Minutes April 9, 2025

 The COTMD Board met at Virginia Winn's house on Wednesday, April 9, 2025.

We all like sweet things and enjoy each other's conversation, so we gathered at 7pm.  The meeting was called to order at 7:35pm.

Present: Dianne B., Gail, Victor, Virginia, Marguerite, Maris, John, Fred

Absent: Dianne P-Q., Kenny

The minutes of the previous meeting were approved.

Treasurer's Report

The last dance had a net loss of $113.11 overall, i.e. including hall and overhead costs. Dates for the Arsenal Hill venue have been cleared through September. There were some question about dance event plans for the end of the year.  Upcoming expenses are CDSS membership fees in April (this expense maintains our 501(c)(3) status;) liability insurance in September; Brevo (a texting service) fees will begin in September, which will be ongoing and based on number of messages sent.  GiveButter presently handles our text messaging until September, is free for our level of usage, but starting in September would require an expensive subscription to maintain texting capability.  It is our objective to have Brevo ready for use soon so the transition from GiveButter texting in September will be smooth; we don't have to start paying for Brevo until we begin using it.  A motion was made seconded and approved to accept the Treasure's Report.

Booker's Report

The Evil Twins (David Knight and Lorrie Fischer) inquired about the possibility playing in Columbia as they are planning a southeast tour to the various contradance venues.  There was discussion about our ability to pay their asking price; and concerns were expressed on two matters.  First regarding our group's ability to pay given our financial health; and second, being compensated at the expect level as musicians of their stature (our current level of compensation for out-of-town bands are "scant".)  Various views were expressed.  The consensus was that we should try to get them to come and to be prepared to pay their requested fee instead of playing games with our stated limits and travel expenses.

Marguerite requested that for personal reasons she be allowed to step back from VP/.Booker responsibilities for awhile.  She stated that she still very much wanted to remain on the board.  Victor was nominated to the position of VP/Booker; the board unanimously approved his appointment.

Dance Results

There was discussion about general matters for the dances at Arsenal Hill.  The hall is being rented for the 5-11pm time slot.  The minder has been very prompt and continues to be present.  The dances have not gone the full time and have all so far ended early.  This raises the question of whether or not we should attempt to save some money by renting the hall from 6-10pm.  This would reduce the rental from $150 to $100.  Concerns about shortening were expressed but no decision was made.

There was some question about whether or not the AC was functioning during the dance. There was some discussion about adequacy and the need for floor fans and ceiling fans.  There is AC but there may be some tricks with the thermostat.

Other Matters

Dianne B and John will initiate conversation with the Parks Department about the issue of hall capacity.  It was remarked that attempting to approach the fire marshal on this will absolutely pointless as we have no standing in any conversation with him or her.  The matter will need to be taken up with Pearl who we would expect to escalate the issue to the director or other official.  We have not exceeded the capacity limit yet, but it's clear that staff head count impacts the dancers (band + caller + sound + desk).  Also a handful of children affects it too.  The space is comfortable, easily accessible, in a great location, and sized well for our current attendance.

(In writing this summary I'd like to add that the central issue is to have a enough potential capacity to allow the dance series to be self-sustaining through donations; there are two ways to achieve this: one is to increase capacity to make our dance sustainable at the current donation level; or alternatively to increase the suggested per-dancer donation.  Some combination of the two is probably needed.)

There was a discussion about rates of travel reimbursement.  Our current model is $3/20 miles (basically a gallon of gas, not assuming a particular mileage efficiency); the IRS model is cents per mile traveled (50 cents per mile was mentioned, however the actual rate is 71 cents per mile for business and self-employed.)  There was discussion.  The board directed the Booker to no longer use a mileage travel component when discussing compensation with bands and callers.  The goal is to get a clear understanding of the compensation expected by the prospective staff and work with them in negotiation, leaving travel expenses out of the discussion.

Next Meeting; THURSDAY, May 8. (This is a DIFFERENT WEEKDAY than we have ordinarily had.)

Adjourned at 8:56pm.

/s/ Fred Druseikis

Minutes, March 12, 2025

COTMD Board Meeting

We met at Virginia's house at 7 pm and enjoyed each other's company while gorging ourselves on all manner of sweets, cookies, and pie.  There might have been something healthy there too.

The meeting was called to order at 7:30 pm.

Present: Dianne B, Dianne P-Q, Maris, Victor, Virginia, Marguerite, John, Fred

Absent: Gail, Kenny

The minutes of the last meeting were reviewed and approved.

Dianne B presented the Treasurer's Report.  Donations to cover the additional costs of renting the Arsenal Hill venue had been received.  There were no additional expenses aside from hall rental and Facebook advertising, so the net financial status remained virtually unchanged.  Money accumulated in Venmo was transferred into the bank account. The report was approved.

