October 23, 2012 Board Meeting Minutes

10/23/12 Board Meeting Minutes

Columbia Traditional Music and Dance

Present:

Dianne Britten
Fred Druseikis
Marguerite Frongillo
Lucy Gordon
Jacob LeGrone
Scott McCravy
Stephanie McCravy
Connie Robinette
John Wetzel
Virginia Winn

Order of Business

The minutes of the previous meeting were read and approved by vote.

Treasurer’s Report:

Virginia reports that, as of this meeting, we have $1048.87 in our bank account, and $85.00 in cash. A discussion was held concerning the financial loss we incurred at the last dance. Reimbursement forms were passed out to Fred and John for expenditures made. Status of the Board Email List & Dancer Reminder Email list were discussed.

New Business:

1. There was discussion of officially raising and modifying the current rate for paying “out of town bands”. These rates were adjusted by supplying a new method of calculating the fee, with an upper limit and with the amount otherwise proportional to the distance traveled by the band to reach us. Travel compensation is thus built into each fee, and no travel adjustment is added on top of that, since the adjustment is already imbedded in the primary fee. Callers would continue to get compensation for travel at the usual rate. This change was voted on and approved by the board. Marguerite Frongillo (in charge of hiring bands and callers for this season) has the details of this new pricing policy in writing, and will supply a copy of this information to the president.

2. The possibility of sharing out of town bands with Lake Murray Contra dance was discussed and Dianne Britton, point of contact with Susan Fort, agreed to speak with Susan regarding outcome of the board’s discussion.

3. Jacob LeGrone broached the topic of lowering the cost of dance attendance for college students. While the financial risk for Columbia Traditional Music & Dance Group is considerable, the need for community building appeared to be greater. The dance lost a considerable sum of money at the October Contra dance. An increase in attendees would have helped make the dance break even.

The Board agreed to try a new rate for students for the November dance and see what happens. Students with an ID would attend the dance for $5.00 per person. "Students" to mean persons in possession of a valid and current student ID (high school or university). This change was voted on and approved by the board.

Members of the board asked that Jacob LeGrone, who is also a member of a group of USC student contra dancers, that he encourage this group of dancers/students to support our contra dance group by attending our monthly dance from November to June, and particularly, that this group consider the local COTMD dance community schedule when considering dates for visiting out of town dances as a group.

Jacob LeGrone and Virginia Winn were to work on fliers for on campus distribution.

Virginia Winn, Jacob LeGrone and Connie Robinette would have a meeting to discuss marketing.

Discussion ending, a motion was made to end the meeting. Motion passed and meeting adjourned.

Connie Robinette
Secretary

Minutes 3/27/12

Attending:


John Wetzel
Connie Robinnette
Tim Piesch
Fred Druseikis
Dianne Britton
Lucy Gordon
Marguerite Frongillo
Virginia Winn (hostess)
Stephanie and Scott McCravy



Previous meeting's minutes approved.



Treasurer's Report: We have $1952.00 between the kitty and the bank account.



The dancer reminder email list is up to date.



Lucy suggested that we not switch the date of our dance to accomodate dance weekends, since a majority of our dancers don't go to those events, and it seems we don't have as high attendance when we change the dates.



Virginia volunteered to be the mailing address for all the CDSS correspondence.



Fred's spreadsheet of our finances was reviewed and discussed. Fred explained that the spreadsheet illustrates if our finances balance out or if we are way off in one area or another. Lucy suggested adding a row to the spreadsheet for revenue and maybe leaving out the "free coupon" dancer row.



The subject of an "extra" dance utilizing Susan Fort's Lake Murray Contra facility has been tabled for the time being and removed from the recurring items list for the agenda. We will continue to include Susan in our community via Facebook and Twitter.



Outreach Committee Report

Newsletter: We don't know how many people look at the newsletter that is sent out via email. Some suggested printing it out and distributing them at the dance at the beginning and end of the year to get people looking at them and interested, then later on add it to the blog site or some other online forum. The Outreach Committee will continue to address this issue and see how it plays out.

Fliers: Marguerite has put up fliers at her gym.

Lucy suggested passing out a letter and making an announcement at the break regarding our status as a nonprofit organization (that is entirely dependent on volunteers) in the hope of recruiting more board members and volunteers.



Slate for the Election:

President - John Wetzel
Vice President - Tim Piesch
Secretary - Connie Robinnette
Treasurer - Virginia Winn

Members At Large -
Dianne Britton
Fred Druseikis
Marguerite Frongillo
Lucy Gordon
Kenny Greer
Jacob LeGrone
Stephanie McCravy
Scott McCravy

*Marguerite volunteered to take over the hiring of bands and callers from Connie.



Next meeting scheduled for May 29, 2012



Meeting adjourned at 9:39pm.

Minutes 1/17/2012

Minutes for meeting of January 17, 2012


Attending:
John Wetzel
Virginia Winn (hostess)
Marguerite Frongillo
Dianne Britton
Fred Druseikis
Mary Jo Wannamaker
Ben Coonrod
Stephanie and Scott McCravy


Previous meeting's minutes reviewed and approved.

Treasurer's Report approved. There is $1792 in the bank. Also, our budget spreadsheets need updating. When Fred gets the information from the treasurer, he will update those.

Outreach Committee Report:

Marguerite will put fliers out at the gym, and John will put some out at the YMCA.
Early Training Sessions: The 'Beyond Beginners' workshop has been encompassing beginners as well as more experienced dancers, but the workshop has succeeded in getting people to the dance much earlier. As of now, we will keep going with it and see how the workshop progresses.

Presidential Duties and Email List Updates:
John will get his list of duties to Dianne so she can put them on a calendar, so that everything gets done on time. He added to that list another presidential duty will be to check with Dianne, who currently manages the board email list, to make sure that the board email list is updated withing two weeks of a new election. At the present time Dianne manages and maintains this email list, and will continue to do so until she decides otherwise. Both she and Virginia will review the big email list of all the dancers. A recurring agenda item will be to report on the status of these lists.

Possible Extra Dance With Lake Murray Contra:
There is a possibility of having an extra dance in a season utilizing Susan Fort's facilities (Lake Murray Contra). Virginia has been in contact with Susan for a while now, but we have yet to work all the details out. We will continue to keep in contact and network with Susan Fort to include her in the dance community, and this should be revisited on the next agenda.

Other Business:

Marguerite suggested that all the information for the announcements at the dance should be organized beforehand, so that she (or whomever does the announcements) will be sure to get all information out there. She volunteered to organize the list.
Dianne reminded us that we need to get the slate for the election together for the next meeting, which is in March, as the election will occur in May.
Ben volunteered to be on the Outreach Committee.

Next meeting scheduled for March 27, 2012

Meeting adjourned at 9:10pm.