Minutes of the COTMD Board meeting of March 8, 2016
Attending were:
Jonathan Janzen
John Wetzel
Dianne Britton
Virginia Winn
Fred Druseikis
Marguerite Frongillo
Victor Gascon
Tim Piesch
The meeting was opened, and began by approving the minutes of the previous meeting.
Virginia presented the treasurers report. We gained $117 at the January dance, and lost $30 at the February dance.
There were no new reimbursements.
The reports from our last dance were discussed. This brought up the issue of high tech methods of paying. Victor agreed to investigate whether it would be feasible for us to sell tickets using debit cards or other electronic technologies. There was general agreement that we are probably too small for that to work, but we can look into it.
The mailing list status was briefly reviewed, and is up to date.
Marguerite presented the current status of her booking efforts.
Gail Sullivan had indicated in an email that she had changed her mind about serving on the board, and has therefore resigned.
Jonathan Janzen agreed to serve on the board, and was voted in as a member at large.
We discussed recruitment of students and other community members to grow our dance community.
The comittee tasked with working on our mission and vision statement submitted two draft mission statements to choose from. These were briefly discussed, with the result that we agreed that anyone who wanted to submit other suggested wording to that committee could do so, if this is done within two weeks. The committee will review those submissions, and will then create and submit one (or possibly more) draft mission statements to the entire board, at the next meeting, for discussion and an up or down vote.
The creation of a vision statement has been set aside until the mission statement issue has been settled.
The "work in progress" item called "Summer 2016 Dances" was discussed again:
We will have a "regular" dance in August, (previously agreed).
We will have a "techno" dance in July (previously agreed) and we have now agreed to try and combine that dance with a swing dance with possible involvement of a swing dance organization, this to include Swing teaching/dance from 4:00 to 6:00, a pot luck from 6:00 to 7:00, then our techno contra event.
ACTION ITEM: John Wetzel to check with Barbara at the Emerald to see if this will fly, only then will others talk to swing dance groups about how to make it happen.
The addition to our website of video links about contra dancing was discussed. Tim agreed to review existing contra dance videos, and to suggest a list of video links (youtube? vimeo?) that could be made a part of our website, with board approval.
There was a brief discussion about possible alternatives regarding the storage and safekeeping of sound equipment, the possibilities of insurance, etc. We decided for now that we would continue to self-insure (that is, take our chances with fate).
TABLED FOR FUTURE DISCUSSION
The following items are carried forward from the last meeting, (not discussed at this meeting owing to lack of time):
Posting our dance events on our dance-related facebook pages (Poonam).
Posting ContraCola events on Meetup groups
Midlands Gives: Join as a promotional opportunity (Connie)?
The next meeting will be on May 10, 2016.
Meeting was adjourned.