Marguerite presented the Booker's Report.  The upcoming dances are:

3/29, Arsenal Hill, Caller: Victor, Band: Marshal Goers & Lucy Allen

4/26, TBD (see next), Caller: Tom Macklin, Band: Sherlock's Meow

5/24, TBD (see next), Caller: TBD (out of town), Band: ContraCola Open Band

The Booker's report was accepted.

The meeting continued to address issues identified by John in the meeting announcement.

There was discussion about the choice of venues.  The vibe of the CMFA space is not as agreeable as Arsenal Hill; it does however have greater capacity.  The CMFA space requires a lot more physical work to set up and take down because of the layout of the space and location of storage rooms.  The CMFA space is used primarily as a ballet studio, and it there was concern that the contra dance left the floor dirty.

Presently the Arsenal Hill space is being rented from 5-11pm (for a total of 6 hours), which accounts for the required "minder fee" of $150.  The CMFA space has no minder-fee requirement, and neither organization expects a percentage of donations; however ask a reminder, we have in the past made it a policy to donate 20% of admissions to CMFA to remind ourselves that halls cost.

The board approved the following motion as a statement of intent: "That the principal venue for dances should be Arsenal Hill with CMFA as a backup."  The motion was approved.

There was additional discussion about how to go about increasing the capacity of Arsenal Hill from 49 persons to something higher.  Victor thought he could see if he can find some documents circa 2014 that would explain why the capacity was reduced.  Maris was going to take a look at the door and outside steps situation to see how bad it is. 

John in discussions with Pearl O. has determined that there is no possibility of reducing the hourly rate for the minder.

There was discussion about the needs for the next dance and expectations were clarified.

The Booker is authorized to begin searching for bands and callers for next season.

There was discussion about exercising some fiscal austerity for June, July, and August, if dances are scheduled.  It was felt that out of town bands should not be scheduled if possible.

Dianne B has narrowed the search for a texting service (Brevo) to replace the one that GiveButter has here-to-fore provided as a benefit of their base-level offering.  She will be working through the details of how to adapt it for our use.

The next meeting will be April 9, 2025, at Virginia's house.

The meeting adjourned at 8:41 pm.

/s/ Fred Druseikis

Minutes, February 12, 2025

 Victor

 Minutes of the COTMD Board Meeting

February 12, 2025

Meeting called to order at 7:37 PM by John Wetzel.

Present: Virginia, Marguerite, Dianne B., Dianne Palmer-Q, Fred (via video call), Victor. There were enough members to have a quorum.

1. Approval of minutes of January meeting. Minutes were reviewed and approved.

2. Treasurer’s report was reviewed and approved.

3. Booker’s report

   1. We are dancing at Arsenal Hill and our talent is Chris Liakos and John Wetzel, with Caller Dianner Palmer-Q

   2. March’s talent is Lucy Allen and Marshall Goers, with Caller Victor.

4. CMFA as a dancing venue: the Board discussed the various aspects and issues with CMFA. John reported a very cordial and productive conversation with the new liaison at CMFA. Among the issue that were noted:

   1. Floor: the floor is not the best for Contra dancing and CMFA has concerns with damage to it due to street shoes being used.

   2. Calendar: CMFA explicitly indicated that they will have to cancel our reservation if they have an event in the main room.

   3. CMFA has an issue with having food in the pink room

   4. Chairs and tables: CMFA will not allow us to store them in the pink room because they want everything stored in a central location for all of their needs.

5. Arsenal Hill logistics and planning: everything I set to go for this first dance. John will add Arsenal Hill to our insurance policy.

6. Amplifiers at Lake Murray Contra Hall: John asked for approval to compensate Tyler for going to LMCH, unplugging our newest amplifier, connecting and testing the older amplifier, and then retrieving our equipment (including one of Fred’s and Dianne’s monitor speakers). A motion was made by Victor to approve the expenditure of $50 for Tyler’s time and it was seconded by Virginia; the Board unanimously approved the motion.

7. Microphone stands: the group needs three microphone stands. During the short discussion, Dianne B., Fred and John offered to donate three stands to the group.

8. Inventory of existing equipment: John is in the process of preparing an updated list of our equipment and where it resides. Some of it is with Tyler and some with Victor and some with John or at Lake Murray Contra Hall.

9. Other items

   1. Victor advanced the idea that, if we cannot afford to have more dances each month (due to funding and limited volunteers) then we may want to reduce the frequency of our dances to quarterly events that have a longer duration (to include workshops and a potluck). This was left open for further consideration.

   2. Dianne P-Q discussed the use of Meetup and Facebook ads to promote our new location. The estimated cost for the ads will be $30 per month. The Board approved the idea of investing funds for both Meetup and Facebook.

   3. Dianne B. brought up the fact that our free texting service through GiveButter is coming to an end. That service is now part of GiveButter+ which is a bit expensive at $29/month. Dianne B. will research alternatives for free texting.