Minutes, May 19,2021

 COTMD Board Meeting 5/19/21  Minutes

After a long hiatus the COTMD Board met at Virginia's house at 7pm on Wednesday 5/19/2021.

Present:  Victor, John, Virgina, Marguerite, Dianne, and Fred.
By phone: Natalie.

The meeting was called to order at 7:30pm by John Wetzel. Fred took notes.

We agreed to improvise the agenda as this meeting was the first since COVID-19 restrictions went into effect in March of last year (2020.)

The minutes from the previous meeting -- November 2019 -- were reviewed and approved.

Victor presented the treasurer's report.  It should be noted that Virginia had decided to step back from the treasurer's responsibilities at the end of 2019, and Victor accepted the responsibilities.  Then COVID happened and financially the group went into hibernation as there were no dances being produced.  Victor reported the cash balance on hand based on the most recent bank statements. The board accepted the report.

Fred reported that he renewed the domain names used by the group (contracola.org) for two years with the domain registrar.  The cost was $35, which is being treated as a contribution.

Victor reported that he contributed $175 to the group and paid them as various CDSS related fees during the 2020 financial year.

Fred will provide Victor with the technical information needed for the treasurer to take over the domain registrar account for the group.

The board next considered the status of officers.  A motion was made, seconded, and passed, to re-elect the slate per the last election in May 2019.

President: John
Vice President: Marguerite
Secretary: Fred
Treasurer: Victor
At large: Dianne, Bob/Barb, Natalie, Casey, Kenney

Next the board discussed the status of dance production. The general question was when to reopen the dance series.

Two realities need to be accommodated: (a) that bands and callers are reluctant to take gigs given the general level of concern about the spread of covid; and (b) when we restart that  there is no continuity with previous dances and it may have been as much as 18 months or 2 years since a local dance was last produced.

What came out of that conversation was the following items:

(1) We won't be in the role of being "covid police".
(2) We need to warn dancers that they really really should be vaccinated; if they are not then "good luck."
(3) That social dancing was highly likely to spread covid.
(4) Victor and Natalie will be looking at ways of polling community sentiment about when dances should restart; we should set our reopening based on perceived demand.
(5) In the interim we can be a focal point for organizing car pools, etc, to dances elsewhere.

The Board selected July 14 as the next meeting date; to see what kind of sentiment is emerging for a restart date.

The meeting adjourned at approximately 9pm.

/s/Frederick C Druseikis
Secretary

Minutes, November 19, 2019

Columbia Old Time Music & Dance

Board Meeting - November 19, 2019

MINUTES

The board met at Virginia house.

ATTENDING (in person)

    Casey, Fred, John, Jonathan, Marguerite, Victor, and Virginia

ATTENDING (by  phone)

    Natalie

ABSENT

    Dianne (illness)

The group gathered 7pm and socialized a bit.  John called the meeting to order at 7:30pm.

REVIEW OF MINUTES

The minutes of the previous board meeting, held September 17, were read and discussed.  There was additional discussion of "exit strategy" options mentioned in the minutes as some had not been part of first conversation.  No changes were proposed and no motions were put forward in that regard.  The minutes were approved.

TREASURER'S REPORT

Virginia presented the treasurer's report.  There was discussion of the current loss rate.  The report was approved by voice vote.

Virginia submitted her resignation from the Board role of treasurer but to continue as member at large.  Victor volunteered to fulfill the Treasure's rol for the remainder of her unexpired term.  A motion to so recognize this change was made, seconded, and approved.

By board action therefore Victor Gascon is now Treasurer.

A random discussion later in the meeting concerned tax reporting technicalities.  Victor agreed to do this for John, as he was already familiar with the process.

DANCE REPORT

The October dance was well attended, headcount in the mid 40's.  The November dance didn't see as large attendance, head count in the very low 20's.

It was observed that although Susan does make an effort to have water put out for the dancers, we are coming up short on cups.

Via e-mail the week before the November dance, the board approved the purchase of 10 signs for placement on routes on the way to the venue.  That e-mail chain is included in these minutes by reference.  Summary: we agreed upon the need, a simple design, and responsibilities for placement; and we bought them for a good price.  General feeling was that while e-mail is workable, it could have been done a lot faster with face-mail.

Having signs, there was discussion about sign placement at the November dance.  It was observed that the signs are hard to recognize in the dark.  Victor volunteered to accent a few of them with some reflective tape to help improve their visibility in the dark.  Board members seemed to have different feelings about placement and visibility, but it was agreed by all that we'll get better at this as we have some more experience with it.

A second issue is that the owner is concerned about the presence of these signs, so they need to be removed after the dance, and put up within an hour or two at most before the event.  Marguerite was appointed to be the "sign wallah."

BOOKER'S REPORT

Marguerite give an update on the booking of bands and callers for the rest of the season.  Our web presence has been updated with that information.  Marguerite asked if she should start booking for next year and beyond.  It was agreed that she should start booking for the 2020-2021 season. (No motion was thought to be necessary for this.)

Marguerite asked for permission to negotiate a rate larger than the current max of $280 for an out of town band for January.  Fred volunteered to cover the difference between the current max and the price being asked by the band in this case.  The board approved.

