Minutes, November 11, 2014

COTMD Minutes 11/11/2014 - approved at 12/09/2014 meeting

Meeting convened at 7:50 pm.
In attendance: John, Virginia, Connie, Dianne, Sandra, Victor, Marguerite.

Minutes reviewed and approved.

Treasurer reported a balance of $2238.92.  Approved.

Regarding new dancer email addresses -- John encouraged Virgina to get the new email addresses to Dianne asap generally, since we need the new dancers.

Sandra Keller was voted in as new board member.  And on Victor's report that Kenny Greer wanted to be on the board, we also voted him in.  We discussed using some kind of call conferencing so that Kenny could take part in the board meetings remotely.

Our current venue has AC/heating problems.  The setting is changed from "AC" to "Heat" (or vice-versa) just twice a year and is out of our control.

We voted to pursue the Emerald Ballroom as a possible dance venue.  It is located just off Dutch Square and is available on 4th Saturdays.  Advantages would be better AC/heat, better parking, and less setup/teardown.  The floor - wood over concrete - is also somewhat better than in our current venue.  Victor offered to call for a free extra dance, and Marguerite offered to look for possible dance dates for an extra dance which would to be held at the Emerald Ballroom.

There was a suggestion to advertise our dance at yoga studios.

We discussed having a themed dance.  We agreed it was generally a good idea, but felt we shouldn't go overboard as it could turn people off.

There was a discussion of obtaining our own building ("building project"), which would be self-sustaining through rentals.  John will look into to find out whether there is someone who specializes in finding/building buildings for non-profits, and if so, talk to him/her.

Victor passed out a handout on "Problem Dancers and Written Policies", which included three different existing policies from other dance groups, ranging in length from brief to medium to verbose.  It was generally agreed that we need to decide what things are important for our situation.  There was a spirited discussion about appropriate behavior and appropriate responses.  We want our written policy to have specificity without wordiness.  All board members are to read this handout, and are invited to email any related thoughts and/or verbiage to the board at cotmdboard@googlegroups.com.

Meeting adjourned.  Next meeting scheduled for 12/9/2014.

-- Dianne