentions, etc. from the rest of the board all via email. We will informally approve the bylaws after all issues are worked out, John will then send them to CDSS for their approval, and we will formally vote on the finalized draft at the subsequent meeting.

Nominating Committee and Election Procedures: Lucy submitted a draft of the revised and consolidated election procedures for review by the board. She also wanted to emphasize that although we do have a formal Nominating Committee, all board members need to actively seek out and suggest potential candidates for the board. This needs to be a recurring agenda item, since we have an election every year. Any inquiries or suggestions regarding Lucy's draft should be addressed to her via email.

UU Dance: Connie has recruited eight dancers of the ten that were requested. This will be an opportunity for outreach.

Fliers: Since we had two requests for fliers (listing all the dates of the dances) at the December dance, we should probably print some up for people to take home for reference. The fliers don't need all the details, just the dates for the upcoming dances. If Virginia prints these (and any other various printouts) up, she should be reimbursed unless she just wants to contribute in this manner.

Connie suggested that we buy another folding table such as Virginia has, since the card table we use as the 'money table' is very rickety. Mary Jo volunteered to price these the next time she is at the store.

Motion made to induct Mary Jo as a board member, and the motion passes.

CDSS Summer Camp Opportunities: Dianne shared the information CDSS sent regarding opportunities to attend some of their dance and music camps. We could possibly sponsor someone, such as a potential caller or musician. The deadline for submissions is March 21, 2011.

Next meeting scheduled for March 8, 2011, and Virginia has agreed to host us again.

Meeting adjourned at 9:49pm.

Wednesday, January 5, 2011

Minutes 11/9/10

Attending:
John Wetzel
Connie Robinette
Dianne Britton
Fred Druseikis
Virginia Winn
Stephanie and Scott McCravy

Previous meeting's minutes approved.

Treasurer's Report: $1,026 breaks down into $626 in operating funds, and $400 in "contingency" fund. Treasurer's report accepted.

Regarding hiring a fourth out-of-town band and raising per-musician pay rates: Since attendance basically dictates our income, and since we still need to see how the third Saturday change affects attendance, discussion on this subject should be revisited in future meetings.

Future Election Procedures:
Motion passed that future elections be held at special meeting attended by board members.

Website:
Dianne will make sure that the redirect from the old site to the new one is working appropriately.

Next meeting scheduled for January 11, 2011

Meeting adjourned at 8:25 PM.