Our schedule currently shows a Techno dance for December. Jonathan mentioned that Contra Force would be willing to do a live dance on that date for a very discounted price and the good will of the holiday season, if they can hold off on making a decision about it until the end of November and decline if they need too take a better gig.  (This is basically a right of first refusal.)  It was suggested that we just cover Contra Force's generously discounted price and the cost of the hall and offer to run the dance as free will donation, and advertise the hell out of it.  A motion was made, seconded and approved to allow Jonathan to explore this further and to proceed with that if can happen.  Otherwise it will just be our originally planned Techno dance.  Jonathan will be the caller in either case.

OTHER BUSINESS

A discussion about venues ensued, especially about the parameters or characteristics thereof.  Rather than declare criteria, it seems more like we just need to record the criteria for each venue as we visit them.  The choice of one venue over another is a trade-off on several variable, size of the space just being one of them.  There are many other factors.  Generally, it was felt the the Quaker Church, as charming as it is in many ways, has a number of issues that make it difficult to dance there.  The search continues.  In this context there was discussion about the American Legion Hall in Lexington, its suitability, price, etc.  The exchange was informational and no motions were put forward.  Quaker Church remains a fall-back venue.

Marguerite raised the issue of how to publicize the negotiating parameters we have for bands and callers.  It is important to have our basic position and expectations easily available, preferably by page(s) on our web presence.  Marguerite and Victor will review the current information and Victor will update the web as needed.

NEXT MEETING

Due to person schedules the next board meeting is being delayed by a month.  It is scheduled for Tuesday, February 18, 2020.

The meeting was adjourned at 9:16pm.

/s/ Frederick C. Druseikis, Secretary.

 

Minutes, September 17, 2019

Minutes of Board Meeting of September 17, 2019
Submitted by Victor Gascón

PRESENT: Natalie (phone), Jonathan (phone), Marguerite, Virginia, John, Victor; a quorum was declared.


ONGOING BUSINESS

1. Approve minutes of previous meeting: minutes of the last minute were approved with a clarification that our monthly loss is not $300; finances were reviewed and the monthly loss was recalculated at $142 per month.

2. Treasurer’s report: Virginia presented her report and it was approved as read.

3. Reports from most recent dance/dances: we talked at length about a new dancer that is restricted to a wheelchair. Although she did quite well, some of our regular dancers did not know how to be good partners to her. Victor offered to reach out to the Contra community on Facebook and also to one of our regular dancers from Charlotte (who danced very well with this new dancer) and seek so me guidance on how to be better partners to her. There was some concern that not knowing how to dance with someone in a wheelchair could be dangerous to the person in the chair.

4. Booking report (and discuss booking strategies): Marguerite reported that booking is in progress and the group offered some suggestions to fill the remaining vacancies for 2020.

5. Reimbursable costs and charges: none reported.


OLD BUSINESS

1. Review of financial analysis from last meeting: as previously reported (see above), the losses per month were re-calculated to $142 instead of $300.

2. December Dance Venue: There is a question concerning the availability of the Quaker Church for December. John Wetzel will contact Jonathan G. to find out of the hall will be available for that month. We previously heard that it would be, but that Jonathan G. might not be our host, but that another church member would take his place.

3. Venue Search Update: The group spent some time reviewing progress on our search for a new venue. Marguerite reported on her work with several possible locations. Natalie previously produced a spreadsheet for us to track our results, which she sent to Fred (he is our lead contact on this). Victor will get the spreadsheet from Natalie and make it available to the Board through Google Documents.

4. Status of Facebook Donations Button: Victor reported that he will have this done by the end of this week.

5. Exit strategy for COTMD: the group had a vivid discussion concerning the need for an exit strategy in case we cannot continue to operate due to low attendance. Victor suggested during the last meeting that it would be prudent for us to decide when we would suspend operations (either temporarily or permanently) based on a certain amount of bank funds. At this point, based on our current expenses and monthly losses, we can sustain operations for about 3.5 years. Some of the options presented were:
a. Stop operations when we reach a certain balance on our checking account. We will need to decide that at a future date.
b. If/when we reach that balance, do we suspend operations and hope we can re-start at a later date? Do we completely close our doors? If we decide to terminate dances, do we leave the money in the checking account and hope others could use it to re-start the dances later? Do we use it for an all-out dance? Do we donate it to CDSS or another non-profit organization that is closely aligned with our mission? These are all questions the Board will need to entertain in future meetings.

None of the above precludes us continuing to seek donations and working to improve our dance attendance. The exit strategy is simply a prudent way to plan for the worst-case scenario. John mentioned that, without this in place, we could find ourselves in the same position the organization was a few years ago when Board members had to put in money to keep dances going.


NEW BUSINESS

Lake Murray Contra: Jonathan J. and Victor are meeting on September 18 with Susan Forte to discuss using her barn for our dances. They will report on negotiations after their meeting. Three main points will be part of these talks: monthly fee, liability insurance, and management of the hall activities during the dances.

As a side-note to this, Victor offered to create a Waiver form that we can ask dancers to sign to protect the organization.


NEXT MEETING: the next meeting with be at Virginia's home on November 19, 2019. This is the week before Thanksgiving, and the week after our November dance.


ADJOURNMENT: meeting adjourned shortly before 9 PM.